Charles Wooley: Beware of the P.E.S.T.S
Post-election-stress traumatic syndrome (PESTS) is a condition frequently suffered by the leaders of political parties in the aftermath of an election. The main symptom is an inability to process the reality that their party didn’t perform very well, writes Charles Wooley
Opinion
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Post-election-stress traumatic syndrome (PESTS) is a condition frequently suffered by the leaders of political parties in the aftermath of an election. The main symptom is an inability to process the reality that their party didn’t perform very well.
Globally, Donald Trump is the leading exemplar of the malady, but until last week the worst Australian case I ever saw was Liberal Leader Billy Snedden who insisted that he hadn’t lost the 1974 Federal Election.
That election was admittedly a close-run thing, which apparently exacerbated Snedden’s PESTS and saw him laughed out of politics.
“I didn’t lose,” Billy famously insisted. “I came second.”
Last Saturday night in the Hobart Tally Room, PESTS was epidemic. Despite scraping back with the same slender majority that he had convinced Governor Warner necessitated an early election, Peter Gutwein was now ecstatic.
“What a night, what a night,” he enthused. “We have won this election convincingly.”
The PESTS-afflicted Premier was victorious in the face of a sombre political reality that would deliver, at best a mere 12 or 13 seats in the 25-seat House of Assembly.
Yes, it did represent a historic third term in Tasmanian government (for those historians who are counting) but it was hardly a landslide.
The media too, got caught up in the contagion.
The front page of the Sunday Tasmanian the next day shouted “GUTWEIN’S GLORY DAY.”
In the cold light of dawn, it could hardly look like a convincing or stabilising win. Voters had registered their declining support for both major parties despite all the threats of impending anarchy.
Certainly none of us want to go through another election process soon, but with the Government’s wafer-thin majority and a mercurial cast of characters, anything could happen.
Not much of a result really for an election cost of almost one and a half-million dollars of your money. And after putting up with five weeks of badly made television ads, we must all be experiencing a degree of Post-electoral-stress traumatic syndrome.
But back to the Tally Room: was it because those pollies were not social distancing, nor wearing masks, that PESTS was spreading faster than a mutant virus?
“The Greens are back in town,” cried Cassy O’Connor, in a wild declaration of triumph. “The swing is on for the Greens at this election.”
But the dulling reality was that in fact the Greens won back precisely the same seats as before, albeit with an increased percentage of the vote. (But again, that’s only for those political tragics who are obsessively counting).
Cassy O’Connor, always impressive in full flight, castigated the major parties (Laborials) for threatening only to govern in majority.
They were, “childish and disrespectful to democracy,” she accused. She implored the Laborials to respect the Tasmanian environment and not to “wreck the joint” in a great and rousing speech full of sound and fury and signifying one thing quite uncommon.
In a state where political oratory is unknown and speeches short and perfunctory, hers was certainly the best (and longest) speech I have ever heard from the Hobart Tally Room.
Meanwhile on live television coverage Senator Eric Abetz, who is better known for terse character analysis than colourful oratory, observed, “You would have thought Ms. O’Connor had just won the election rather than 10 per cent of the votes and two seats.”
Up to a point he was right of course.
Although what Eric failed to note was the extent of the PESTS infection.
Everyone had succumbed including the defeated Labor leader, Rebecca White. Bec should have been in a world of political pain with a deeply divided party, the embarrassment of the absurd Dean Winter affair, and looking like having a meagre 8 seats in the new parliament.
She was burdened with too many bad policy compromises, among them the cynical pokies deal which in the end failed to trade conviction for votes.
As leader White has had to wear it all and suffer the consequences, though she may not have been the author of much of it.
Yet, smiling, brave and dignified on the night Bec White behaved for all the world as if there was a political tomorrow. “We won’t let you down.
“We will keep standing up for those Tasmanians who deserve a fair go.” Was that just the PESTS speaking, or do you wonder if she knows something we don’t know?
The state Labor Party itself suffers from a chronic form of PESTS.
Deluded ideological elements warring within, are always more obsessed with obscure factional victories than they are with winning government. They find triumph in serial loss.
Indeed, they are probably celebrating victory right now.
But this result is so bad it bodes ill for the upcoming federal election and probably invites intervention by the national ALP in the affairs of the state branch.
If Bec White wants to stay on as leader perhaps what she urgently needs is a big, strong, hairy godmother from the ALP Federal Executive to beam down and bang a few heads together. I wonder if she will be granted that wish?
We will know soon.
Herd immunity the only way to go
Last week I got the AstraZeneca jab now available to all Australians over the age of 50.
Not only was it quick and painless but I am still here.
I accept the science that tells us that the risk of vaccination is infinitesimal compared with the dangers of catching the disease.
Statistically I was at greater risk driving to the medical practice.
As soon as possible you too should get the jab.
The pandemic will not be over until we achieve herd immunity and the only way that can happen is when the vast majority either catch the disease or get the jab.
Which option do you reckon is less painful?
WOOLEY: It’s time to keep your enemies close
“APRIL is the cruellest month,” according to that most lugubrious poet T.S. Eliot in his poem ‘The Waste Land’.
The line is now being widely quoted in lands less fortunate than ours where April should bring Spring and an expected resurgence of life but instead brings second and third waves of pandemic and death.
But now that April’s here, is it all electoral doom and gloom in Tasmania?
Do not worry about minority government. Watching the leaders in debate this week and perusing their policies (vague promises?) I have an easy solution.
The two major parties stand for the same things and always have done. The time honoured term “Laborials” is more apposite than ever.
Both are in lock-step on the big issues. Forestry, salmon farming, mass-tourism, poker-machines and bashing up protesters who disagree with them on all of the above.
The biggest issue of course is Tasmania’s public health disaster for which each party is equally responsible.
We all know this, and they know that we know.
And that’s why they are both in such trouble.
In the cold light of dawn tomorrow there might well be no clear majority on the floor of the house.
Peter Gutwein, we must assume, wants an unlikely majority of three if only because the Governor granted him approval for an election when he already had a guarantee of support from a majority of two.
The Queen was presumably distracted by the death of Philip and so this interesting constitutional anomaly slipped past Palace scrutiny.
Do I hear you say, “Fair go, Charlie. London is 17,391km from our little castle on the hill.”
You are right.
We don’t know what transpired between the Premier and the Governor to allow this election. But my wise one-time Political Science lecturer, Professor Peter Boyce, reminded us in the Mercury this week that the constitution requires that a new ministry be sworn in within seven days of the result.
“Governor Warner will not be relishing the possibility of an awkward finale to her otherwise smooth tenure at Government House,” Peter Boyce wrote.
So, here’s a solution to any impasse that might arise.
It will save our Governor from the international embarrassment of sending you naughty Tasmanian voters back to the polls.
The Labor and Liberal parties should form a coalition on the floor of the lower house and govern as the Laborials, thereby formalising a convention that has been around forever.
● Polls this week suggest a close finish and a survey by the Mercury measured the voter disposition:
● 31 per cent of respondents were voting Liberal.
● 16 per cent were voting Labor.
● 17 per cent were for the Greens and the same number for Independents.
● 15 per cent hadn’t made up their mind yet, but they must because along with Russia, Australia is about the only country where voting is compulsory.
Do not forget or you will cop a fine.
If that opinion polling stands up today the Laborials would get about 47 per cent of the vote. The Greens and Independents would share 34 per cent.
If the undecided 15 per cent cast valid votes those would likely to be widely spread.
Clearly as a Laborial premier, Peter Gutwein would gain a more solid majority than he could ever achieve as a Liberal.
All he must do is convince Bec White to be his deputy premier.
The extra seats in the amalgamated Laborials would also give the Premier the chance to replace some of the duds in his cabinet with (former) Labor members.
(Winking emoji here kiddies).
There have been other polls, but none assure the Liberals of the solid majority they crave.
But all polls clearly show the Laborials could rule the roost.
It would be a good shake-up. The “faceless men” of the Labor party would have less purpose, so too the shadowy machine men of the Liberals.
Secretly Peter and Bec would happily be rid of the plotters and schemers.
Out of office every Tasmanian political leader has admitted that their greatest enemies were always in their own camp.
And last, but certainly not least, Tasmania could get an effective Green/Independent opposition with 34 per cent of the vote which, in the ideal world of Hare-Clark, should deliver a voting related percentage of seats.
At least that was the theory, but back in 1998 the defacto Laborials shrunk the Lower House from 35 to 25 to distort the formula and make it harder for Greens and Independents to get elected.
Since then, those reduced numbers have made it harder for successive premiers to find enough competent ministers to run government.
I know you hate the idea, but we really need to reinstate the numbers in the Assembly back to 35.
Otherwise, the cleaning lady might be appointed to run State Growth or Health.
Though hang on. That might not be such a bad idea.
I’m assuming in the new parliament the Independents will largely oppose the Laborial government on the big election issues, which is why they are independent.
They might still cross the floor on other issues which will only make the parliament more interesting and Cassy O’Connor’s job so much more challenging than the Premier’s.
Ms O’Connor has always been the real leader of the Opposition. This would make it official.
Recognising the realpolitik of the Laborial Party makes sense. It is fair and above board. And it replaces a faux opposition with a real one.
It should have happened decades ago.
LEAVE TARGA ON TRACK
April was the cruellest month for Targa Tasmania but the knee jerk reaction to cancel future events because of three fatalities in the past week should be resisted.
The media is often too loose with the word “tragedy”.
The deaths of three adventurous men taking a calculated risk in expensive vehicles and dying doing something they love is not a tragedy.
It is, however, very sad for their families and for the sport.
Had a Targa car ploughed at high speed into a crowded school bus ... that would have been a tragedy.
But hopefully careful planning ensures that doesn’t happen.
Though there was a bloke down Pelverata Road who lost his shed when a vintage Ferrari left the track.
Obviously more consideration is needed on that front.
“The race has always annoyed me to be honest, but not as much as a Targa car coming through my shed,” complained the anonymous owner of the demolished building.
Naturally the risk averse mob on social media (who seldom leave the house) were calling for a total ban on future races.
It took a first time Targa competitor to provide a reality check.
Peter Lavac, a Sydney criminal barrister driving a 2015 Lamborghini Huracan worth about $250,000 said: “Everyone who went in this knew what they signed up for. Every time you get behind the wheel you put your life on the line.”
How amazing that at 75 years of age Peter Lavac has retained a sense of adventure. Too many men his age are in retirement and watching life go by on television.
The two men who unfortunately died near Cygnet were also old enough to know the score. They were aged 59 and 68.
Their vehicle was a 2019 Porsche 911 Gt3 RS costing $400,000.
In any year more than 30 Tasmanian drivers, mostly much younger, and less protected in much cheaper cars driven with a fraction of the skill, will die on our roads.
Again, that is sad.
But should we ban driving?
Heartbreaking though it so often is, we must all find a way to live with the iron laws of risk and probability.
TIME TO BRAVE THE JAB
Speaking of probability, I am about to get the COVID jab for old people. (When did that happen?)
We should all get inoculated. It is the responsible thing to do.
If I am still here next week you will have no excuse but to do the same.
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