No more Mr Nice Guy

WILL Hodgman will become the new template for future Tasmanian premiers.

He led his party for 14 years, six as premier, and his opponents failed to land a blow to his character or his leadership. He resigns from the job undisputed champion, with an astonishing unbeaten record and not a mark on his pretty media-friendly face.

Every time I have met Will over the past two decades he has been charming, amiable and personable and every person I have spoken to since he announced his resignation this week has said the same. No matter their politics, the widely held opinion is that Will is a nice guy.

The public embraces his projection as a loving, caring family man with a devoted and proud wife and good-looking kids. Whether this image is entirely true is open to conjecture, but no one I know who has dealt directly with Will or his family has suggested anything otherwise.

At times, I must admit to thinking that Will appeared a little like a cardboard cut-out being at TV press conferences. He appeared mentally absent, distracted, disinterested.

But Mr Hodgman was the state’s most popular candidate in the 2018 election, winning 38 per cent of the vote in Franklin and enough primaries to be elected twice. This is all credit to Will. It’s a rare feat, worthy of praise and respect. Few enter the brawl of state politics and walk out unscarred.

But is it enough for our premier to be Mr Nice Guy?

THE Hodgman Government’s reelection in 2018 was stained by an orchestrated campaign of lies and deceit around the issue of poker machines in pubs and clubs.

The true extent and the murky details of this unprecedented campaign of deception remain a secret.

After leaving the public waiting an eternity for disclosure of their political donations, the Liberals finally declared more than $4 million in donations in the financial year of the election. That was four times Labor and 10 times the Greens. A mammoth tally by Tasmanian standards.

But the Libs revealed the source of less than $1 million of that total. They thumbed their noses at the public’s right to know, and arrogantly and defiantly refused to say who put the other $3 million in their kitty. We can only assume they kept it secret because it is embarrassing.

Among the donations the Liberals deigned to admit to were $269,500 from the Australian Hotels Association and $50,000 from Federal Group – two entities directly affected by Labor’s proposed change in gaming policy. But wait there’s more. Whoever bankrolled the complementary Love Your Local lobby’s spending spree on campaign advertising for the Liberals — and how much they spent — is also secret.

Seriously, if this happened in Uganda or Fiji or the Ukraine there would be international outrage and calls for independent probes.

Clearly, this multi-pronged campaign was months in the planning, with the lobby presumably working closely with the Liberals on its design and implementation.

Democracy was bought and sold like a hooker in a carpark.

This Government seized power with clandestine deals and disdain for the public.

This same modus operandi is being encountered in the Government’s daily business — in its handling of freedom of information requests and in its expressions of interest process for projects in national parks.

If the letters to the editor published in the Mercury since Will announced his resignation this week are anything to go by, the perception of a lack of transparency and honesty is an issue for the Government.

SO how do we resolve the paradox of such a popular premier in a government so widely thought to be devoid of integrity? This, I believe, is representative of the crux of the dysfunction in Australia’s ailing democracy.

Unelected, unaccountable specialists in the mechanisms of all aspects of government and bureaucracy work as guns for hire for those with enough money to pay for their services.

These operatives – former bureaucrats, ex-journos and political party hacks – are also hired by government for media and strategic advice and are known colloquially as spin doctors. Most of these advisers are small fry, making little substantial difference to anything, but a few graduate to become masters at orchestrating political outcomes from the shadows.

They define and script the role of the premier and so on. Occasionally an MP comes along like Will Hodgman who is particularly good at the role, playing it with passion and commitment, but the elected representatives of the people do not control the hidden agenda promoted by spin doctors who liaise between government, bureaucracy and whoever is opening their wallet for expensive strategic services.

The spin doctors lurking in the shadows are untouchable, answerable to no one and operating outside frameworks of democratic accountability built in to the public service.

We can vote out an underperforming MP or sack an incompetent bureaucrat, but we have no control over the faceless operatives who set the agenda and pull the strings.