A WEEK IS A LONG TIME IN POLITICS

What a fascinating few days in the Apple Isle’s political shakeup. Three weeks after the State election delivered a hung parliament, we were all poised for the Liberals to take hold of the reins for the next four years. That appeared to be the likely outcome, and even David Bartlett had started packing boxes in his office. Now, all of a sudden, Labor has survived by the skin of its teeth courtesy of the Governor, and we’ll finally get to see if a minority government has a chance of working in reality.

Far be it from me to hold any claims to being a political analyst, most of the time I only surface when particular issues interest me, and even listening to the ABC interviews with each party leader, all of whom sounded sincere and absolutely believable, didn’t exactly help in determining who did the right thing or the wrong thing in the past few days.

We were expecting David Bartlett to advise the Governor that seeing as the Liberals had gained the most votes in the election, Will Hodgman should therefore be given the right to govern, something he had promised during the election campaign. Seems he wasn’t as up front with the Governor as we thought he was going to be, it was up to Will Hodgman to make sure the Governor received that little tidbit to enlighten his deliberations. Throw into the mix Nick McKim’s statement that the Greens would support a Labor Government, and it was obvious the Liberals wouldn’t receive the support it needed to govern, even in minority.

Not to be outdone, the Governor is obviously not stupid, we find out it wasn’t David Bartlett’s right constitutionally to make such a promise in the first place. Anyway, after all was said and done, as the incumbent government, Labor were handed back the job. Here’s hoping they can make a better fist of it than they have of late, get back to the basics of promoting and administering good health, education, industry, environment and the economy amongst other things. Will be very interesting come the first day when parliament sits again to see if there’s any fireworks.

Found it interesting that Will Hodgman said several times in his ABC interview he would make no compromises with the Greens. Maybe he meant in terms of securing government, and I admire his stand on that, but if the Liberals had been given the job, how on earth did he think he was going to govern. The very nature of being a minority government, and with the Greens in the box seat, would mean he’d have to work with the Greens no matter how distasteful it might seem.

The fact no one was talking to the Greens was also fascinating, but hearing David Bartlett’s explanation helped me understand why. If there’s no contact, at least no one can cast any aspersions there is skulduggery going on behind closed doors. The Liberals may be having one of those “if only” moments, wishing Will had made a deal with the Greens, but as I wrote the other day ifs don’t change the facts. And whether Will Hodgman leads the Liberals into the next State election to have another crack at the top job, or whether he’s done his dash and forfeited his one chance at becoming Premier, remains to be seen.