Wooley: Libs launched back in time by nice guy JRock

The Liberal election playbook echoes the 1980s when Robin Gray bulldozed his way through Tassie politics, writes Charles Wooley.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff with daughter Lucy, his wife Sandra Knowles, and daughters Holly and Ruby at his family’s property at Sassafras, during last week’s official launch of the Liberal Party election campaign. Picture: Supplied

When Jeremy Rockliff launched his Liberal campaign last week from the back of a farm tractor, anyone with a long political memory might have wondered whether he should have driven a more appropriate machine.

A bulldozer perhaps? Because the Liberal playbook for this election involves a trip down the time tunnel to the 1980s when former premier Robin Gray so famously bulldozed his way through Tasmanian politics.

The main Liberal policy planks this week are classically Robin Gray. The campaign might indeed be summed up by that rather inelegant expression favoured by Paul Keating; “a dog returning to its vomit”.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff with daughter Lucy, his wife Sandra Knowles, and daughters Holly and Ruby at his parent's property at Sassafras, where the official Liberal Party election campaign launch. Picture supplied

Deliberately reigniting the forest wars to rip into reserved native forests is very Gray-like. But even the timber industry didn’t want it. Their peak body muttered darkly about being made “a political football”.

Taking a chainsaw to the longstanding negotiated forest peace deal might win a few votes, but it will lose some too. The policy is most wilfully contentious. It damages the brand making it hard to sell Tasmanian timber outside the state.

The point is that in the international commodities market the world has changed, while clearly Tasmanian right-wing politics has not.

Still sticking with the glorious ’80s (that Belle Epoch for the Tasmanian conservative right) the Libs are now suggesting that Hydro Tasmania should once again be a law unto itself.

The premier has promised if re-elected, “to tear up” the ministerial charter to “once again make the Hydro a true economic enabler for our state”.

Who knows what that really means, but the new Hydro was years ago renamed and reformed and is not the same Hydro Electric Commission which ran roughshod over Tasmanian democracy four decades past. And I doubt it would wish to be again.

Robin Gray reassures HEC workers and contractors of their employment prospects at the height of the Franklin Dam protests in the 1980s. Picture: Mercury Archives.

How much the HEC was in total control was dramatically demonstrated one week in November 1981, when the then premier of Tasmania (Doug Lowe) and the leader of the opposition (Geoff Pearsall) were both sacked by their respective parties.

The tail had wagged the dog to secure pro-dam leaders for both parties.

Yes kiddies, I know this is ancient history, but around election times the past is always worth remembering, if only to understand the eternal wickedness of politics.

In the event, whatever is current Liberal thinking, Hydro Tasmania is now a different creature: a modern business, sensitive to public opinion and environmental propriety.

I write without any trace of irony here because some things do change even if Tasmanian conservative politics doesn’t.

Former Tasmanian premier Robin Gray addresses the large crowd during the height of the Franklin dams debate in the 1980s. Picture: Mercury Archives

Much as some tendencies within a re-elected Liberal government would like to resurrect the Gordon-below-Franklin dam, I am assured that is the last thing Hydro Tasmania would wish to do.

Still, what a diversion that would be. The stadium would be forgotten, while the dam mightn’t be much more expensive nor more unpopular. And just think of the world publicity.

Getting a good stoush going is a demagogic political tendency hardwired into the Liberal machine since the days of Robin Gray, aka “the whispering bulldozer”. His rasping rhetoric won votes by demolishing any chance of political consensus and reasonability.

Premier Jeremy Rockliff addresses the party faithful at the official campaign launch on his parent's property at Sassafras last week. Picture: Supplied

Nice Jeremy Rockliff is no Robin Gray. It will be interesting if during the course of this election he can sing from the old Bulldozer’s song sheet and hit those lowest of the low political notes. He tried his best this week.

“Getting tough on youth crime” is an old reactionary ploy that takes us way back to the very beginning of the colony.

Transportation certainly cleaned up the streets of London but what do you do with the deported descendants in Hobart today.

Again, the Liberals haven’t been clear. It’s unlikely that Mother England would take back the great-great-great grandchildren of the young felons she sent to our shores more than 200 years ago.

Resources Minister Felix Ellis, in Moonah. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Perhaps we could revisit the Sarah Island model and send our intractable youth to forced labour camps in the wilderness, forcing them to chop down the trees.

Just in case this scheme actually encourages the worst of reactionary impulses, I should note that there is a touch of satire in this suggestion.

Still, it’s not entirely a bad idea. It clears up two problems with one solution.

“JRock” as his hip social media handle might suggest, is no old fogey, but fortunately he has the support of a young fogey, his Resources Minister Felix Ellis. While praising the latest chapter in the eternal war on nature, Felix was repeatedly asked by the media to name one sawmiller who supported opening 40,000ha of protected native forests to logging. He couldn’t.

Conservatives ain’t what they used to be.

Robin “The Bulldozer” Gray would have had several timber millers on hand, lined up for the

Former Tasmanian premier Robin Gray addresses a pro dams rally in Franklin Square Hobart in 1982. Picture: Mercury Archives

press conference.

In Queenstown campaigning in 1982 at the height of the dams debate, I remember Robin somehow enlisting the assistance of former Labor premier “Electric Eric” Reece to champion the Gordon-below-Franklin dam. The wily Gray introduced Reece as “the greatest living Tasmanian” and the crowd went wild.

Someone chucked a pair of boxing gloves onto the stage.

Robin donned them and started to swing punches in the direction of my cameraman. The pictures went all over the country.

Gray lost the dam but won the political battle, going on to become the first non-Labor leader in more than half a century to win a second term in Tasmania.

His legacy was that Tasmania could no longer be considered a safe Labor state. He blurred the distinctions.

“Do you know why they hate me so much?” he once told me concerning his relationship with Labor. “They hate me because I am more of a socialist than they are.”

Now that crafty disrespect for conventional ideology often makes for the most successful conservative leader. One who will do whatever it takes no matter the price.

The present Liberals don’t really have one of those.

I can barely discern most of them from the other mob.

Just between us, I don’t see many policy differences and that’s why I am expecting a hung parliament in which JRock will have to climb down from the tractor and get on an environmentally friendly electric scooter to round up his minority government.

Jeremy Rockliff and his daughter Holly at his parent's property in Sassafras for the Liberal Party's official campaign launch ahead of the March 23 state election. Picture: Supplied

He will need charm and diplomacy to survive.

Robin Gray after the 1989 election represented the largest single group in parliament but his Liberal Party was still one seat short of a majority.

Rather than resign, which was the proper thing to do, Gray, lacking the virtues of patience and humility, wanted Governor Sir Phillip Bennett to call fresh elections. The Gov refused to be bulldozed, allowing the ALP leader Michael Field to muster the necessary numbers in parliament to become premier.

The point here is that the necessary skills of diplomacy and persuasive charm were never among Gray’s considerable political talents. We will see if Jeremy possesses them.

History might repeat itself after the 23rd of this month, tossing the Tasmanian Libs out of power.

But if it doesn’t, ironically that might be only because the basically nice Jeremy Rockliff is no Robin Gray.

Despite the company he keeps.

Charles Wooley is a Tasmania-based journalist.