I’m sitting having breakfast on the square in front of Parliament House in Hobart, wondering about its complexion after Saturday — about which we know so much, but so little.

Barring something quite unexpected, the new House of Assembly will break 10-10-5 (Labor-Liberal-Green) or something very close to it. One of the major parties may get a seat or two ahead of the other, and the Greens may be on four or six rather than five, but no one will be close to an absolute majority. However, we’re still in the dark about what will happen next.

Premier David Bartlett has promised that if Labor has fewer seats than the Liberals he will resign and advise the Governor to send for Liberal leader Will Hodgman. If he finishes ahead or level, presumably he would be given the first opportunity to form a new government. In either case, the first thing the Governor will ask the prospective new premier is, “Can you guarantee supply?”

Since the Greens have repeatedly said they would not block supply or vote to bring down a government except in extraordinary circumstances, Bartlett or Hodgman may feel themselves entitled to answer “Yes”. More likely, they would speak to Greens leader Nick McKim in the hope of obtaining a more precise commitment.

That’s when the fun begins.

McKim has basically said that everything is on the table, that he would be willing to negotiate in good faith on every aspect of Greens policies. The other two leaders have said they will not “do deals” or negotiate away their policy commitments.

There are signs that the voters are getting sick of parties promising things that they know they won’t be able to deliver; in particular, the Greens have been copping some stick for making promises as if they were a prospective government. But it’s hard to blame McKim too much for this: he’s staking a claim to credibility as a party leader, while being up-front about the fact that what gets implemented will depend on negotiations.

The tactics of Bartlett and Hodgman, while less honest, also make sense in an election context: as long as they have even the faintest of faint hopes of majority government, they don’t want to admit to any possible weakness or accord added status to the Greens.

But the result is deeply unsatisfactory. Not because policies and positions will be negotiated after the election — many successful democracies operate that way — but because the voters have next to no information about how negotiations will work, and there may ultimately be no agreement at all.

McKim talks about “a power-sharing parliament” — evidently a more palatable phrase than “hung parliament” — but the risk is that there will be no real power sharing at all, just a minority government that ignores the Greens and submits legislation to parliament on a “take it or leave it” basis.

The basic idea of Westminster government is that the people who direct policy take responsibility for that policy in parliament. If a government depends on a particular group of MPs for its survival and functioning, then the leaders of that group should sit in cabinet and share responsibility for the administration’s measures. If the state gets into a habit of not doing that, then responsible government will be weakened.

Assuming that they plan to rely on Greens votes in parliament, Bartlett or Hodgman should be willing to negotiate an agreed program and a proper coalition, and the Greens in turn should be prepared to accept — indeed insist on — a share of ministries.

If the major parties aren’t going to do that, and won’t work with each other, then they should get out of the way and let the Greens try their luck at forming a government.