By Alex Bainbridge
HOBART — Premier Tony Rundle has ended months of speculation by calling an early state election for August 29, accompanied by a partial dismantling of Tasmania's proportional Hare-Clark voting system. Rundle is campaigning on a program of privatising the Hydro-Electric Corporation (the state's electricity provider) and using the funds to retire debt and fund education.
After a period of minority Liberal government (kept in power with the support of the Greens), Rundle has agreed to support the ALP version of parliamentary "reform", which includes a 25-member lower house and a 15-member upper house. Under the ALP-Rundle proposal, scheduled to be voted on in parliament on July 22, there will be five lower house electorates, each with five candidates instead of the current seven.
The fewer candidates in each electorate will mean an increase in the percentage of the vote required to win a seat, from 12.5% to 16.6%. This will disadvantage minor parties and independents and is widely interpreted as an attempt to undermine the Greens' influence in state parliament.
Despite their consistent attitude of compromise with whichever major party has had the largest representation, the Greens have been an inconvenience for the major parties, each committed to slightly different versions of economic "rationalism". The political establishment has been aiming for some time to reduce or eliminate the Greens' presence in parliament, although Labor and Liberal have, until now, had different plans for achieving this.
The Liberals' compromise with Labor on parliamentary reform enables them to campaign openly for the full privatisation of the hydro — their long-time goal. Previously, the Liberals had publicly been toying with the Greens' proposal of a long-term lease of the hydro to private interests instead.
The Greens had argued that a lease (governed by certain conditions) would be a way of maintaining "public ownership" even though all operational decisions would be made by the private operators. (The ALP opposition has hypocritically purported to oppose the privatisation.)
A campaign has been launched by the Greens to "save Tasmania's democracy", including a public meeting on July 21 and a protest at Parliament House on July 22. They are calling for a referendum on the future of what Greens MHA Peg Putt calls "our famous and fair Hare-Clark voting system". The Greens are also trying to make this a major election issue in a bid to retain their parliamentary seats.
The Democratic Socialists are also opposing the Labor-Liberal plan. Democratic Socialist spokesperson Kamala Emanuel told Green Left that the plan was "a reactionary move that would further entrench power in the hands of the big business parties".
She said, "We support moving to a participatory democratic system which would include abolition of the upper house and the establishment of a single-electorate assembly with proportional representation."
The Democratic Socialists are standing in the state election as "the most consistent opponents of privatisation and advocates of democratic rights", said Emanuel. "The Green strategy of compromising with Liberal or Labor hasn't stopped the austerity drive. A new politics is needed", she said.