Talking Point: Likely return of Madeleine Ogilvie after Scott Bacon’s departure will be a headache for Labor

There is trouble brewing for Labor if Madeleine Ogilvie returns to replace the outgoing Scott Bacon.

Scott Bacon and Madeleine Ogilvie in Parliament in 2017. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

THE resignation from State Parliament of Labor’s Scott Bacon is bad news for Labor.

First elected to parliament in 2010, Mr Bacon was briefly finance and tourism minister during the Giddings administration, and became a vote machine for Labor in the electorate of Clark, topping the poll against all comers at the 2018 election.

SCOTT BACON RETIRES FROM STATE PARLIAMENT

Mr Bacon will be widely missed in the electorate, but even more so by Labor who now has to contend with the unwelcome probability of former member Madeleine Ogilvie returning to replace him.

To say that Ms Ogilvie and Labor are not on talking terms would be an understatement — a large section of the party sought (successfully) to have her defeated in favour of Ella Haddad at the last state election, and she is no longer even a Labor member.

One of the most important rules of politics, adapted from Niccolo Machiavelli, is that when you pick a fight in politics you had best destroy your enemy, not merely wound them such that they might come back and retaliate.

Because now, those same people who sought to politically destroy Ms Ogilvie are going to have to grovel to her that they would like her back, “please”, and “all is forgiven”.

Indeed, such was the Labor fear of this happening, it is understood it decided not to run a Labor candidate against Ms Ogilvie in the May Nelson Legislative Council election, in the hope that she would be elected and therefore out of the equation in the event of a Lower House resignation.

But with Ms Ogilvie failing to win that seat, Labor now simply cannot afford a re-elected Ms Ogilvie sitting on the crossbench, and it needs to do everything it can to avoid it.

Having Ms Ogilvie as an independent would significantly strengthen the Liberals’ position in the parliament, not to mention the loss of resources it would cost Labor — and potentially their chances in Clark, and of majority government, at the next election.

But even as a forgiven and returned member of the Labor caucus, Ms Ogilvie presents Labor with real problems.

For starters, she is a member of the previously extinct Right faction, and her return will cause considerable internal tensions, particularly on social issues.

More significantly, Ms Ogilvie has the real potential to act as a counter-balance to Speaker Sue Hickey. With her ideological differences to most of the ALP Caucus and the bad blood over the 2018 election, Ms Ogilvie could not necessarily be relied upon not to cross the floor against Labor on significant votes, even as a Labor member.

Midway through an attempt to reposition her party back to the centre, Labor leader Rebecca White now has to contend with that oldest of political maxims — unexpected “events”.

Brad Stansfield was Premier Will Hodgman’s chief of staff from 2010 to 2018. He is now a partner at Font PR in Hobart.