LABOR NEEDS TO DO MORE WORK

THE long-awaited review into Labor’s “devastating” state election loss in 2021 has turned out to be a bit of a fizzer. Unsurprisingly the review found that internal fighting in the Labor Party “severely harmed” its prospects of winning the election.

The review, while calling out some of the actions and deficiencies of Labor’s campaign, stopped short of calling it out for what it really was – a debacle.

The review cited the first two weeks of the Labor campaign saying it was dominated by Labor talking about itself. That’s an understatement.

It was dominated by disputes over preselections, candidates and key policies. But the major implosion was when the Labor candidate for the state seat of Clark, Ben McGregor, quit after complaints about a text message he sent to a female colleague six years prior.

At the time, a tearful Mr McGregor announced he would be quitting his campaign after Labor’s parliamentary leader Rebecca White made it clear he was no longer welcome.

That was followed with Mr McGregor, who was also the Labor Party Tasmanian president, writing to Ms White threatening to sue for defamation. He claimed he was defamed when Ms White said he was not a fit person to stand for parliament.

The matter has since been resolved, with the woman who Mr McGregor sent the text to saying he had no case to answer.

The review went on to say that “Labor’s campaign messages around TAFE and energy privatisation were drowned out with insider news stories”. And why wouldn’t they be?

TAFE and energy privatisation aren’t issues that are going to cut through and change votes in a normal election cycle, let alone during a pandemic.

Throw in the internal dramas and voters just turned off.

The public displays of internal disputes reflected poorly on Labor at a time it could least afford it.

Liberal leader Peter Gutwein didn’t need to do a lot.

His response to the Covid-19 pandemic was second to none and Tasmanian voters respected him for it. He deserved to be voted back in. Labor polled just 28.2 per cent, less than one point above the 27.3 per cent in 2014 with the Liberals winning 70,000 more votes.

The problem for Labor is the internal disputes seem to be ongoing.

The race for the next Labor Party Tasmanian president is crucial.

The next president needs to be someone who can pull the team together, not divide it.

If not, Labor faces a long time in the wilderness.