Voter anger as Tasmanian stalemate continues

Voter anger as Tasmania stalemate continues

Felicity Ogilvie, ABC April 19, 2010, 7:00 pm

 

As another day of negotiations between Tasmania’s minority government and The Greens ends in stalemate, some Tasmanians are getting frustrated at their leaders’ inability to form a stable government.

It has been more than a month since the state election brought in a hung parliament.

Labor and the Greens have tried to do a deal but their negotiations have stalled.

The Chamber of Commerce is warning that unless a stable government is formed soon, the state is going to miss out on more than $1 billion worth of investment.

Spending is down, unemployment is up to 5.7 per cent and a business group says major investment is on hold because there is no clear majority in the Parliament.

Most Tasmanians thought they were going to get a Liberal government until the Governor told Premier David Bartlett to stay on.

Then Labor tried to broker a deal with the Greens last week offering Greens Leader Nick McKim a ministry, but so far he is resisting because his party wants three ministries.

But with the Premier tied up in COAG talks, and no sign of a new offer, another Greens MP Kim Booth has refused to deny he has been lobbying the Liberal Party to reconsider a deal.

Voters on the streets of Hobart are frustrated.

“It would be nice to have stability and be able to then go in to the future,” one said.

“I mean, they’re botching it all up basically,” another said.

“I think they’re a bunch of liars and they just don’t do what they say they’re going to do,” another frustrated voter said.

Hare Clark system

Under the Hare Clarke voting system five members are elected from five electorates.

Basically a politician who only gets 17 per cent of the vote can be elected to Parliament.

ABC election Analyst Antony Green doubts the Hare Clarke will be abolished.

“Well, if the Labor Party and the Liberal Party got together and changed the Electoral Act then they could get rid of it,” he said.

“But I would find it hard to believe that in the current climate the Liberals would do anything like that because they’d be condemning themselves to permanent opposition based on the vote of the last state election.”

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says minority government is bad for business.

“There is certainly a lack of investment and small business confidence is still quite weak, so actual trading conditions are getting very difficult and having this political instability – a lack of investment in public infrastructure – is continuing to drag on the state economy,” the chamber’s senior economist Richard Dowling said.

“So the economy really is at a crossroads at the moment and unless we can start to see some more major large scale investment companies in Tasmania, it’s going to be very difficult for those smaller businesses to continue to support the higher levels of employment that they have now.”

Mr Dowling says more than $1 billion worth of manufacturing and real estate projects are on hold.

“No investor would be committing hundreds of millions of dollars to an economy where there is such political uncertainty about whether a government will even be capable of instituting its reform agenda, getting its legislation through parliament,” he said.

“So it will take some months before that’s bedded down and investors start to come back to the negotiating table about their approach to Tasmania.”

 

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