Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff gave won of the strangest victory speeches that I heard in a long time. In seven minutes of insanity, he claimed that the Liberal Party had claimed a fourth consecutive election win, despite the fact that the Tasmanian Electoral Commission had tentatively only pencilled in just 12 seats for his party when he took to the podium. 12 seats out of 35 is not a majority.
"We will be seeking to form a government that gives Tasmanians the certainty and the stability that they deserve, and to deliver our 2030 strong plan for Tasmania's future."
- Premier Jeremy Rockliff, 23rd Mar 2024
At the time, national treasure and the ABC's resident psephologist Antony Green, had just showed a graphic that the Liberal Party had just won the lowest percentage of first preference votes in any election since the formation of the party in 1944 and he projected that they were on track to fall at least three seats short of a majority; and end up on 15 out of 35. 15 seats out of 35 is not a majority.
This is surely the act of a political pigeon playing chess. He's pooped all over the board, cooed decisively that he has won and the other team has lost, knocked down the pieces, and still run about squawking that he has won.
As best I can determine, as it stood when Mr Rockliff made his speech, the results are were as follows:
Liberal - 12
Labor - 10
Greens - 2
If I run my own guesstimations based up the Primary Vote percentages in each of the five divisions then I get:
https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/house-of-assembly/elections-2024/results/bass/index.html
Liberal - 12
Labor - 10
Greens - 2
Unknown - 10
So not only do I agree with the count at 10pm last night, but I can reproduce the numbers with my own calculations this morning. Unless those 10 seats magically break 80/20 in favour of the Liberal Party. Then there will be no majority government formed. If I suspect that the remainder 10 seats end up falling in multiple directions, then we get every party falling short of majority government.
I love this.
In a Westminster Parliament, government is formed from the majority of members on the floor of the lower house; who can agree to pass Appropriation Bill No.1. Then that government is held together as long and only as long as those majority of members on the floor of the lower house choose to hold together. This is quite apart from the machinery of political parties which are only an outside device which is designed to pool resources together, they are by definition a political party.
Where I live in New South Wales, we had 23 changes of government for Sir Henry Parkes became Premier in 1887 with the Free Trade Party. It was in fact his fourth time as Premier as well. New South Wales had gone quite happily for 31 years with no political parties to speak of; during that time they had established public railways, public schools, organised most of the big highways in the state, and developed a state postal network. If no political parties existed, and parliament could still build the state, then why do we actually need any political parties?
What makes a Tasmanian election different to a state or federal election in the rest of the country, is that the five districts elect seven members each, using a so-called Hare-Clark Proportional Representation system. As with any proportional representation system, for a candidate to be elected they need a proportion of the vote, which then determines by a quota of the number of valid votes. 36.4% of the Primary Vote should equate to 12.74 seats and since .74 of a seat is impossible, maths happens to determine the final allocation. Probably the Liberal Party will end up with 3 more seats, as the point somethings of a seat only add up to anything substantial in 3 of the five districts. 15 seats out of 35 is not a majority.
Why would Premier Jeremy Rockliff claim to have won the election with only 15 seats out of 35; which is not a majority? Probably because he thinks that by getting out in front of the narrative, that he can claim a mandate to rule. The problem with that is, that being a Westminster Parliament, government is formed from the majority of members on the floor of the lower house; so no such mandate exists.
On top of that, Jackie Lambie in full "burn down the world" mode, had this to say about Mr Rockliff:
Nothing's changed. Their values of integrity haven't changed to any that... that which is really difficult because my guys are watching all this I'm talking to them every day and they're going "are you kidding, right?" yeah, and I'm going "yeah, it makes it really really difficult". So they' played a really stupid game, Jeremy has, but once again I don't expect Jeremy to stay there for long. It was never his intention to be Premier, and that's the other problem that's sitting at the back of our minds, as well who is actually going to be there for four years. Are they going to be there if it is the Liberal Party who's going to be in charge?
- Jackie Lambie, 23rd Mar 2024
It is worth remembering that Mr Rockliff only became Premier of Tasmania because the previous Premier Peter Gutwein announced his resignation in April of 2022. This election was called out of sequence because Rockliff could not secure supply and confidence after two MPs who had resigned from the Liberal Party, Lara Alexander and John Tucker, then turned around and denied his government supply. That was in the old parliament which had 25 MPs and the Liberal Party pnly had 10 MPs and minority government.
The arrogance of claiming a mandate when you still do not have majority government and still do not have the assumed supply and confidence of the next parliament, is absurd. Equally absurd is that Rebecca White has stood down as Labor leader, after it became equally apparent that the only way that you can get a Labor minority government, is with the support of the Greens and whatever 'coalition of chaos' follows in the remaining 10 seats. Again, a Westminster Parliament, government is formed from the majority of members on the floor of the lower house; so the idea that you resign because you refuse in principle to negotiate terms with smaller political parties and unaligned members, is just about as arrogant.
As the federal Dunkley By-Election should have told us, voters generally are turning out to show their displeasure with the major parties. Tasmania is just a model in miniature of the fact that both the Liberal and Labor parties broad neoliberal policies are undesirable. We see meaningful control on the prices of housing, a general discarding of public assets, and smashing trade barriers which mean that local businesses can not compete. Both the Liberal and Labor parties have lost votes but not to their traditional opponents. Minor parties and independents are winning a greater share of the vote because they are winning in the marketplace of ideas. Mr Rockliff claiming a mandate to do anything, when 15 seats out of 35 is not a majority, is absurd and arrogant. Maybe he will be forced to listen to the electorate; because they have not stopped yelling.
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