In darkest Abetzia, the good word on the Tasmanian elections

Ten minutes into the evening “election forum” at the Kingborough Church, amid the 50 or so sitting under the softwood rafters, the speaker in front of a two-metre-high picture of Jesus’ heart done in thorny vines, I knew that as far as looking for a lively, disputative political conversation went, I’d made a terrible mistake.

“God calls us, and we return that call with action and well what we’re discussing here tonight is pretty diabolical… and I’d like to announce a man who needs no introduction, former senator Eric Abetz,” as Eric himself, tanned and terrific, eagle-nosed in blue Liberal sleeveless jacket, stood to receive the applause…

No, Eric wasn’t the reason to think this was a waste. I’d turn up for that man, anywhere. And I do not think the church lady was implying he was Satan. But this was a stitch-up: Eric was on home turf, and the other six speakers were simply Liberals down the ticket or no-hoper independents, who were here to speak on pending legislation on gender affirmation.

It was 8pm. I was in the suburban happy-clappy part out back of the hinterland to Hobart’s south-west and Uber wasn’t giving me anything.

“We’re looking for a driver” it said, almost adding “to get you out of this appalling exurbia”. I tuned back in…

“I’d, uh, like to uh refer you to, uh, Ecclesiastes…” Eric intoned —

Hare-Clark fever

It’s three weeks into Tasmania’s election, and you can get pretty much any election forum you want here.  They’re popping up all over the place: the nurse’s union, planning associations, local boosters. I had chosen what was really a ra-ra organising meeting to come out against the proposed bill, and to stage a takeover of the Liberal Party as part of doing that. 

The stakes are high. This is the last Liberal government in the country, and they’ve been here for 10 years, going through what, 29 premiers in that time? Three, they’ve been through three. Will Hodgman, who won it from Labor, recedes into the mists of memory now, a mythical figure. 

Now it’s on Jeremy Rockliff to hold the line, in a state with some of the worst housing and health system problems in the country, an education system desperately behind, and public debt blowing out to $5 billion (“hold my brewery”, says Victoria). Which was why Rocky, last week, was on TV at the Cadbury factory, promising to build the world’s largest chocolate fountain. 

“We all remember the beloved factory tours of the Cadbury factory and now they’ll be remembered in the Cadbury chocolate experience…”  he vamped, looking, as all Tasmanian premiers now do, exhausted and half wanting to lose and have this nightmare over. There was a note of mania in his voice, that of a man who has been told with short notice that he is going to have to play Willy Wonka for a morning. He was doing it days after the world had laughed itself silly at the story of the Glasgow Willy Wonka experience. Sometimes politics is into the valley of death. On Monday, Labor launched its campaign with its GameChanger scheme of paying first homebuyers’ housing deposits. Some Libs tried to retitle it “NameChanger”, as they have a similar scheme in place, but it didn’t take.

S-s-s-s-s-stadium

Tourism-wise, the Cadbury chocolate experience isn’t a bad idea, but really, it’s a desperate political spirit dance to persuade Cadbury/Mondelez to keep their factory in Tasmania as they steadily move production to Melbourne. Cadbury/Mondelez won’t pay to replace the tours that finished in 2008, so the government is stumping up $12 million to get the chocolate experience going. Just your average election boondoggle, especially Tasmanian style, which tend to be specific — a million for the salmon petting zoo, a few big ones for the Lithuanian Festival, a new highway crossing on the — no, not there, nearer to Reg’s place.

But all this is nothing compared to the matter of the stadium. The AFL, having been finally pushed into offering Tasmania a team, has demanded an entirely new stadium for them. That would go at Macquarie Point, just southeast of the Hobart CBD, in the old wharf district. The proposed design would cost $715 million, with the Tasmanian government kicking in $375 million, and the federal government $240 million. No-one believes these figures won’t take a high fly.

There is no great passion for a new stadium per se. There is a tremendous one for being in the AFL. Those people don’t care how much it costs. It is one of the few things that people will mention as a deal-breaker for their vote, which is why both Liberal and Labor are backing it, and the Greens, opposing it, are hoping to grab a few pissed-off Laboristas from that. 

These giveaways do not seem a great fit with a Liberal Party trying to project fiscal responsibility etc, but that was one of the first giveaways. The Libs have a clear lead, but they are nevertheless running a seat-by-seat, town-by-town retail politics, which began with a promise to reopen native forest reserves to logging, the cheapest, laziest and most destructive way to keep sawmills going. 

The hard sell is because Rockliff needs every single seat he can get very badly. This election is the first with the lower house — elected as you recall on the Hare-Clark system of multi-member electorates —  re-extended to 35 seats from 25. That takes the quota for a seat down to about 9,000 votes, with numerous minor parties and independents contending.

Rockcliff and a hard-right place

The Libs will get the plurality, and Rockliff is desperate to avoid getting 14 or 15 seats and having to yoke together whatever the crossbench hath given him, which would expose him to attack from his mortal enemy, the right. 

That’s what’s really going on here, amid the pine beams and the Christian mood lighting, as, after Abetz, one after another right-wing bozo gets up to affirm. 

“I’m Simon Behrakis,” says one, “I’m an MLA and I used to work for Eric, so it’s unusual,” he smiles quietly “to be up here as a sitting member, while Eric uh isn’t… (pause) which we hope to soon remedy.”

Oh, sick burn, brother Simon! Eric has to sit there and take it, smiling gently, the whiff of blood and smoke in his Teutonic nostrils. You’ll keep Behrakis. Half the people on stage had worked for Eric it turns out. I suspect they regard him as their natural leader, but would also like to burn him in a wicker man. 

Ping! “Khan your driver is on his way in… 28 minutes”. 28 minutes. A shy woman is on stage.

“Judges II said as ye gather ye sheep, so do not forget the stones which scatter beneath the cedars of Labneh… I think we all know what I mean… let me tell you a story about a couple in California who were called to their school one day to find that their daughter wanted to change her name, and they objected… and that couple were executed. That could happen here!” (My notes are a little rough)

Doubtless these people are all here to genuinely organise against a proposed human rights/gender affirmation bill due next year but they’re doing this amid a wider battle to control the Liberals, since it’s been under the Libs that this process got underway. 

That half of the Libs is pretty much from the old Tasmanian families, plus a few TV newsreaders, a loose agglomeration. The right is grouped around a small number of tightly organised evangelicals and protestant churches, and there are two factions — yes, pro- and anti-Eric, more or less — within that. 

So, part of the stress of being a Liberal premier in Tasmania is that you are more or less sharing a phone box with people trying to kill you, politically. No wonder they have the lifespan of a rock drummer, I thought, as Eric answered a question about voting, saying something about “God’s law”. 

As Khan sped me back to the Babylon of Hobart, where I would try and find a curry after 9pm, I checked my messages. David O’Byrne, ex-Labor leader, now independent, initially enthusiastic to meet, has disappeared. Notices of a planning forum, a forests forum. Two emails to Shooters candidates with addresses like @earthlink.co.nz have bounced back.

Six more notifications for “election forums” at the Wellspring Church, the Lifeway Baptist, the Door of Hope; The Local Party has become the Local Network, but appears to have only two candidates, which surely falls below the threshold definition of, mathematically speaking, a net; Craig Garland, Don Quixote of the north-west coast, speargun in hand, is running for the sixth time.

And in Bass, Tubby Quinn, an ocean fisher and tattoo artist, whose policies include a ban on heart-shaped parmys in pubs, has not returned my call. All chocolately delicious sledging aside, I’m here, cos something is approaching an actual democracy (the small matter of how it’s funded, aside).

On we go, to the big 35.