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Paul Lennon - past his use-by date

By Peter Tucker - posted Wednesday, 4 June 2008


Paul Anthony Lennon, recent ex-premier of Tasmania, is a modern-day political anachronism.

In an age of the urbane, media savvy, technocratic, “third-way” political leaders from Tony Blair to Kevin Rudd, and all the current mob of state premiers in between, Paul Lennon stood out like a big, bright, red beacon.

Or saveloy, to some of his more unkind critics.

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It is impossible to be ambivalent about Paul Lennon: you either love him or hate him and, unfortunately for him, more Tasmanians than not seemed to hate him.

Well, “hate” is too harsh an emotion for the ordinary voter, but public opinion had moved inexorably against Lennon and he and his party knew it could not be retrieved.

Lennon has had image problems almost since he took over as premier in 2004 from a dying Jim Bacon. As deputy premier, his uncompromising “whatever it takes” approach got the tick of public approval, but that was counter-balanced and complimented by the silky-smooth delivery of premier Bacon and the hard-edged number crunching of treasurer David Crean.

It is significant and poignant that Lennon himself, in his resignation speech to the media, referred to the triumvirate as his “glory days” in politics.

The departure in early 2004 of first Crean and then Bacon, both to ill health, left Lennon on his own, exposed to any weaknesses in the government and in himself.

And there certainly were weakness. In Tasmania’s micro-parliament of just 25 in the executive chamber, finding capable cabinet replacements from such a small gene pool was going to be difficult.

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To prove that point, Lennon lost two deputy premiers. Bryan Green, a Lennon protégé, stepped aside in 2006 over a monopoly deal granted to a company run by an ex-Labor minister; then in April this year his replacement, Steve Kons, resigned after admitting to lying in parliament. Both now languish on the backbench.

During Lennon’s premiership a media narrative developed which portrayed him as belligerent, secretive and self-serving, and everything he did or said was interpreted through that prism.

Cast against the affable, gen-X Liberal leader in Will Hodgman, the political scales in Tasmania, which had strongly favoured Labor since 1998, were in danger of tipping. Hodgman is the longest serving opposition leader in the country and enjoys opinion poll popularity his mainland colleagues would kill for.

So Paul Lennon faced up to reality and walked. But was he really that bad?

Much of the passionate dislike for Lennon reported in the press comes from the “intelligentsia” which in turn has influenced the media debate. Two strident critics have been ex-pat author, Richard Flanagan, and ex-Sydney art director now Tasmanian resident, Leo Schofield.

Schofield, through his regular column in the Hobart Mercury, famously dubbed Lennon an “uber-bogan” which, although cruel, pretty much summed up what some Tasmanians thought of their footy and racing loving premier.

But the most passionate and vitriolic criticism has come from the acerbic pen of Flanagan. Recently, a sombre Flanagan declared that “democracy as we know it is at an end”:

There is a great and terrible sadness abroad in Tasmania today born of the knowledge of what we might be in sorry contrast to what we have become.

This, and most of what else that has been written by the “elites”, is rubbish: nothing but hyperbole and misconstruction of reality. I’m not saying that Lennon wasn’t dragging Labor down, and I am not saying there was not a general feeling of unease in the broad community about Lennon’s style; but let’s all get a grip.

The fact is that Tasmanians have embraced modern Labor like no other Australians: Labor politicians outnumber Liberal two to one; in state parliament there are 18 Labor members to the Liberal’s seven; at the recent federal election Tasmania returned the highest primary vote for Labor of all the states.

The graph illustrates how dominant the ALP has been in Tasmania over the past decade. It shows that, of the total seats available in state and federal politics, Labor hold close to 50 per cent. The Liberals are going so badly that they are beaten into third place by the independents and Greens.

Or put it this way: of the 57 state and federal politicians in Tasmania just 12, much less than a quarter, are Liberal. That, for a major party, can only be described as pathetic.

Make no mistake: Tasmania is the strongest Labor state in the country. Maybe this has occurred despite Paul Lennon, not because of him, but it has still occurred on his watch. It is impossible to conclude that the broad community see Lennon as the personification of evil or that there is “a great and terrible sadness” in the state. If he was really that bad, and democracy really was in that bad a shape, voters would have rejected him and his party well before now.

Of course that is not to say that Tasmanians will keep on voting blindly for Labor but, on the balance of probabilities based on the teachings of history, there is unlikely to be a wholesale ditching of the Labor vote, with or without Paul Lennon.

First, modern day Australian voters do not swing in large numbers. There has not been an Australian federal, state or territory election since World War II where an opposition has gained a double-digit swing to win government. There is nothing to indicate that Tasmanians are about to make history even if Lennon had stayed on.

Second, we know that the undecided vote in Tasmania (more than 20 per cent at the recent EMRS poll) are soft Labor voters. The opinion polls show a halving of the Labor vote since 2006, true, but nearly all of these votes have gone in to the “undecided” column and not to the Liberals or Greens.

Those undecided voters might not return to Labor at the next election but the odds are that a decent proportion will. That’s because it is these very voters, these undecided fence-sitting swingers, who are the most dis-engaged from the political discourse. These are the ones who, largely, have never heard of Leo Schofield or Richard Flanagan. Or as George Megalogenis wrote in The Australian a few years ago:

Elections are normally decided by passive voters, not partisans. These punters are given the flattering title of swinging voters. But it is code for not really caring one way or the other.

There is almost two years to go to the 2010 state election. Labor could have done without the fuss created by Paul Lennon’s departure but it should be a plus to have the much more polished and astute David Bartlett in his place. It is going to be harder for Labor to win the next election than it was the last no matter who is premier - but talk of a wholesale rout is not based on reasoned analysis.

Notwithstanding, my view is that Labor will struggle to retain its majority under Tasmania’s Hare Clark proportional representation system; but the loss of just two Labor seats will be enough to put the state into minority government.

Paul Lennon has gone and has left his mark. Despite being loathed by the “chattering class” he led the country in Aboriginal reconciliation, the recognition of rights for homosexuals, and compensation for abused state wards. In addition, economic indicators such as unemployment, productivity and business investment are the best they have been in Tasmania for decades.

But all that was not enough, and never is in politics: Lennon just couldn’t get people to like him. His political career was ended by something politicians pretend they take no notice of - opinion polls. Considering he was in public life for more than 30 years, it is truly amazing he was so ignorant of the press or how the public form opinions.

The way Lennon went about championing Gunn’s proposed pulp mill will be cited by many as the main reason the public’s mood turned against him, although I think that the mill is more a symptom than a cause.

He really was an appalling media performer and if it hadn’t been a pulp mill it would have been something else: in three decades of fronting the press he never “got” the art of media politics.

Despite being demonised by the elites, he wasn’t that bad a premier and he isn’t a bad man. At least there was never any pretence with Paul Lennon: what you saw was exactly what you got, warts and all. Unfortunately for Paul Lennon, that approach belonged to an earlier political time.

He didn’t fit the cookie-cutter mould of the smoother-than-smooth, publicity aware, 21st century political leader. He couldn’t change, he never quite got it, so is probably better gone.

At least he had the sense to know it.

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About the Author

Peter Tucker has worked in Tasmania as an advisor for the Liberals in opposition and in ministerial offices for both Labor and Liberal governments. He is author of the Tasmanian Politics website, and is a researcher at the University of Tasmania’s School of Government.

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