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I've always thought Tasmanians to be anything but apathetic. I was six years old when the Franklin Dam was saved by hundreds of people being arrested in the wilderness and thousands more marching in the cities. A couple of years on I saw my first police van on a walk though Salamanca Market – my dad informed me it was to "put the poofters in". My youthful memory seems to recall the van becoming a fixture, until one day the politicians caved in and Tasmania not only legalised anal-sex but adopted the most progressive anti-discrimination laws in the country at the time.
In 1998 the big issue was Labor and Liberal voting themselves a payrise of 40%. It was soon after this same two parties cut the number of seats in parliament without a referendum. Margaretta Pos, who recently retired from the Mercury after twenty years of reporting in Tasmania says "I think that was a huge mistake. I think, as a lot of people do, that the labor party and liberal party colluded to undermine the greens and lift the quota to make it impossible for them to get in."
With fewer seats, candidates now had to gain around 18% of the vote to be elected, compared with around 12% prior to 1998. This was seen as a death knell for the Greens, as few thought their vote could rise to that level.
Margaretta Pos says "They did so on the back of this populist idea that we're overgoverned and so therefore we'll have a smaller parliament – but it really was not about that at all"
It's not the first time the numbers in the house have been changed by the sitting members after having trouble coping with cooperative government.
Professor Richard Herr, of the UTAS Political Science faculty, points out that changes were made in the fifties to try and solve the problem of two parties finding a majority in a 30 member parliament. "30 members often would divide 15/15. In 1958 it was changed to 35 members so one party would have to win"
Tasmania elects it's politicians with a system known as the Hare Clark system. Created in 1907, it was designed to give voters control over their vote. Rather than preference flows being decided through party deals, the system's muli-member electorates reflect as accurately as possible the political make-up of the voting public.
Peter Hay, who was a Labor advisor during the years of the Labor – Green Accord, says the system was the best in the world until the cut in seats. "If I represent the views of one in ten people in the street, then it doesn't matter if I'm from the Flat Earth party – I deserve a seat in parliament. If that leads to a minority government so be it – history shows that minority governments are invariably better financial managers and more accountable than majority governments."
It seems that the Hare Clark system is resilliant against political parties taking government. Prof Herr says "In the hare clark system you can easily shift between the parties and people do this regularly. For the candidates this is quite an uncomfortable system because they are competeing against their fellow party memebrs as well as their opponants. About 80% of any of the changes that occur in any election will be a candidate replacing another candidate of their own party."
The changes in 1958 were about two parties trying to sort out a majority between themselves. Some say the 1998 changes were about them trying to keep it to themselves. "Until the Greens came along there wasn't really the diversity of opinion in Tasmania. People used elections as a referendum on who would form Government" says Prof. Herr
Indeed it seems the move has made it more difficult for the major paties. Togatus went to print before the election was held, but Labor's grip on power has looked tenuous throughout the campaign. Prof. Herr says "If you look at the polls and the trends in the polls for the last year or so we'd be talking less about a hung parliament or a minority government simply because Labor would be more confident of holding on to a majority and also they would have less problems in filling the ministry". According to Professor Herr there there have been many problems had with a parliament "that's simply too small to be effective".
Margaretta Pos says "The result of course was to their horror of course the Greens did win seats. More important for the Tasmanian people out of this is the fact that the Bueracracy became perhaps more important with an explosion of minders and advisors. This is because there's just no way that the small number of people in parliament and the smaller number of government people can actually get across everything they must do. It was a very detrimental thing for Tasmania."
Peter Hay goes further, saying the issue with a burgeoning bueracracy is that it means a less democratic government. "You've got unelected bueracrats making decisions that are the domain of democratic parliament," he says.
A mistake seems to have been made in 1998. Margaretta Pos points out that "if they were really serious about over-government perhaps it would have been better to have just one house of parliament or perhaps make cuts elsewhere but a 25 member house doesn't lead to good government unless we decide to get rid of the political parties and just have people as independants – and that's not going to happen."
This is a mistake that has affected every portfolio, every aspect of State Government from hospitals to housing. Very few people saw this mistake coming, and in 1998 the voices of those that did could not be heard above the noise of the mob shouting for blood over the 40% pay rise. It is undoubted that we will hear noises made about scrapping Hare Clark so yet again the major parties can keep their majority government (no matter what the people think). I think Tasmania will show again that it cares, and will stand up to restore our government to one that is elected democratically and can govern properly.
Simon Brown runs a state focussed current affairs show on Edge Radio 99.3 called Next Week, every Friday at 11am. The interviews above were conducted on this program over a number of weeks.
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