Lambie Network Blows Up After Only Five Months

In the beginning there was the Deal, and the Deal was stupid.

Nobody seems to know for sure who actually "negotiated" the JLN side of the confidence and supply arrangement with the Rockliff Government but, for whatever reason, the three elected JLN MPs signed it.  The Deal so needlessly limited the JLN MPs in terms of their ability to vote against the Government that when they broke the Deal by voting for a doomed Greens motion to compel the Government regarding its coastal policy, the Government either didn't notice or ignored the breach and it took the Labor Opposition to point it out.  (Edit: The Government then claimed the Deal hadn't been broken when it had, which soon resulted in the JLN MPs breaking it again on a motion re Forest Reserves.)

Tensions were apparent within the JLN from early on with Rebekah Pentland and Miriam Beswick having one approach and Andrew Jenner another.  Staffing was one issue where this came to a head.  There were further problems in early July when it emerged that the three state MPs had sent Jacqui Lambie a letter in June insisting she keep out of Jacqui Lambie Network state business, and alleging that she was directing state MPs on how to vote.

The catalyst for yesterday's events was the recent news that upgrades to the Devonport ferry terminal, needed for the overdue replacement for the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, had been bungled.  Lambie issued a release on August 15 demanding that Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure Michael Ferguson resign.  On 19 August JLN MP Andrew Jenner made comments that Ferguson's position was "untenable".  

On 20 August Lambie seems to have issued a press release - the verbatim text of which I have not seen because the Jacqui Lambie Network is beyond hopeless at publishing its output - saying that if Premier Rockliff did not sack Ferguson she would rip up the government's confidence and supply arrangement with the JLN.  This was bizarre to say the least since Lambie herself was not a signatory to the deal which, whoever drafted it, is between the government and the individual JLN MPs.

This placed Pentland and Beswick in an unenviable position.  They wanted to abide - to the extent they understood it - by their deal with the government, which committed them to only supporting a no confidence motion in the case of corruption or malfeasance.  (David O'Byrne's much cannier agreement includes "gross incompetence" and "reprehensible failures of policy and governance" as possible grounds for no confidence).  

Events came to a head with The Australian reporting on Friday - just five months to the day after the state election - that Pentland and Beswick were considering leaving the party.  Then on Saturday while they were weighing up their options, they were sacked from the party.  In true JLN style of a sort we saw during and after the election as well, the Lambie Network press release trumpeted the virtues of transparency but was signed "Statement From The Jacqui Lambie Network".  

Lambie Protests Too Much

The Lambie letter and the concurring opinion by ex voluntary UK magistrate Jenner claim that the Network has core values of "accountability, transparency and integrity" and made ministerial responsibility a "fundamental platform in its election campaign".  

This is all revisionist bollocks and it cannot be permitted to stand.  

During the campaign it was particularly difficult to get any real sense of what the basis for the JLN campaign was other than that it was a collection of people who Jacqui Lambie thought were good candidates.  

The party did release a set of six "core values" but ministerial responsibility was hardly one of them.  They were, rather, this vague collection of stupol-level parenthood statements (#5 is especially hilarious in this context):

The party's platform  was a "discussion paper" of unknown authorship and canonicity that reads like the collected thought bubbles of a slightly lost Australia Institute staffer.  Such as it was, it did talk about "transparency" a lot (not really the issue here which is around competence). But it did not promote any particular concept of ministerial accountability - indeed the only mention of ministers in the document is in the context of child protection.  I can find no evidence that Lambie herself mentioned the concept of ministerial responsibility in any media statement between the start of 2024 and the election.  

On the campaign trail Lambie herself made it clear that whoever was elected for her party would make their own decisions who to back into government and that they would have a free hand: "the only people that can tell the candidates how to vote are the people that voted for them."    Lambie did pretty much everything to downplay any role for herself in directing Tasmanian MPs.  Had JLN run on a platform that candidates would be answerable to her, things would be very different.  

Also, while Lambie herself preaches transparency there has been far too much we do not know about the Network.  It took forever to find out who exactly was on its secretive Board (apparently Lambie herself as President, a Secretary, Treasurer and IT person with occasional guest appearances - supposedly not making any big decisions -  after previous President Glynn Williams was bumped aside).  It has been impossible to determine how JLN decisions are actually made, what the party's current Constitution is and whether it is followed (if it even exists) and it does not even seem to be on the public record who is the state's current returning officer for candidate endorsements.  

The Fallout

With Pentland and Beswick now independents the number of moving parts in the Parliament has changed.  The Government holds 14 seats and needs four votes to carry the day.  If it cannot get those votes from Labor or the Greens then it needs four of a crossbench of six: Pentland, Beswick, Jenner (JLN), O'Byrne, Craig Garland and Kristie Johnston.  Labor and the Greens when they combine will need three of those votes to block.

A potential test would be a confidence motion concerning Ferguson himself.  At this stage Pentland and Beswick have said they have no plans to support and Garland has said he would be very reluctant, but another vote is required.  Jenner has said he could support such a motion if Ferguson was "found culpable", notwithstanding that this falls below the test of "malfeasance or corruption" in the deal he signed.  There is at least potential here that the crossbench could force some kind of inquiry into Ferguson's performance.

In theory, a successful no confidence motion against a Minister has no actual effect, because Ministers are appointed by the Governor on the advice of the Premier, and if the House wanted the Premier to not give such advice, the House would display confidence in a different person as Premier.  But the constitutional waters around this are murky enough that in practice where a Minister looks like losing a vote of no confidence they will usually resign or be moved aside (an exception being Vickie Chapman in South Australia with an election impending anyway).  I believe something like this has already happened in Ferguson's case when the government did not trust that he would have the confidence of the House as Health Minister in 2019, when the concern was Sue Hickey might not continue to support him in such votes.

The government will need to renegotiate deals with the new independents, who will probably prefer a more standard confidence and supply agreement like the one made with O'Byrne.  The situation will also affect staff arrangements and question allocation in Question Time.

At this stage there is no evidence of a risk to confidence and supply, although there have at times been suggestions that despite their current agreement to grant supply unconditionally, some of the then three JLN MPs wanted to scrutinise particular items.  

Test Case For Party Hopping

During the election campaign I was very critical of the government's proposal to introduce a "stability clause" similar to New Zealand's waka-jumping law.  Little has been seen of this since beyond a June announcement that work was underway including consultation with "Australian and international legal, Parliamentary and constitutional experts".  How many of them gave an unprintable response to the concept is not recorded.  

I have looked at how the JLN example of two-thirds of a party falling out with the party's founder could apply if Tasmania had exactly the same law as New Zealand.  In this case, Beswick and Pentland could if they felt so inclined, instead of quitting, respond by first taking the state parliamentary party's leadership (which doesn't currently exist) and then advising the Speaker that Jenner was distorting proportionality and they wished to expel him from the parliament.  Provided that there were real and irresolvable voting differences of a sort that would withstand a court challenge, this would ultimately succeed as what Lambie thought of the voting patterns of the state JLN MPs would be irrelevant.  Two members of a party of three could potentially evict the third from the parliament, forcing a recount that the third could not even contest.  They could even destroy the party completely by evicting all the replacements as well.

This case wouldn't often come up in NZ because it is rare these days for a party to have, say, three or four MPs - Te Pāti Māori excepted, a party would have to poll well below the threshhold but win an electorate seat, which hasn't happened for a while.  

I should note here that the government's initial statement did include a possible three-quarters majority for expulsions, but in this case the JLN MPs could publicly brand themselves as independents while for parliamentary party purposes refusing to resign from the JLN.  There would be no mechanism, not even expulsion from the JLN at large, to stop them from being JLN MPs for the purpose of the stability clause.  

Most importantly. the "stability clause", if it does somehow get through both houses, will not be retrospective and will have no effect on what has just occurred.  However there is a question of whether the lurking potential for it to make it harder for the JLN MPs to quit the party later may have contributed in a small degree to them getting out now.  

Eponymous Parties Are Chaos

Jacqui Lambie Network is yet another party named after a person that has proved unstable - it has now lost three of the five MPs ever elected under its banner (including Senator Tammy Tyrrell who quit in still mysterious circumstances).  Defections and expulsions have also been seen in the Palmer United Party (where Lambie originally came from), Pauline Hanson's One Nation, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party, and Nick Xenophon Team.  It is a sad reflection on these parties that Katter's Australian Party has been by far the most stable of the lot (barring the episode in which it briefly accepted Fraser Anning as a member then realised he was over even their line).  

Lambie has recently endorsed Senate candidates for some mainland states where it is hard to see how she would possibly get a significant vote share (she didn't when she tried this in 2016).  Media should report these endorsements thus:

"Jacqui Lambie Network announced the endorsement of <person X>" as their latest candidate who if elected to the Senate will either quit or be kicked out of the party and become an independent with no mandate in something between 0 and 24 months".  

I may add more comments later.

Updates

Sunday night: Matthew Denholm has reported that the ex-JLN MPs may seek commitments including compulsory costing of election promises and creation of a Parliamentary Budget Office.  

Monday: The usual end to doubts about confidence in a Minister - Michael Ferguson has offered to resign as Minister for Infrastructure. 

See this ABC article for more about the background of confusion within JLN.

Saturday 31st: See also Rick Morton's article re the background to the JLN collapse, including issues surrounding staffing that suggest mistrust in some direction at least at an early stage.  Also this week in a very stressed interview with Leon Compton, Lambie said she will not be running candidates in future state elections, beyond re-endorsing Andrew Jenner if so desired.

Beswick and Pentland have signed this new agreement (a fairly standard confidence and supply agreement except with an agreement to give notice of intent to vote against things); a new agreement with Jenner has yet to be sighted.