Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A novel idea for Tasmania

The Tasmanian election has unsurprisingly delivered no clear winner. The speculation now is on which of the two major parties will be called on by the Governor to govern.

Let's assume it finishes 10, 10, 5 to ALP, Liberal and Greens. Both the ALP and Liberals have indicated that any deal with the Greens will not be a power sharing deal. The Governor needs to decide which MP is most likely to be able to form a Government.

The leading candidate is the Liberal leader on the assumption (1) he resolute was a repudiation of the ALP and (2) the ALP knows that whoever tries to govern with the Greens will wind up in a mess.

There is an alternative. The ALP could propose a coalition with the Greens in which the Grens leader is Premier and allocates portfolios between a 1 to 2 ratio of Ministers from both parties. The ALP in the long term have nothing to fear from a party to their left - as in the Greens. In fact that should use them to occupy more of the centre. Eventually the soft left will get disiusioned with the hard left of the Greens and return to the ALP.

So Premier Bartlett, you should give the Governor advice to offer Nick McKim the opportunity to form a Govrnment and tell McKim you will support him in coalition.

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