Let the political games begin

Premier Rockliff is fond of saying that people are “sick of the political games”. While that may well be the case, those games are about to begin again in earnest.

After seven months of relative political inactivity, with the Labor opposition and new crossbenchers reluctant to rock the boat after the snap election last July, expect things to ramp up when State Parliament resumes this week.

Last week, state political opinion polling released by Enterprise Marketing and Research Services (EMRS) revealed that with the sudden appearance of One Nation on the state political scene, the State Liberal vote has fallen to just 29 per cent (their equal lowest on record), while Labor, extraordinarily after approaching 13 years since they lost office, has fallen to just 23 per cent, their lowest since the dark days of Premier Lara Giddings and her deal with the Greens.

Nor are the Greens immune from their own problems either, with the shock New Year’s defection of Helen Burnett to the cross-bench, and their member for Lyons Tabatha Badger seeking to move to the Senate. With apologies to Oscar Wilde: to lose one member may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like extreme carelessness on behalf of Greens’ Leader Rosalie Woodruff. Or perhaps, something more.

To spice things up, on Friday the Australian Electoral Commission announced radical proposed changes to the state’s electoral boundaries which will have a number of state mps (particularly those in the south) nervous about their future.

With a horror budget looming, these factors are certain to drive all parties in the Parliament to ramp up their efforts to differentiate from their political opponents, and demonstrate their ability to achieve outcomes (real, or more likely, political).

Following the summer defection of Burnett from the Greens to the crossbench, the Parliament now comprises 14 Liberals, 10 Labor, four Greens, one Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, and six independents. Of these, only one (David O’Byrne) has a written confidence and supply agreement with the Government. 

A precarious position indeed for the Government on any vote of confidence.

And while I don’t expect it to happen any time soon, don’t forget that with just 15 guaranteed votes, a change of government without an election is an ever-present threat.

If you were to divide the Parliament on roughly ideological lines, it is 14 Liberals plus the SFF member Carlo Di Falco (15) versus 10 Labor + 4 Greens + all six independents (20).

Of course, these dividing lines are not fixed and on many things Labor will side the Liberals providing a strong majority in the Lower House; on others you might find David O’Byrne splitting from the rest of the independents.

Whichever way you slice and dice it, however, there are few if any votes where the Government can be confident of carrying the day. This has implications not just for their legislation, but also for policy decisions the Government makes (or doesn’t make) outside of the Parliament.

An early test of this will be a flagged intention of Franklin independent Peter George to move a motion seeking to overturn the Government’s announced policy not to cap the number of guns a person can own following the Bondi terrorist attack. All eyes will be on Labor to see where they land on this, as their votes will decide the issue.

The main game, however, will be the budget.

Also on Friday, the Tasmanian Treasury released a report on the state of Tasmania’s finances where they extraordinarily compared Tasmania’s finances to those of Greece post the Global Financial Crisis. You cannot help but think that in doing so they were seeking to soften up Tasmanians for some very bad budget budgetary news to come.

Putting aside what I would regard as the gross inappropriateness of Treasury making such political commentary, it cannot be denied that Tasmania’s budgetary situation is bad. Very bad.

According to Treasury (and their assumptions seem reasonable, unlike their political commentary), Tasmania’s Net Debt could reach $129.5 billion by 2039‑40, or $89.4 billion in 2024‑25 dollars.

Treasury further note that in 2024‑25 debt servicing costs were two per cent of revenue. According to Treasury, a ratio above 10 per cent, while still incurring budget deficits, would indicate the State’s finances are becoming unsustainable.

On Treasury’s analysis, this debt ratio could exceed 50 per cent by 2039-40, with a level of debt servicing cost that would be broadly equivalent to the total State expenditure on Public Order and Safety.

In the report, Treasury also claimed that the urgently needed budget repair can’t be achieved without a combination of recurrent expenditure cuts, reduced infrastructure investment, and tax increases.

All of which presents an obvious challenge for the Government and Treasurer Eric Abetz.

The pressure for Abetz to try and “soften” spending cuts with offsetting tax increases is immense - from Treasury, economists in their ivory towers, and from the broadly progressive Parliament with even Labor’s Shadow Treasurer Dean Winter saying last week that there is going to need to be tax increases.

Yet, it was only in July last year that the Liberals committed, if re-elected, not to increase taxes. 

Arguably, one of the reasons that there has been a declining vote share for the major parties over the past decade, and the recent sharp increase in One Nation’s vote, is an increasing distrust in the major parties.

The sensible course would be for Abetz to stick to his values and the Liberals pre-election promise, and eschew Treasury’s self-serving advice to raise taxes in favour of spending restraint.

In 2014, the Liberals when coming to office reined in Labor’s forecast ballooning deficits and increasing debt with a combination of modest cuts and spending discipline. 

Although the situation is a lot worse now, if they want to avoid a budget where they not only upset the left, but also their own base and drive them further into the hands of One Nation, Abetz and Rockliff would be wise to adopt the same principles as those adopted  by Gutwein and Hodgman in 2014. 

• Brad Stansfield is the owner of Enterprise Marketing and Research Services and co-owner of this newspaper. He was Will Hodgman’s chief of staff from 2010-18.