The Tasmanian state election finally arrives at its moment of truth with the return of state parliament from 10am today, at which Labor’s constructive vote of no confidence will be voted on. With the Greens announcing yesterday that they will not support the motion, it appears the vote will confirm the Liberals in government. The two between them command 19 votes out of 35, to which can be added independents David O’Byrne and Kristie Johnston. A Liberal promise to halt aquaculture expansions pending an independent review, which was slammed by Labor, even won positive noises from Craig Garland and Peter George. Only Carlo Di Falco of Shooters Fishers and Farmers, who has proclaimed the Liberals’ proposed ban on greyhound racing a “line in the sand”, would appear to be firmly in Labor’s corner. Labor has enlisted an upper house independent, Ruth Forrest, to serve as Treasurer in Dean Winter’s prospective government, but this doesn’t yield any advantage in the confidence motion – and may indeed have harmed it, given O’Byrne cited it as evidence that Labor could not offer stable government.
Meanwhile, a poll conducted Tuesday to Thursday by EMRS from a small sample of 503 finds 35% in favour of a no confidence motion and 49% opposed. It records 74% support for the Liberals’ greyhound phase-out, with 14% opposed, and 61% supporting its abandonment of opening 40,000 hectares of native forest for harvesting, with 24% opposed. A preferred treasurer question has Ruth Forrest on 40% and Labor’s former Shadow Treasurer Josh Willie on 10%, while for the Liberals current and former Treasurers Eric Abetz and Guy Barnett score 25% and 15% respectively.
The membership, i gather, skews to the left of the Parliamentary Team, so a membership ballot would most likely install Mr Willie as Leader. It begs the Q then, why would the PLP (Parliamentary Labor Party) wish to avoid this if the majority of caucus belongs to the left faction.
Without knowing the team, we have 10 Assembly members & 3 Councillors. I believe it splits roughly 9-4 or 8-5 in favour of the “left”.
The point I’m making is, if you’ve got the numbers – go for it!
Six & a half hour meeting, and still going.
& thks MB at 2.07pm
nadia88: “The membership, i gather, skews to the left of the Parliamentary Team, so a membership ballot would most likely install Mr Willie as Leader.”
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My sense is that Willie is more popular among the parliamentarians and party apparatchiks than among ordinary branch members, among whom Ella Haddad has a lot of fans, as does Jess Munday (if only she could have made it into parliament and become a contender).
Maybe I’m underestimating the guy, but I don’t think Willie has what it takes to turn things around. Not that any of the current bunch of Labor members are much to write home about, but at least Haddad would provide the party with a significant change of image.
Anyway, I understand the party leadership wanting to avoid a ballot of all party members. It could easily turn into a major wrist-slashing exercise, with both Winter and Willie being forced to say stuff that they would prefer not to say.
I reckon having the membership (plus the unions) have a big say in selecting the party leader sucks big time. It disastrously brought Corbyn to the leadership of the British Labour Party, which is pretty telling evidence against it. The system is capable of doing similar things to the ALP. Let the politicians who managed to persuade voters to elect them to parliament decide who becomes their leader.
Should there be a welfare check on the Tas Labor party room …?
I’m of the opinion it should be the Parliamentary Team who determine the Leadership position.
Having it forced onto the lay membership turns the Leadership into some sort of “celebrity spectacle”.
ie: who can come up with quick soundbites and other superficial feel-good gimmickry, tends to become leader.
Often these people do not make good leaders.
Rex Douglas says:
Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Should there be a welfare check on the Tas Labor party room …?
===============
KB has reported that Haddad has once again thrown her hat in the ring.
7.5 hours now.
Breaking Josh leader, 1 source unconfirmed.
nadia88: “KB has reported that Haddad has once again thrown her hat in the ring.”
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Good thing IMO.
Mostly Interestedsays:
Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 4:28 pm
Breaking Josh leader, 1 source unconfirmed.
_____________
Willie or won’t he work with the crossbench ?
Big call M.I.
” who can come up with quick soundbites and other superficial feel-good gimmickry, tends to become leader.”
I think nadia88 has succinctly summarised the fatal flaw in democracy.
Josh Willie is the new leader of Tasmanian Labor with Janie Finlay deputy. #politas
It was inevitable that Winter would be managed out.
Now Tas Labor can progress…
I agree Rex. He had to go, or at least take the fall for the Jun-3 NC debacle.
Thks KB, MI & MB. Great series of posts today. Jeepers, what an election & aftermath.
Boerwar’s 10 points purity test for the Greens’ achievements through this parliament is such a straw man if ever there was.
Most of those things weren’t up for negotiation / promised nor will be expected.
As Rebecca rightly points out, progress on any one of them will take the progressive MPs further in their desires for Tasmania than Labor would have done, based on Labor’s own commitments (or absence of), so it’s just a blatant attempt to push a fictitious narrative.
Very odd affair. Entertaining.
One suspects there is more to come.
Tasmania really is a very special place.
Labor and principles
What a pack of (unrepeatable) to claim Labor showed principles.
All they showed is the one and only principle of doing what is best for the Labor party’s result at the next Tassie election for the Labor party, having just been soundly beaten in the 2025 one due to having no vision or plan for government.*
They may actually succeed at that one and only goal, then the diehards on here can say “I told you so, Tasmanians saw through this so-called government in the end.” and spread their fictitious narrative all over again. 🙂
*What did Peter George, one of the most left-wing Independents, say? That in covering political journalism since Whitlam days, he’d never seen an opposition less prepared for government?
Let’s see how Josh Willie deals with the next 4 years, you could argue that Tasmanian Labor at a state level needs total root and branch reform.
For sure, Dean Winter’s aloof personality didn’t help him – which I suppose you can’t blame him for if that’s just him, though surely there’s coaching available on communications and connecting to people.
A bit like David Crisafulli up in Queensland, who nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of certain victory for the LNP due to a ‘one trick pony’ campaign that was too reliant on good opinion polls and not truly connecting to what was taking place in real time until it was too late in the campaign, whilst his opponents from the Labor party were getting down to brass tacks and talking to people and going up in voters’ estimation with each passing week.
Had it not been for early voting, there’s a chance the LNP might not have got over the line.
The policies of each party may be quite different, but I see quite a strong parallel in the dynamics and performance.
Obviously in Tasmania’s case, a lot of the ‘performance’ referred to then took place after the election took place and returned (another) hung parliament.
Probably if by a miracle Dean Winter had become Premier yesterday, he too might have looked better in office initially, due to the incredibly low bar that he had self-created up to that point in people’s expectations.
I never thought I’d see the day when the Greens would support a Liberal government over Labor, but I also never imagined a Labor leader would be so pigheadedly determined to give them no choice.
Not missing you already, Winter.
BTSays, there were a couple of Independents who spoke yesterday who left no illusion about their lack of regard for Winter. The Greens deputy leader was perhaps the most scathing when he spoke in Parliament. We’ll see what happens over the next 4 years.
Righto – on to the Kiama by-election.
‘BTSays says:
Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 4:51 pm
Boerwar’s 10 points purity test for the Greens’ achievements through this parliament is such a straw man if ever there was.
Most of those things weren’t up for negotiation / promised nor will be expected.
…’
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The Greens gave all that their vote of confidence. The Greens can run but they can’t hide.
Willie and Finlay seems like a sensible pairing, although like a lot of people I think I’d probably have preferred Haddad.
It’ll be interesting to see if Willie can repair things to some extent with the crossbench. Two or three days ago, I’d have thought a new leader would have a real shot at immediately taking power, but members of the non-Green crossbench were so scathing in their remarks yesterday that he might have his work cut out for him if he wants to rebuild the bridges Winter burned.
The $64 question arises when the BOPPERs come to the realization that they are getting serial nothingburgers from Rockcliff. The dogs? 2029. The salmon review? Rockcliff can’t stretch that out to three years. Temporary halt to forestry expansion. How temporary? The stadium? Not even a review. Full steam ahead.
“I reckon having the membership (plus the unions) have a big say in selecting the party leader sucks big time. It disastrously brought Corbyn to the leadership of the British Labour Party. . .”
Then it disastrously brought Starmer to the leadership of the British Labour Party.
Not that that stopped Labor winning a landslide by default on a record low vote % due to the annihilation of the incumbent Conservatives.
I wouldn’t rule out the crossbench switching confidence to Willie if he plays his cards right and Abetz gets too smart for his own good.
Boerwar: Again, when Labor’s alternative was “we will never cede an inch on any of these issues”, they had little to lose. Not letting perfect be the enemy of good, and all.
The crossbench have to give Rockliff a proper chance now they’ve declared their cards.
If he truly reneges, or appears to renege in their genuine views, then it’s probably ‘3 strikes and he’s out’.
But I’m not quite sure why some of the Labor apologists on here are so sure that the bones thrown to the crossbench will be withdrawn now Rockliff has got through yesterday. That would take a special kind of arrogance, which is not what Rockliff has displayed up to now – so think that’s just wishful thinking (and a little spiteful against Tasmania, perhaps – how about wishing the best now the government is confirmed?).
Of course, a week is a long time in politics and there may be something come in from completely left field that derails the government.
https://theconversation.com/liberals-retain-government-in-tasmania-while-federal-labor-keeps-big-lead-in-polls-263306: “Four of the five independents are left-leaning, with the Shooter the only right-leaning crossbencher. In total, Labor
, the Greens
and left-leaning independents won 19 of the 35 seats, against 15 for the Liberals
and Shooters
. Yet no left-leaning independents or Greens supported Labor’s motion.”
Yet thanks to LAB, Abetz is state treasurer …
Aren’t party members livid if they don’t have a say in choosing the leader?
It’s become very, very taboo to use mechanisms to bypass the membership in the UK – the Conservatives have been notorious at doing it through machinations between MPs (or more especially the many centrist MPs, who sit way to the left of the membership), but their last 4 leaders have been elected by members which (without checking) must be a record streak?
Labour in UK’s a bit different, because even with giving the members a vote, MPs still represent 1/3 of the final result, the Unions another 1/3 and the members – however numerous – the final 1/3.
Corbyn only got on the balance because of votes leant to him by colleagues who couldn’t stand his politics but assumed he’d come last and helped him get over the threshold, he was seen as quaint and this was a sop to the hard left with no eye for what would happen different to the past. . . .he cajoled enough leftwing MPs to get him to the final two, 400k new members signed up to vote in Corbyn and the rest is history. Those MPs who got him onto the ballot only ‘to be nice’ have lived with regret ever since, and some were his bitterest opponents from his own party after he became leader.
Dean Winter set the bar so low that Josh Willie in comparison ought to be far better, then again he’s got a huge job ahead of him over the next 4 years. I’ll be interested to see what his approach is to rebuilding Labor support across the 5 electorates.
BTsays – I’m not quite as pro Rockcliff as you, I wouldn’t trust him an inch if I was an independent or a Green in that parliament. For example, I bet the proposed greyhound racing ban gets reversed, like it did in NSW some years ago, because of the pressure from the racing lobby and country areas.
And the stadium is getting built – my question about that, is this a facility just for the AFL team or will it be the home ground for an AFLW team too?
Greens voters gaslighting themselves in order to prevent the cognitive dissonance that comes with pretending to be progressive after having installed one of the most conservative governments in the country.
So now we have Greens voters here defending the Liberals and the new Purple Alliance, while also trying to distance themselves from the gigantic damage their Liberal-Greens alliance will do to the state over the next years.
They should be happy! They got rid of Labor’s state leader, they got revenge for Bandt & MCM!
“Boerwar’s 10 points purity test”
And there’s one example. Calling a list of policy platforms that the Greens took to the election, and comparing or engaging in discussion about if the Greens-Liberal coalition will improve or hurt these, is not a “purity test”, and calling it one is an obvious attempt at whitewashing the Greens abandoning those policies.
Here’s some straight from the horses mouth.
“They’re not even worried about the extinction of the Swift Parrot and the Maugean Skate.”
Whoops. Can’t imagine the Libs giving a solitary about either of those.
“End the logging ”
The Liberals have a policy of opening up 40,000 hectares of native forest for logging & 158,000 cubic metres of sawlog to industry, and now that they have supply & confidence they will quickly ensure this occurs. Because the Greens will get destroyed for bringing down the Government over it. The Greens will now be responsible for handing over $5 million in subsidies to logging companies as per the Liberal policy platform they endorsed in the Purple Alliance.
“Save hundreds of millions by not building a new stadium at Macquarie Point – Build new public housing not a billiion dollar stadium.”
The Greens just installed the party who arranged this entire stadium mess in the first place.
“By making big corporations pay their fair share”
Never gonna happen now is it.
“Create a free public transport system across Tasmania – in all rural, regional, and urban areas.”
How about some toll roads instead? Greens now responsible for $5 million in subsidies to ensure Heavy Vehicle operators don’t have to build their staff facilities, and instead get the taxpayer to pay for them.
“Establish Aboriginal seats in Tasmania’s Parliament.”
Good luck getting the Libs to agree to that.
“Our plan is to move towards a therapeutic, restorative justice system”
Liberals will be spending tens of millions of dollars to hire even more police and creating “strike teams” to crack down on the poor. Who knows, maybe they will be therapeutic police strike teams.
Looks like another fun day in Tassie
A leadership change will only be effective if it comes with a change of approach though, I hope it does
Rockliff doesn’t have the numbers to not follow through on his commitments to the crossbench imo
In saying that, if Labor changes their ways, and not just the leader, they could take over before the 4 years is up either way
Had Winter stayed onto September 1st then resigned. There would have been a joke going around ”September is the end of Winter”
Interesting that in the EMRS poll, whilst 56% “supported on some level” the abandoning of the new stadium, vs. 61% who went for freezing of hiring and finding efficiencies in public services; only 11% gave ‘abandon stadium’ as their alternative option for ‘budget repair’.
A little confusing to make sense of, but it does seem to confirm the narrative that the argument over the stadium is now more-of-less one of the past since Tas has had an election with that front of centre and 70% voted for a party or candidate that strongly supported the stadium.
Seems like Tassies are resigned to it, whatever improvements can be made to the deal by tinkering at the edges/renegotiating some bits.
I can also understand the view that many would think “We can’t afford this right now. . . ” and see it as too big a risk to the budget for a generation, expressing disapproval in polls, yet underneath part of them is intrigued to see if it really does uplift tourism and bring more into the coffers as well as ‘get Tasmania more on the map’. Those views aren’t incompatible with each other.
Sometimes diehard politicos like us on here see things too black and white and don’t stand back and analyse or ‘smell the coffee’ to quote a phrase.
All this partisan sniping at Liberal supposed policies by the 2 or 3 main protagonists that keep derailing this thread, is pure and simple distraction techniques.
Even if we assumed 100% of what they say about what Libs will or may do is correct, it changes nothing of the fact that Labor – on face value from what they said themselves – would be worse in every area and offered nothing by way of alternative.
Peter George, Craig Garland, Kristie Johnston, Rosalie Woodruff and Vica Bayley et al, didn’t need to show any confidence in Liberals whatsoever and haven’t – but they couldn’t risk Labor getting into government with their lack of movement on all of the things said posters are castigating the Liberals for being about to do / not do.
None of the above crossbenchers claimed that Libs would do much for Tassie that they cared about, so why keep pretending that they did so you can use it as a yardstick to beat them with over the coming months and years, on entirely false premises?
I fear this will change nothing, but final appeal. . . GET OVER IT. This government is 100% Labor’s ‘fault’, not the crossbench, who didn’t vote ‘for’ Rockcliff but did vote ‘against’ Winter however you want to twist it in the hope that PB is a good place to influence people.
After a disastrous, unnecessary election, it still took the Caucus 7 1/2 hours to dump their leader and install the bloke that everyone and their dog had predicted would take over if things didn’t go well for Labor in the election.
Obviously there was a lot of doubt about doing this among the members, and at least some flirtation with the ideas of retaining Winter (surely impossible) or going with Haddad instead of Willie (which I reckon was a good idea).
It’s not a great start for Willie. Nothing I’ve ever seen of the guy makes me feel that he’s the right person to do the job, but you can never be sure about how someone is going to perform in their first leadership role until they start doing it. People often grow into these roles or, on the other hand, perform much more poorly than everyone expected: which unfortunately was the case with Dean Winter.
Janie Finlay as deputy is a good move. Anita Dow has never impressed me very much, and Finlay is far more popular with voters in her own electorate than is the case with any of the other nine Labor MPs. Maybe she can now get a bit more exposure across the state.
It’s going to take a lot of hard work – and some courage on the part of the leadership – to lift Tassie Labor out of its morass. I hope Willie surprises me and delivers a bit of a change in strategy: even a little bit would help.
BTSays: “Seems like Tassies are resigned to it, whatever improvements can be made to the deal by tinkering at the edges/renegotiating some bits.”
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First let’s see how the voters react to any tax increases and cuts in services. If these are too harsh, I reckon concerns about the cost of the stadium will rocket back into the centre of the political debate.
BTSays: “All this partisan sniping at Liberal supposed policies by the 2 or 3 main protagonists that keep derailing this thread, is pure and simple distraction techniques.”
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Nope. They are just sad cases of GDS (“Greens Derangement Syndrome”). I’m not totally unsympathetic: I’m not crazy about the Greens either. But GDS seems to cause its sufferers to believe they are in some bizarre fantasy universe in which Labor has a moral right to expect the support of the Greens in exchange for nothing at all. And then, when the Greens act autonomously, those afflicted with GDS become apoplectic and start getting narky with anyone who disagrees with them.
It’s all slightly reminiscent of Putin’s attitude towards Ukraine. Sufferers from GDS believe that the Greens have no right to exist, and that the votes they receive in elections by rights belong to Labor.
Now the Greens-Liberal alliance supporters are comparing Labor to Putin.
What nonsense. From a group of people who are whining about “Greens Derangement Syndrome” and calling for people to be banned from the site because they aren’t buying Green supporters and their bullshit comments, apparently calling Labor the same as the war criminal murderous Putin isn’t “low quality”, “barely-coherent, barely-related partisan nonsense” or “derailing the thread”. Typical Greens hypocrisy.
“This government is 100% Labor’s fault”.
It is 100% not.
We spent the lead up and post-election discussion having Greens supporters talking about how Labor would abandon their morals and create a “Grand Alliance” with the Liberals because Labor hates the Greens so much they’d jump into bed with the Liberals.
Instead it’s the Greens who betrayed their voters by entering into an alliance with the Liberals instead.
The Greens decided on an alliance with the Libs. Own it.
Technically Labor’s attitude to the Greens was compared to Putin’s attitude to Ukraine.
It’s a subtle difference. But subtlety is not the strong point of a hyper partisan now is it? It’s probably why it was missed.
What is Labor’s path to victory is Tasmania?
It’s a disgusting equivalence even with the so called “subtle, technical” difference.
‘BTSays says:
Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 5:55 pm
All this partisan sniping at Liberal supposed policies by the 2 or 3 main protagonists that keep derailing this thread, is pure and simple distraction techniques.
…’
=================
So. You have outed yourself at last.
‘meher baba says:
Wednesday, August 20, 2025 at 6:09 pm
BTSays: “All this partisan sniping at Liberal supposed policies by the 2 or 3 main protagonists that keep derailing this thread, is pure and simple distraction techniques.”
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Nope. They are just sad cases of GDS (“Greens Derangement Syndrome”). I’m not totally unsympathetic: I’m not crazy about the Greens either. But GDS seems to cause its sufferers to believe they are in some bizarre fantasy universe in which Labor has a moral right to expect the support of the Greens in exchange for nothing at all. And then, when the Greens act autonomously, those afflicted with GDS become apoplectic and start getting narky with anyone who disagrees with them.
It’s all slightly reminiscent of Putin’s attitude towards Ukraine. Sufferers from GDS believe that the Greens have no right to exist, and that the votes they receive in elections by rights belong to Labor.’
====================
I see that Meher has gone into his own personal and unique derangement syndrome. The last two sentences are as close as cray cray from Meher as I have ever read.
It’s never Labor’s fault…
Tasmanian Labor as well as the Liberals need to realize that they must start treating the Greens with respect if they want to get constructive laws through parliament.
I/c Tasmania LAB has a new leader, excellent, may be one that can focus on outcomes for citizens …, because the last one seemed to aggressively ignore everything including dogs, fishies, wood, …, not that Winters was around that long unlike White, may be Mitchell?
Today after mis-stepping last night, after talking to Health Direct then, followed their St John’s protocols overnight, because the nearest Medicare Urgent Care, 40 minutes away, isn’t up till early 2026.
Nearest medical centre a town over was able to see me, but meant MC plus debit card (‘… Albo’ aka mixed billing, then by way of pharmacy and anti-inflamatories and splint, got send to near state capital for X-rays.
And nearest diagnostics are beyond the airport near the eastern shore of the city.
Saw GP at 10:00, X-rays by midday, back home after 14:00.
So talk productivity in Versailles on Lake Bloody Griffin all you want, meanwhile may be adress needs of 30% outside of extended metro, be it regional, rural, remote?
And may be explained how my shed should be used in – AI-based – impudent rent calcs?
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/hobart-mornings/bryan-green-defends-dean-winter-no-confidence-motion-tas/105675396, brave, courageous even, get me lucky generals …?
GFY2
Stay strong. Better days ahead hopefully.