Rob Allen: I’m not sure what your correspondent Guy Rundle was doing during the past two Tasmanian Labor-Green coalitions (okay, one of them was called an “accord”) but it doesn’t appear he was taking much notice.
Both of those arrangements left the ALP with a distinct feeling that its partner in government was more interested in increasing its own vote at the expense of the ALP than compromising to accommodate some policies that weren’t popular with its constituency (such as not turning modestly waged working people into low-waged welfare recipients or borderline serfs — I exaggerate a little to make the point).
That feeling wasn’t countered by the chicanery of the federal Greens over the carbon credits scheme that ultimately brought down both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. I know that Greens supporters have comforted themselves with a well-manufactured but patently self-serving narrative that places the blame on the Labor Party, but some of us are not that easily fooled by blind tribalism.
Having lived and been wide awake through all of those periods, I’m not inclined to think that another round of the same would produce anything other than the same chaos, in-fighting and popular aversion that resulted previously. “Imagine the possibilities”? Yes, I can, but I can also imagine the probabilities. The simple fact of the matter is that, for all its past troubles with turncoats, fellow travellers and over-ambitious programs, the Labor Party is still more supportive of people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale who want to improve their lot in life than the comfortable, middle-class, urban Greens and their (largely retired) wishful-thinking supporters. No thanks.
Peter D Jones writes: In Europe, a Labor-Green and others coalition is quite normal, but while the right holds sway in the Tasmanian ALP, they don’t here.
Maybe another option is that the Labor Right join the Liberal moderates while the Left stays on and forms a coalition with the Greens offering a real alternative, and the Abetz faction on the conservative Christian right forms a third choice. Plus room for independents too, possible with the Hare-Clark system.
David Howe writes: That the ALP despises with a passion the Greens is well known and for obvious reasons. The Greens are busy vacuuming up most of the youth and disaffected left vote everywhere, which in turn is undermining the ALP primary vote. Unfortunately, instead of actually listening to voters, the ALP seems to hold on to some ludicrous idea that people should vote for it because it isn’t the real baddies and how dare people like the Greens and teals actually offer policies that resonate with anyone with half a brain.
Can’t wait for the day when the ALP’s drift to the right becomes so extreme it joins forces with the dregs of the Liberals and loses to a Green majority party.
Les Norton writes: The decision by Tasmanian Labor to disrespect the will of the electorate and refuse to even try to form a progressive coalition, instead gifting the Libs another term, is further confirmation, if ever we needed it, that the “Shit-Lite” party is no genuine alternative. The votes have not yet been counted for crying out loud!
Tassie Labor is terrible, but an electorate that returned so many Libs, including the appalling Abetz, deserves all it gets.
Prediction: there will be no chocolate fountain.
Andrew Jones: Just a quick note to congratulate Guy Rundle on a refreshing, objective and extraordinarily insightful article.
This is journalism at its absolute best.
In the wake of Tasmania’s post-electoral nose-cutting, Guy shares an impassioned story of lost hope and lost opportunity. His astute description of Tasmania’s rigid and invariable future is depressingly accurate. It’s a bleak story for those who voted for change.
An exemplary and courageous piece.
