TRANSCRIPT
Jacqui Lambie has become a fixture of the Australian senate. The two votes of her party are sometimes crucial for the government in passing legislation. And now she’s hoping people in her home state of Tasmania will give her a chance in the state parliament.
“I wanted to make sure that this time, Tasmania had a choice, not just with the Liberal, Labor and Greens Party but also the Jacqui Lambie network.”
Polling shows a hung parliament is likely in Tasmania, with neither of the major parties set to secure enough seats to govern alone.
That means any successful Jacqui Lambie Network candidates could be crucial in determining who forms government. But she’s not yet willing to say which side they’d support.
“I really don't know what the makeup’s gonna look like. So we may not even be situated in in that balance of power where we have to pick who's government and who's not so I guess we're just gonna see how all that plays out. I've got no idea which liberal members are getting back in and which Labour members are getting back in btu that’s where these guys will start to negotiate, if we get a few in.”
Polling by Tasmanian firm EMRS has the Liberals ahead on 39 per cent to Labor’s 26 per cent.
It also shows an eight-per centage point increase since the last election in support for independent candidates.
Taking inspiration from the community independents' movement on the mainland, Voices of Tasmania spent the past year asking people their thoughts on political representation.
Here's convener Michael Roberts.
“Only 3% said yes, they felt represented. 26% said somewhat represented and the rest, don't feel represented at all. And that's a really, really striking number.”
The group is hoping to see a more diverse parliament … this time around.
“People have different perspectives, different lived experience, different approaches to life and how they see things and I think a really functional democracy has that represented in the people who make decisions.”
Another factor that could benefit independent and minor party candidates is the increase in the size of the parliament.
At the polls this year, voters in each of the five multi-member electorates will choose seven representatives, up from five previously.
Adjunct Associate Professor Kate Crowley, from the University Of Tasmania, says this will lower the quota needed to be elected under the Hare-Clark system used in Tasmania.
“It's inevitable that you will have minor parties and independents doing much better, how much better it remains to be seen it’s very much an electorate by electorate issue.”
Since calling the election, Premier Jeremy Rockliff has regularly referred to a potential Labor minority government as a ‘Coalition of Chaos’.
But Michael Roberts says that’s just fear-mongering.
“It’s not really respectful of the wishes of the Tasmanian people. It actually doesn't look for diversity. It looks for monoculture in in politics, and that doesn't work in nature and it doesn't work in the in political life either. Really, we need a diversity of voices.”
Professor Crowley says minority governments may be more common than people think.
“In Australia's history one third of our governments at sub national level – that’s state and territory level around the country – one third of them have been minority, and most of them you never even hear of. They're not Coalitions of Chaos at all. It entirely depends on the attitude of the political players.”
Former Tasmanian and Federal Greens leader, Christine Milne, has experience with minority government at both the state and national level. In Tasmania she was in a balance of power position with both the Liberals and Labor at different points.
She offered this advice:
“The fact is you've been elected by the people of Tasmania and you need to respect the fact that this is the outcome the people wanted. And therefore you it's incumbent on you to negotiate and collaborate with other people to give the people of Tasmania the best parliament that can serve their interests.”
Professor Crowley says this collaboration can have benefits for the public.
“It leads to more consensus making policy rather than majoritarian steamroller driven policy and it requires the government which is in minority, to be more reflexive, about what it's doing and to take in a wider consideration of viewpoints as it should do because on its own, it does not represent the majority.”
