Messy Apple Isle divorce may not mean never again

Labor denies it, but the parting of ways with the Greens may not be permanent.

Premier Lara Giddings says Labor heeded a message from the electorate in deciding to end its partnership with the Greens.

LABOR'S pre-election split with the Greens in Hobart appears as cynical as it is desperate. But in its wake both parties must ask themselves: can they ever successfully share power or should the Tasmanian divorce signal the end of such dalliances nationwide?

The Tasmanian marriage - consummated in the wake of the hung parliament elected in March 2010 - was always one of convenience.

Labor wanted to cling to the power it had enjoyed since 1998; allowing the Greens a presence in cabinet was the price it had to pay.

The Greens, in turn, wanted a chance to convert their agenda into official policy and legislation, and to prove they could exercise ministerial power responsibly.

Now, on the eve of the next state election, it is convenient for Labor to dump its partner of four years, much as it suited the Greens to walk away from their alliance with Labor federally in February last year.

Back then it was Christine Milne pulling the plug on Julia Gillard, citing the federal ALP's positions on the mining tax and stubborn commitment to fossil fuels.

In Tasmania this week, unlike Milne, Labor Premier Lara Giddings did not cite policy as the reason for the latest break-up. Giddings's plan to introduce pulp mill "doubts removal" legislation was a convenient decree nisi for the divorce, but she did not seek to use it to justify the split.

Nor did Giddings criticise her dumped Greens ministers, the mparty's state leader Nick McKim and former Labor staffer turned Greens MP Cassy O'Connor. Instead, Giddings praised both of them for their hard work and O'Connor for her success, as human services minister, in reducing public housing waiting lists.

To explain the sudden shift, the Premier cited the unpopularity of the Greens among traditional Labor supporters in its "heartland in every electorate in Tasmania". "They all say to me, 'We don't mind you and the Labor Party - but we don't like the Greens'," she said.

She blamed this anti-Greens sentiment on Labor's failure to sell its achievements or to convince voters that it remained committed to traditional industries, such as forestry and mining.

As well, she suggested the two parties were simply incompatible, after all: "The Greens put the environment first; Labor will and always has put people first, jobs first, opportunities first. And we want to be able to go into this election campaign fighting hard on Labor values."

It's a simple argument that national Labor figures, such as Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes and senator Sam Dastyari, make for a permanent break with the Greens nationally.

"There's no advantage in Labor and the labour movement being aligned with the Greens," Howes argues. "The Greens' ... views and ideologies are contrary to the views and ideology of the labour movement.

"Whilst from time to time there'll be a requirement for all political parties to negotiate and do deals with other political parties on particular pieces of legislation, we don't believe it's in the interests of the labour movement to be forming formal allegiances with the Greens."

Howes has first-hand experience of power sharing at both the federal and state levels, as a Labor Right powerbroker federally, and as a key figure in the battle over mining in Tasmania's Tarkine.

He suggests it is "fair enough" if blue-collar union members decide to dump Labor for offering positions of power to people who seek to destroy the industries that support their livelihoods and families. "I can understand why Tasmanian workers would be concerned about the destructive and negative role the Greens have played in destroying parts of the Tasmanian economy when they go to the ballot box," he says.

"I think that's a good lesson for all political parties into the future about doing deals with fringe political parties like the Greens."

Of course, it works both ways. From a Greens perspective, Milne has blamed the party's decline in primary votes at last year's federal election on cross-contamination from the federal ALP's failings.

"They (voters) saw the Greens as part of the incumbency of the order, so they went across, as a protest in many cases, to a whole lot of those others (minor parties)," Milne told Inquirer in the aftermath of last year's election.

She is a veteran of power-sharing regimes, playing key roles in sharing power with Labor in her home state, Tasmania, from 1989 to 1992, supporting a Liberal minority government in Hobart from 1996 to 1998, and in the Gillard deal. However, Milne and the rest of the Greens brain trust remain open to repeating the experience, arguing the short-term loss of electoral support is worth enduring for the chance to secure policy outcomes.

It was a point even the jilted McKim and O'Connor were quick to repeat, just hours after being unceremoniously dumped from the state cabinet by Giddings, apparently out of pure political expediency.

After four years of hard work and biting their tongues to keep the alliance afloat despite savage budget cuts and an expansion of mining in the Tarkine, the couple declared they would do it all again.

"We were the first two Greens ministers in the country and despite what the knockers say, and despite the wishful thinking of some on the other side of politics, we won't be the last - of that I'm certain," says O'Connor.

McKim, often tipped to have a bright future in federal politics, made it clear the Greens remained open to discussing all forms of power sharing - from cabinet posts to trading policies - for support.

And he urged branches of the Greens around the nation and sister parties beyond not to be deterred by this week's events in Hobart. "We are willing to negotiate because we believe in co-operative government," he says.

"I would give advice to Greens right around the country and right around the world that we have gone into politics to deliver outcomes (and) our record shows that we've been very successful in that over the past four years (of power sharing)."

While this may make perfect sense for a minor party unlikely to ever govern in its own right, the Howes and Dastyari camps argue a mature, mainstream political party such as the ALP should never again allow its agenda to be compromised for short-term comfort.

Bob Brown, who led the Greens into power sharing with Labor in Tasmania in 1989 (as "Green independents") and again in Canberra in 2010, warns the Howes and Dastyari approach, now embraced by Tasmanian Labor, is a "death wish" for the ALP.

He argues Labor, squeezed at both ends of the political spectrum by the Liberals and the Greens, cannot afford to shun green policies and power sharing, with the Tasmanian situation a case in point.

"It comes down to this: the Liberals are better at pulp mills than Labor and the Greens are better at clean, green economy than Labor," he tells Inquirer.

Giddings this week announced the recall of parliament on January 28 to debate pulp mill "doubts removal" legislation. The idea, as well as protecting the stalled project from legal challenge, is to remove doubts in the minds of traditional Labor voters about how serious the party is over its split with the Greens.

Brown believes this will backfire, with pro-mill voters already planning to vote Liberal while a whole new array of voters alarmed at the civil liberties implications of the legislation will flock to the Greens.

"Labor has really opened up a hole in the ground and is falling into it," he says.

A similar argument can be mounted for climate change, asylum-seekers and mining tax. Labor, wedged in the middle on such issues between the Greens and conservatives, cannot win, or so the case goes.

The resolve of Tasmanian Labor to stick to its "never again" pledge on Greens power-sharing may well be quickly tested.

Giddings has picked March 15 as election day. Polling suggests the Liberals, led by Will Hodgman, are on track for a majority, but nothing is ever certain under the Hare-Clark electoral system.

While in the past four years Labor's vote has plummeted from 37 per cent at the last election to just 22 per cent, the Greens vote has held up (19 per cent compared to 21.5 per cent at the election) and will probably be bolstered by the backlash against Labor's pulp mill manoeuvre.

If the Liberals fall just short of a majority, they have pledged to refuse to govern in minority or in any alliance. That sets the scene for a minority Labor government of as few as eight seats in the 25-seat House of Assembly.

In this scenario, it is hard to believe Labor would not do what it did in 2010 and renege on previous commitments to once again negotiate support from the Greens, who would retain the balance of power.

While ruling out formal alliances and Greens in cabinet, Giddings this week left wide open the option of trading policies for support, as Labor achieved via an accord with Green independents in 1989. "I'm not going to talk about hypotheticals" was all she would say when pushed.

In the meantime, Labor remains in power in the ACT via a power-sharing alliance with the minor party; Shane Rattenbury is as Australia's sole remaining Greens minister.

The events in Hobart may mark the end of the affair, or simply prove to be the latest tiff in the two parties' troubled but open-ended relationship.