State’s voters face an underwhelming choice in 2021 state election

The Liberals have promised big but delivered little while Labor has failed to form a coherent strategy as Opposition. DAVID KILLICK analyses where the state’s major parties stand.

• Ogilvie completes her political switch to Liberals
• Winter faces battle to win preselection for Labor

ON May 1, Tasmanians are faced with the choice between a government that has conspicuously failed to deliver much of what it promised and an opposition seemingly unready to govern.

Premier Peter Gutwein’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely praised and he points to strong economic indicators as a sign of success. Many expect the Liberals to cruise to victory.

But the pandemic has diverted attention from longstanding and unaddressed problems.

The crisis in Tasmania’s health system has worsened under the Liberals. Elective surgery waiting lists are at record levels.

Ten per cent of the population — a staggering 51,000 people — are on the waiting list for an outpatient appointment. The most critically unwell will wait an average of 211 days to be seen. Our emergency departments are overrun and more ambulances are ramped than on the road.

There are major problems facing the state’s health system. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

There are simultaneous crises extant within the ambulance service, in child protection, in the courts, the youth justice system and adult prisons, of underemployment and in housing affordability and availability — there are a record 3800 families waiting for public housing.

The cost of living is rising, wages are stagnant and there is worsening congestion on our roads.

Government debt is on track to hit record levels and there are question marks about whether promised infrastructure spending is being delivered as promised.

The Liberals have shown a disdain for transparency: the Right to Information system has been perverted for political ends and promises for reform have amounted to nought as the government signs secret deals with developers in the state’s nationals parks.

The cynicism of revealing the state’s record public hospital and public housing waiting lists at 4pm on the final sitting day of parliament on Thursday is testament to the fact nothing has changed.

Premier Peter Gutwein. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The Liberals have not delivered the pokies legislation due this term nor the stronger electoral donations laws that were promised. Mr Gutwein’s promise of voluntary disclosure on Friday falls breathtakingly short of best practice.

Those who can remember the artist’s impressions and glossy flyers of the 2018 campaign will know too well that there is no fifth lane on the Southern Outlet, no underground bus mall, no Hobart light rail, no meaningful progress at Macquarie Point.

The TT-Line replacement ferries and the Bridgewater Bridge have not been delivered, nor land tax reform.

There has been a mind-the-shop approach over the seven years the Liberals have been in power.

Some of the big reforms of this parliament have happened despite this government, rather than because of it — Voluntary Assisted Dying laws and transgender law reforms being the prime examples.

And the government’s vaunted mandatory sentencing and anti-protest laws were rejected by the Upper House.

But the task is not to be perfect, just to better than the other lot.

Labor leader Rebecca White. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Labor has shown an uncanny inability to capitalise on the government’s many shortcomings.

In a week in which Sue Hickey spectacularly exited her party, Labor dourly ploughed through a series of questions on TAFE reform, to the delight of the government MPs.

It was hard to discern a coherent strategy.

As government ministers and Greens MPs held daily media conferences, not a single Labor member faced the press during the sitting week. Publicity is oxygen for oppositions.

Mr Gutwein’s slip of the tongue during Question Time on Wednesday, describing Greens leader Cassy O’Connor as the Opposition leader, revealed a lot.

The minority party has shown itself to be tougher and more nimble in holding the government to account.

The Greens can be expected to perform better this election as the anti-pokies votes which drifted to Labor in 2018 drift back, but both major parties have vowed not to form government in alliance with them.

The state’s Hare-Clark electoral system makes for outcomes that are hard to predict. Labor has to take four more seats to win majority government. And independents are popping up like topsy, complicating the task of pundits.

Toppling a popular incumbent will be a tough ask, despite his party’s government’s myriad shortcomings.

Follow @DavidJKillick