Rocky road ahead for Tasmania’s mild-mannered Premier Jeremy Rockliff

Tasmanians already know Jeremy Rockliff as arguably the nicest guy in politics. They are less certain about whether he has the ticker for its toughest job.

Affable, softly spoken and unfailingly polite, Rockliff is described by friends and foe alike as a “gentleman”.

That’s not an epithet thrown about much in any circles these days, much less the sometimes grubby bearpit of state politics.

He appears a safe, sound bet as Tasmania’s 47th Premier.

In uncertain times, he has the comforting if unexciting persona of a family doctor or favourite teacher.

A Liberal moderate, he embraces socially progressive causes; the keen eyed may have spotted a vibrant shot of him on Facebook wearing a rainbow “Tassie tux” (that’s a puffer jacket for the mainlanders among you). However, from a farming background in the island’s generally more conservative rural Northwest, the 52-year-old is well grounded.

Jeremy Rockliff, Tasmania’s moderate new Premier. Picture: Facebook

The business community approves of his elevation – according to some sources, even playing a role in persuading MPs to lock him in.

Some refer to the father of three as “Hodgman lite”, a reference to Will Hodgman, a benign presence as premier before his January 2020 resignation in favour of Rockliff’s predecessor, the more hard-headed Peter Gutwein.

Rockliff will enjoy a honeymoon but it will be short.

Tasmanians will soon learn whether he hides the inner mongrel needed to deal with rising state debt, a housing crisis, failing health system, rampant Covid and a desperate need to reform the state’s bloated, unsustainable and often dysfunctional local government.

Federally, he must play hard ball – with whoever wins the keys to The Lodge – on GST and the push, which he endorsed on Friday, for a 50-50 federal-state hospital funding model.

Tasmanians will be hoping the man nicknamed “Rocky” lives up to his name.