Rose-coloured glasses can play funny tricks on a person’s memory. So can ideological delusion. Both were on display as former Tasmanian Labor premier David Bartlett tried to make the case for the current party to form a government with the Greens.
David Bartlett, who as Labor premier came to a minority government agreement with the Greens in 2010, had some advice for both parties.
Yet, it wasn’t ‘Don’t screw up like I did,’ which would have been honest advice. Instead, Bartlett went traipsing off down the primrose path of cosy delusion.
“Stop doing these individual deals that trade off policy because it’s not credible for [Greens leader] Kristie [Johnston], who’s an incredibly great politician, in my view, to suddenly drop a policy or not fight for the policy she went to an election on,” he said.
What did this ‘incredibly great politician’ do on election night? Take to the podium and start straight on prattling about, of all things, ‘Palestine’. Something of no relevance whatsoever to Tasmanian state politics.
If that’s who Bartlett is fawning over, it’s no wonder his memory is so flawed about his disastrous government.
Mr Bartlett said that was how he and then-Greens leader Nick McKim approached things back in 2010.
Which isn’t quite the rousing endorsement he thinks it is.
“The one thing Nick McKim and I did immediately when we first talked, which was after [he] offered me supply and confidence, we said to each other we are not going to negotiate away policy right now at the start,” he said.
Because the only thing that mattered to them was clinging desperately to power.
Mr Bartlett said the arrangement worked because there was trust, particularly between himself and the Green ministers.
Which is certainly not how most Tasmanian voters remember it.
In fact, the minority government was so loathed that “Majority Government Now!” became the catch cry of the next election in 2014. The slogan was on bumper stickers everywhere. The sentiment was so heavily backed that the Liberals under Will Hodgman won a record-high primary vote, and a majority of the vote in every division, including lefty-central Denison, based in Hobart: a city stuffed with public servants, university students and ageing Boomer lefties. The Liberals have remained in government ever since.
The stench of 2010–14 has lingered so long that, ever since, Labor have been at pains to emphasise that they won’t enter in a minority agreement with the Greens again. Current leader Dean Winter reiterated the pledge even as the hung parliament became clear on Saturday night.
So, is Bartlett just indulging in extremely selective memories? Or is there an agenda here? It’s hard not to suspect the latter: that Bartlett is hitting the media rounds to try and soften up public expectations ahead of an abrupt u-turn by Labor. Desperation for power means that political pledges mean nothing when push comes to hard-numbers shove. All the pious vows not to do a deal with the Greens will count for nothing, if Labor can sniff snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
If they try it, though, it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory. It would be a government with no legitimacy, given that Labor recorded one of its worst results in Tasmanian history. Even fewer – by half – voted for the Greens. Many Tasmanians will be furious at seeing the hated Labor-Greens zombie rise from the parliamentary dead.
Liberal leader Jeremy Rockliff, on the other hand, is walking the walk: he’s engaged in talks with the independent cross-benchers over the last few days, but refused to meet with the Greens. To do so would be political suicide.
If Labor do strike a minority deal with the Greens, they might win this election, but they’ll be setting themselves up for oblivion at the next one.
