Wooley: Cast my vote outdoors – and finally caught a good one

Among all the same old faces returned to Tasmania’s parliament, one new contender stands out in the crowd, writes Charles Wooley

Charles Wooley with a fine trout he caught in London Lakes. Picture Supplied

I know that so far most of you haven’t got the result you wanted from the election you didn’t want.

 But I did a little better this time. I voted for a candidate who looks like getting elected. I know one-out-of-seven mightn’t seem much to you, but I am feeling like a winner. Or at least not so much of a loser. But I am going to leave you hanging for now as to my winning selection. All will be revealed if you read on.

Meanwhile, the election night television coverage from the Hobart tally room said everything about the parlous state of our little democracy. Jeremy Rockliff was head and shoulders above the other party leaders, but he didn’t need incumbency, nor his high-heeled R.M. Williams boots, to achieve elevation. His stature was conferred by the mediocre performances of Labor’s Dean Winter and the Greens’ Rosalie Woodruff.

Rocky only had one killer line to deliver – that Dean’s vote of no confidence had backfired: “Well, tonight the people of Tasmania have said they have no confidence in the Labor Party.”

It was well enough delivered without thinking to address the awkward new reality that a majority of Tasmanians have no confidence in any major party.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff in the Hobart tally room on July 19. Picture: Caroline Tan

There is every chance that we had just experienced one of those nodal points in history where things really change. The political crossbench suddenly looks like the best place to be, for intelligent, well-intentioned people, unburdened by the ambition of making a conventional political career.

Some have already had careers in the real world.

Saturday night in front of the cameras could have been a great opportunity for at least one of the three major party leaders to invoke a new style of collaborative parliamentary democracy. One driven by good heads and good hearts.

Greens Leader Dr Rosalie Woodruff speaking after the state election, at Hobart tally room on July 19. Picture: Caroline Tan

But if there was an inspiring orator in the room, I didn’t hear them.

Notably Rosalie was keen to recognise “the genocide that’s occurring in Palestine” while Dean reiterated his mantra that there would be “no deals with the Greens”.

He was clearly less absorbed with a two-state solution than with a two-party solution. But had he invoked Palestine we can assume he would have had exactly the same effect on world politics as did Rosalie.

Opposition Leader Dean Winter at the Hobart tally room on July 19. Picture: Caroline Tan

When you can’t win there is always a tendency to blame the umpire. In this case I am hearing growing criticism of our Hare-Clark system. Although admired by political experts the world over for its proportionality and accurate electoral outcomes, the complaint is that it doesn’t deliver stable government.

With some dictatorial arrogance it is suggested we should switch to an electoral system that requires that our wishes only count if we vote for one of the major parties.

This leads us down the easy slope to becoming an ambiguous democracy or a so-called ‘guided democracy’. Like Russia, which claims to be a democracy and where Putin’s role is legitimised by allowing people to exercise democratic voting rights without changing public policy.

Thus the Laborials now offer a set menu of farmed salmon with deep fried old-growth chips served in a billion-dollar stadium.

“Would you like a glass of State Bitter with that?”

Would it be impertinent to suggest, while we still have a vote, that rather than changing the rules perhaps we should simply change many of our members of parliament?

It is salutary to view the ranks of the Laborials to see how little things have changed after yet another election. Mostly it’s the same old faces who got us into this mess and now we must hope that they know the way back out of it.

Carlo Di Falco, of the Shooters, Fishers, Farmers party, is in the running to win a seat in the next Tasmanian parliament. Picture: Sam Rosewarne.

Now as I said at the beginning of this post-election homily, I have for once backed a winner.

Carlo Di Falco, at the time of writing, looks like being elected in Lyons.

It was an impetuous moment in the voting booth, and I didn’t expect the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers to bag a seat.

I was voting only days away from the opening of the trout season. And I had just seen one of our best waters, beautiful Bronte Lagoon, carelessly reduced to a drained and desolate expanse of mud. The Hydro will fill it again before opening day, but the ecology will take another year to recover.

Tasmania’s trout fishing was once world renown, but over decades of mismanagement and government indifference fewer locals are fishing and mainlanders now go to New Zealand.

If you don’t enjoy the outdoors you might think that worrying about the once popular Tasmanian pursuit of trout might be a little like invoking Gaza in the Hobart tally room.

But I think the political parties, including the Greens, have missed out on how much the great outdoors resonates with the Tasmanian spirit. We all grew up on family camping trips, visits to shacks, sailing, bushwalking, fishing, shooting, climbing, kayaking, and Sunday drives to the beach or bush. We loved the natural wonders of this state but somehow we got distracted and diminished.

In politics, as in fishing, sometimes it’s the quiet spots that yield the best results, according to Charles Wooley. Picture: Samuel Shelley/ Tourism Tasmania

The love of the natural world is innate, but most Tasmanians are now townsfolk and would better identify a latte from a macchiato, than a black peppermint from a stringy bark. But it’s all still out there, it’s free and waiting for you and your kids will love it. All we need is to give our wonderful natural state a little help.

It is relatively easy to get elected with a major party’s financial backing. To come from nowhere and outpoll many Laborials, as has Carlo Di Falco, suggests that the electors of Lyons have responded to a deeper urge, reflecting Banjo Patterson’s notion that the bush has “pleasures that the townsfolk never know”.

But can I be impertinent enough to suggest a name change?

Shooters, Fishers, Farmers are not words that really embrace the large number of Tasmanians who love outdoor life. It can be so much bigger, including the people who bushwalk, ramble coastal walks and country lanes, climb, sail, surf and dive, or go to shacks, picnic in the bush and just generally enjoy Tasmania’s great outdoors.

Carlo, call your political movement “Outdoors Tasmania”.

And I’ll join up tomorrow.

Charles Wooley is a Tasmanian-based journalist