Tasmania’s lame duck Premier Jeremy Rockliff: gutted, plucked and roasted by his ex-AG

Former Tasmanian attorney-general Elise Archer. Picture: Chris Kidd

There are already several morals from the evolving Elise Archer story.

The first is the obvious – don’t message anything you wouldn’t want published on the front page of The Australian.

Another, as Premier Jeremy Rockliff has just discovered, is think hard before you sack someone who could sack you.

This is essentially the appalling position in which he now finds himself; relying for his political survival on the woman he forced out of cabinet.

If the former attorney-general remains in parliament as an independent – and maintains her stance that she would back a no-confidence motion in the government – Rockliff is toast.

He conceded as much on Monday. “It’s in her (Archer’s) hands – I don’t want an early election,” he said.

Neither major party is likely to win a majority at an election held now. But none of the potential pathways to preventing an early poll are easy. The Liberal Party could switch to a different leader, but it would have to accept that the outcast Archer has the right to dictate who this should be.

That’s a bitter pill some of her ex-colleagues are unlikely to be willing to swallow.

Another is to try to persuade one of the left-leaning independents to provide confidence and supply.

David O’Byrne is still a Labor member, so is hardly likely to back in “the Tories”.

The only hope would be Kristie Johnston, but she too may feel this is a bridge too far for her Labor values, even if the government offered to back her pet project: light rail for Hobart’s northern suburbs. She told The Australian as much on Monday. “I don’t do deals and my vote is not for sale,” she said.

When pushed on how she would vote on a no-confidence motion, Johnston was equivocal. “I’d need to see the grounds and merits for the motion and hear the debate before I made my decision.”

Even if Johnston could be persuaded to give the government another lease of life, it would need to ensure it retains the support of the two
ex-Liberal independents.

John Tucker and Lara Alexander are no fans of Rockliff and their past offers of support and confidence can’t be taken for granted. Tucker is providing confidence and supply “at the moment” but would withdraw it if he thought it in the community’s best interests. Labor and the Greens made it clear they lack confidence in the government.

Unless spared soon by his new worst enemy, Jeremy Rockliff will be not so much a lame duck as one of those plucked, gutted and roasted Peking numbers you see in the restaurant windows in Hobart’s Sandy Bay Rd.