So close, and yet so far?: The Tasmanian Greens and the 2006 State Election

Australia’s relatively wild island state, Tasmania, was described two decades ago as a crucible of environmental conflict, providing in microcosm ‘a taste of the likely shape of politics elsewhere in the world should the green agenda reach the political frontline’ (Hay and Haward 1988, p. 435). In the 25 years since the Greens were first represented in the Tasmanian parliament, the House of Assembly’s preferential proportional electoral system (Mackerras 1995)1 has ensured their consistent presence (see Table 1). Since then, they have supported two minority governments, one Labor (1989–91) and one Liberal (1996–8) (Crowley 2003a). A key issue dominating the 2006 state election was whether the Greens would again assume the balance of power. The electoral system changed in 1998 when the Liberal minority government, as one of its last acts, supported the Labor opposition’s amendment to the Parliamentary Reform Act (1998) which raised the quota for election of a member of the House of Assembly (MHA) from 12.5% to 16.7%. The impact on green parliamentary representation was immediate. At the 1998 election, under the new quota, the Greens’ 10.2% of the state vote delivered only one seat (to its leader, Peg Putt) instead of the four seats that would have been won under the old quota (Crowley 1999). The reform not only raised the electoral quota, but cut the numbers in the Lower House from 35 to 25 members, leaving the government and opposition severely benches depleted. At the 2002 state election, the Greens, following Putt’s effective representation, were rewarded with a record 18.1% vote that returned four members