Smokescreen of COVID – can Tasmania’s early election obscure the crisis in housing and health?

Adam Morton| Advocate Newspaper | April 1, 2021   

Peter Gutwein, whose decisive approach to the pandemic helped soften his public image, aims to capitalise on the pro-incumbent mood, observers say.  

The afternoon before the Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, announced the election, his government released two bits of information that revealed the depth of major problems facing the state.

One showed public hospital waiting lists had skyrocketed to record levels. The number of people waiting for an outpatient appointment now tops 51,000 – nearly a tenth of the island state’s population and up 11% in just six months.

The other illustrated a similar jump in the number of people waiting for public housing. It now sits at more than 3800 – 9% more than a year ago.

That health and housing are in a bad way in Tasmania is not a new idea. The former appears in a perpetual state of crisis, with stories of nurses being forced to work double shifts due to shortages, emergency departments battling to cope and ambulances forced to queue outside before patients are admitted. The latter problem has escalated as rent and house prices have surged and left more people than ever struggling to find a home they can afford.

But it was still striking how little attention they received in the first week of an election campaign that has struggled to find its feet since Gutwein announced it would be held a year earlier than necessary.

Gutwein’s trip to the governor to dissolve the Tasmanian lower house came as the state was also about to start to deal with an unfolding child sexual abuse crisis, with a series of revelations dating back decades having prompted a commission of inquiry into how the health, education and youth detention systems deal with abuse claims.

And it came before the government had delivered on some of the highest profile commitments made at the last election in 2018. Perhaps most notably, it is yet to introduce legislation to change how poker machines are owned and taxed in the state – a highly divisive issue three years ago when the hospitality industry ran an extravagantly funded campaign attacking the Labor opposition led by Rebecca White over her pledge to ban pokies from pubs and clubs.

It has left some Tasmanians asking why they are being asked to go to the polls now.

“The answer pretty clearly is the premier just wants to capitalise on the pro-incumbent mood after Covid-19 that has returned governments in four other states and territories,” says Saul Eslake, an independent economist who writes an annual analysis of the state for the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “Whether or not voters will see through that, I don’t know.”

Gutwein has been in the top job just over a year since the unexpected resignation of Will Hodgman, who in 2018 became only the second Liberal premier in the state’s history to a win a parliamentary majority at consecutive elections.

As both premier and treasurer, Gutwein has been widely credited for taking a clear and decisive approach to the pandemic that helped Tasmania have one of the lowest per capita infection rates in the country. He shut the state off from the rest of the country and targeted pandemic assistance to small businesses and some groups ignored by his federal colleagues, including international students and casual workers not covered by jobkeeper.

It helped soften what had previously been a sometimes aggressive public image and, according to public polling, has translated into strong community support. An EMRS survey in February found the Liberals (52%) had nearly twice as much support as Labor (27%). The Greens, led by the former cabinet minister Cassy O’Connor, sat on 14%. On the question of who was the preferred premier, Gutwein was even further ahead – 61% compared with White’s 26%.

The premier said he had little choice but to call an election after his government fell into minority due to the departure of Sue Hickey, a renegade Liberal who had accepted Labor and Greens support to win the speaker’s chair, regularly criticised the government and – to the surprise of no one – was told she would not be a candidate for the government at the next election.

Gutwein claimed this change on the floor of parliament could trigger “a loss of confidence that will lead to a loss of jobs that will impact our economy. That’s something that we simply can’t have.”

In reality, Hickey had promised the government supply and confidence in the parliament, and it was revealed two days after the election was called that the Liberals had recruited Madeleine Ogilvie, an ex-Labor MP turned independent, effectively restoring their majority. It meant the government’s rationale for an election had evaporated in less than 48 hours.

Does this matter? Meg Webb, a prominent social policy advocate turned independent MP in the state’s upper house who is not up for re-election this year, believes it does.

She says she was surprised the state governor, Kate Warner, agreed to dissolve parliament without first asking Gutwein to test his support on the floor of parliament.

“This an entirely self-interested decision by the government. It is about using the smokescreen of Covid to avoid running on their full record,” Webb says.

“It’s disappointing because at a time when Covid prompted people to look for a better style of politics, the Tasmanian voters have been served blatantly cynical political self-preservation.”

Webb points out the election is now being held before the state budget, which will lay out the full economic impact of Covid, and before the government has introduced promised laws to toughen the weakest political donor disclosure laws in the country. Gutwein has instead promised the Liberals will voluntarily disclose any donation over $5,000.

“They had a choice between delivering on their promises or putting their own interests first, and their choice will only further erode people’s faith in politics,” she says.

A majority government is not guaranteed

The addition of Ogilvie means the government goes to the election with 13 MPs in the 25-seat house of assembly. Labor has nine, the Greens two and the ex-Liberal Sue Hickey is the sole independent.

Labor has no chance of claiming a majority, but the vagaries of Tasmania’s Hare-Clark multi-member voting system mean that the Liberals are not guaranteed of translating what is expected to be strong public support into one either.

The question on election night will be whether Gutwein can claim the 13 seats he needs to govern in his own right or will be forced to attempt to govern from minority – something he has said he is not willing to do.

The state elects five MPs for each of its five electorates: Braddon in the north-west, Bass in the north, Clark and Franklin in the south and Lyons, a large rural seat across the island’s centre. The government is particularly strong in Bass and Braddon, and is expected to at least retain three MPs in each. It should also hold its three members in Lyons and at least two in Franklin.

But Clark, the comparatively left-leaning seat formerly known as Denison that takes in central and northern Hobart, is more challenging, and near impossible to predict due to the presence of two high-profile independents – Hickey and Kristie Johnston, a popular local mayor.

Eslake says the government goes to the election with a reasonable economic story to tell, at least on the surface. After a period of decline, the state’s population is growing at a faster rate than the national average. It includes a notable increase in the number of young adults – those in their 20s and 30s – who have chosen to stay after school rather than look for opportunities elsewhere.

“I think it’s fair to say the government’s generally competent stewardship has been a factor in that,” Eslake says. “You can get a job, start a business, buy a house and see the value go up, and these are important things for sustaining confidence.”

For its part, Labor has been accused of spending the three years in near hiding since its bruising loss in 2018. White had been in the job just a year before the last election, and has kept the leadership since despite a whispering campaign that she would face a challenge from internal rival David O’Byrne.

Her internal authority took a blow in the first week of the campaign when factional powerbrokers from the party’s left blocked the preselection of Dean Winter, the mayor of the southern municipality of Kingborough, against her wishes. Winter was seen as a likely vote-winner and a potential future leader, and his rejection has been condemned by senior party figures.

On a policy front, Labor has focused on the future of Tafe, and been criticised for a 180-degree reversal on whether gambling should be allowed in pubs and clubs. Having strongly opposed allowing poker machines in the community three years ago, it was revealed this week the opposition had now signed a secret deal with a hospitality industry lobby group backing the rights of pub and club owners to have them.

For the government, the central message amid a series of relatively small announcements has been the need for consistency and certainty in difficult times.

Eslake says this will not be enough to address some of the major problems facing the state. While he believes Gutwein will be rewarded for his handling of Covid, he says the premier has shown little interest in using this political capital to address issues in health and education, which both benchmark below the national standard, or to revamp an inefficient tax code. And he warns the state’s underfunded health and housing systems will only come under increasing pressure as the population grows.

“The reality is the government has very competently minded the store,” he says. “But it has absolutely no interest in doing anything that might be politically challenging, or necessary to create a bigger and better store.”

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