The state of Tasmania will head to the polls on July 19, after the government lost a no-confidence vote in June. This will be the fourth election in the state in the last seven years.
Tasmania is unique among Australian states in that it uses a voting system of proportional representation. The lower house – where government is formed – is elected from five constituencies, each with seven MPs. The Liberal Party had been governing since 2014, but in a minority since the election last year, with the support of smaller parties and independents. But this arrangement broke down due to a pair of issues that cut right into the direct interests of the island of 575,000 people.
The first was the inept handling of the replacement of two aging ferries. The two massive ferries that shuttle between the northern Tasmanian city of Devonport and the Victorian city of Geelong are the only way to transport cars and trucks between Tasmania and the Australian mainland. They are vital for the island’s tourist industry, but also essential for getting Tasmanian goods to Melbourne, the country’s largest port. The Tasmanian economy is heavily dependent on them.
Two new vessels were commissioned to be built in Finland in 2021. Both were expected to be operational by mid-2024. Yet there has been a significant oversight: the two new vessels are larger than those they are designed to replace, and the dock in Devonport is too small to accommodate them. The government had expected a new dock to be completed by mid-2024, but it’s not ready yet and completion isn’t expected for at least another year.
With the first ferry completed, the Tasmanian government had nowhere to put it – with all potential sites in Tasmania or mainland Australia unwilling to accommodate an idle ship. Since December, the ferry has been docked in Scotland, with berthing costs around US$30,000 per week. With a parking spot finally having been found in Hobart, this past weekend the ferry began its journey across the world to the city where it will sit until the dock in Devonport is completed. The second ferry is still conducting sea trials in the Baltic Sea.
The mismanagement of infrastructure so vital to the state has obviously led to the questioning of the government’s competence.
The second issue that precipitated the government’s downfall is both cultural and financial. Despite being a state with a deep passion for Australian Rules football – and having bred some of the game’s greats – the state has not had a team in the Australian Football League (AFL). Over the past 15-20 years the AFL has been spending extraordinary sums of money to try and make inroads into the rugby-playing states of New South Wales and Queensland. Two new teams have been created in Western Sydney and the Gold Coast, despite the sport having no cultural legitimacy in those regions.
This has, in turn, irritated Tasmanians, who rightly feel they are a far more legitimate region for the league’s expansion, and would be keen on attracting the AFL’s buckets of money. This changed in 2023 when the AFL granted a new license for a Tasmanian team for the 2028 season.
However, it came with the condition that the state build a new stadium: a huge financial burden for a small state. To many in Tasmania constructing a stadium with the same seating capacity as Hobart’s current stadium seems unnecessary. However, the AFL is insistent on a stadium with a roof. While the sport used to be an all-weather game – played in rain, hail, and snow – in recent years the AFL has expected perfect playing conditions for the game as a television spectacle. Hobart’s heavy winter dew is therefore considered a problem, and this has created great division between the people of Tasmania and the AFL – who think they can bully the state into submission. This is something the government has been unable to manage.
Despite not entering the competition for another two and a half years, already over 200,000 people have signed up to be a member of the new football club. That’s an extraordinary figure for such a small population. Yet Tasmanians don’t feel their love of the game should have to submit itself to a bunch of suits from Melbourne intent on sterilizing it. And they’ve been willing to bring down their own government to prove it.