It’s Incompetence Inc as Tasmanian Liberals bungle along to the end

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff.

Tasmania’s state Liberals are bungling to what increasingly looks like their very end.

The past few weeks have been a case study in how not to win support for the biggest infrastructure project in the island’s modern history.

Here’s how it works:

First, solemnly pledge to release the whole of state business case on a $5bn-plus energy project a month before any decision is made. Then renege on this by keeping it secret. Offer a briefing to Labor – but then cancel it and continue to suppress the report during an election campaign.

Next, decide you really do need Labor and crossbench support – and quickly. Offer them just hours of notice of an emergency briefing, days before a final investment decision is due (something you’ve know about for weeks).

For good measure, make the Labor, Greens and independents submit to humiliating gag conditions so they look complicit in your secrecy and are prevented from sharing the contents with the public.

After all, what right do taxpayers have to know about projected massive power price hikes and extra inter-generational debt in a state sinking in a sea of red ink?

As the pièce de résistance, give Labor just hours to sign off on the deal, to comply with belated acknowledged caretaker conventions, and bully them into doing so.

Oh, and along the way, alienate the very independents you need to cobble together a minority government to stay in power.

So where does this leave Marinus – the latest object of Tasmania’s enduring cargo cult mentality?

Either Labor blinks and backs it, or it’s dead – unless Rockliff changes positions yet again and signs on without opposition support.

And the likely shape of the state’s next government? Even before the briefing fiasco, it was hard to see the Liberals securing more than 17 votes – one short of the 18 needed to govern with confidence and supply.

More likely, Rockliff has driven the independents he was wooing further into the arms of Labor which, with three of their number and the Greens, has a clear pathway to 18 votes and bums on ministerial leather.

Rockliff’s only strategy then would be to seek to try his luck as the incumbent on the floor of the assembly and dare Labor to back another no-confidence motion.

It’s unclear whether Governor Barbara Baker would allow that – or prefer to commission someone with evidence of supply and confidence to avoid more chaos.