Against Green minority government: themes and traditions in Tasmanian politics

Abstract

In Tasmanian terms, the green political agenda founded in 1972 by the United Tasmania Group was a radical attempt to construct a new, value based, transformative politics; not only in natural resource management, but also in technology, work, society, institutional design and state development. The Labor Party failed to incorporate this emergent agenda and politics, and was subsequently the hardest hit electorally by the political greening that followed. Following the Green split off from its support base, Labor was unable to form majority government from 1977 until 1998 and only then following parliamentary reform. Despite being the first to go into minority government with Green support, and despite failed internal efforts to 'green' the Labor Party that have persisted for years, it has been Labor that has most felt an adverse electoral impact from the Greens. Whilst Labor has had the most to gain in electoral terms from reintegrating the green vote, it has instead, it is argued here, resisted green policy agendas, destabilised governing arrangements with green partners, and achieved parliamentary reform aimed at reducing Green parliamentary representation. This resistance by mainstream Labor helped achieve the failure of the Green supported Labor minority government in 1992, and encouraged the frustrated abandonment of the Green supported Liberal minority government in 1998.