15 February 2020
Barely has this new political year begun. Yet already a major political leader has seen fit to call it a day. The individual in question is Will Hodgman, who resigned last month after nearly six years as Premier of Tasmania.
To my knowledge, nobody saw this coming. There was no evidence of Hodgman looking like he might call it quits, or of any moves his MPs to replace him. From the look of it, he’s left the job on his own terms. Not all political leaders have that luxury – and I don’t use that word “luxury” lightly. How many times before have we heard about political leaders being dumped, with or without warning, despite being successful at elections and governing well?
Hodgman will become an icon in the Liberal Party, and rightly so. Back in 2014, he led the Tasmanian Liberals to their first election win since the 1990s. It was quite a big win, as they took fifteen of twenty-five seats in the Lower House. In 2018, they won a second election, albeit by a smaller margin than in 2014, taking thirteen seats. They now govern with a majority of a single seat.
Despite this narrow win in 2018, Hodgman still managed to achieve something pretty rare. He became only the second Liberal leader, since Robin Gray during the 1980s, to score two outright election wins in a row in Tasmania.
Again, I don’t use a certain word lightly in this context – “outright”. Between the successes of Gray and Hodgman, Ray Groom led the Liberals to triumph in 1992, but he lost his majority at the next election that he faced, in 1996, despite holding office after that hung election, and he ended up resigning as Premier anyway.
The new Premier after that 1996 election, Tony Rundle, wasn’t around for very long, losing office at the next election, in 1998. The Labor Party won office then, and governed until Hodgman’s 2014 triumph.
Before Gray led the Liberals to victory in 1982, they’d been able to obtain office with crossbench support after an election in 1969, but they lost office when the next election came, in 1972, and they didn’t win again until 1982. Tasmania can hardly be called a good hunting ground for them, winning only seven elections there, and only Gray and Hodgman having two outright wins.
Actually, Hodgman might well have become Premier earlier, if not for some bad luck. At an election in 2010, both Labor and the Liberals ended up with ten seats each, while the Greens won five seats and held the balance of power. Labor can generally be tipped to win support from the Greens more easily than the Liberals can, but after that 2010 election there was talk that the Liberals, led by Hodgman in those days, might actually take power with support from the Greens – although that didn’t happen in the end.
Hodgman remained Liberal leader as Labor managed to govern with the support of the Greens. This was hardly a comfortable alliance, and when Hodgman had that big election win in 2014, Labor was said to have suffered from that alliance with the Greens. Many traditional Labor voters couldn’t abide the Greens, whose values were different from theirs, and they didn’t like how Labor was perceived as being too close to the Greens. Even after four years out of office, when voters next went to the polls in 2018, the memories of that alliance might still have been on the minds of many voters, possibly saving the Liberals from defeat.
In this sense, there’s a similarity regarding both the first win for Hodgman and the first win for Gray. Both times there were feelings that Labor was becoming sidetracked by environmental issues, which didn’t go down well among people traditionally supporting Labor. And on each occasion, the result was a big win for the Liberals. I should add that when Groom led the Liberals to their victory in 1992, this also came after Labor had been governing with crossbench support.
Comparing Hodgman’s election successes with Gray’s election successes, as well as what arguably led to these successes, might it seem like Hodgman’s got shades of Gray – albeit not of grey in terms of colour – in his achievements?
Perhaps the main difference is in their departures. Gray won elections in 1982 and 1986, but after losing his majority at an election in 1989, this was ultimately enough for him to lose office, as Labor managed to take power with crossbench support and govern until 1992. Hodgman, by contrast, stepped down as Premier at a time of his choosing, with two election wins to his name.
It’s worth noting that Hodgman was first elected to Parliament in 2002, at a dark time for the Liberals. After losing office to Labor in 1998, they lost several seats to the Greens at an election in 2002, while Labor’s numbers didn’t change, with fourteen of twenty-five seats. The numbers stayed the same at the next election, in 2006, after which Hodgman became Liberal leader. Interestingly, another new Liberal from 2002 was Peter Gutwein, who now succeeds Hodgman as Premier.
With Hodgman having departed politics, Gutwein has about two years to really establish himself as Premier. The next Tasmanian election isn’t due until March 2022, although Gutwein can go to the polls earlier if he wishes. He has big shoes to fill in replacing Hodgman, who will become a Liberal icon in Tasmania.
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