By Barry Prismall
Tasmanians are again grappling with the prospect of minority government, the third since 1980 involving the Greens party.
The Premier, David Bartlett, believes the major party with the most seats or votes should govern in minority, but if there is a hung Parliament the Greens will determine the outcome.
The past two minority governments ran for only half of their four-year terms. In 1989, after two landslide victories and seven years in power in the 35-seat House of Assembly, Robin Gray's seemingly invincible government lost its majority, by one seat, to the overwhelming politics of the proposed $1 billion Wesley Vale pulp mill, which attracted a sustained anti-mill campaign and a hostile Hawke government.
Labor, with 13 of the 35 seats, signed an accord with the five Greens to form a minority government. But hard-nosed politics from the Greens MPs, led by Bob Brown (now a senator) , a budget crisis forcing tough spending cuts, and Labor's pursuit of forest resource security legislation undermined the accord and it fell apart.
The then premier, Michael Field, called a snap election in the face of Greens threats to bring him down, and Labor was crushed at the poll in February 1992.
Four years of relatively unstable majority Liberal government, including a bizarre plan to unilaterally award all MPs a 40 per cent pay rise, cost the Liberals their majority in February 1996. With bad memories of 1989-92, Labor refused to take power in the hung Parliament; the Liberals changed leaders from Ray Groom to Tony Rundle, and then immediately were confronted by the Port Arthur massacre in April 1996. The tragedy eclipsed all politics in Tasmania for a year. Indirectly, it enabled the hung Parliament to endure for a time without a hint of controversy.
The Liberals emerged from the gloom in 1997 with an action-packed agenda, including a $4 billion plan to sell the state's energy assets, reduce the size of Parliament and decrease the number of councils from 29 to less than half that. The Greens leader, (now senator) Christine Milne, was desperate to promote her brand of ''co-operative politics'', but Rundle called a snap election two years into the term in 1998.
Robin Gray had warned Liberal ministers that for every day they governed with the support of the Greens they would spend five in opposition.
The major parties proceeded to cut the size of Parliament from 54 to 40 MPs, including a smaller House of Assembly from 35 to 25. The quota to win a seat rose from 12.5 per cent under the state's Hare Clark voting system to 16.66 per cent.
The Greens cried foul, but were almost wiped out at the election, surviving with just one seat.
The Greens adjusted to the smaller Parliament and eventually won back four seats. This year the Greens leader, Nick McKim, is again preaching ''co-operative politics''.
History suggests the next hung Parliament is unlikely to last more than two years. If it involved one or two independents it might last, but the Greens are a political party and the major parties perceive it to be the lasting threat to their power base.
Barry Prismall is deputy editor of The Examiner in Launceston.