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I did write a fair amount about the formation of the next government in the tallyboard thread but it's got somewhat buried in the postcount pages and I wanted to do a new thread to discuss the different pathways to government that might occur after the election. At this time we are starting to see what I suspect will be rather a lot of gnashing and wailing on the pages of The Australian (especially if Labor keeps trying to form government) but a lot of it is clueless. (Just a note in case anyone thinks I am part of the gnashing and wailing for my tallyboard heading "Tasmania Remains Ungovernable" - nup, it was a reference to "become ungovernable"; I am celebrating the way Tasmanians collectively refused to be told what to do and gave the major parties back another mess.)
As I start this article the numbers sit at Liberal 14 Labor 10 Greens 5 IND 4. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are strongly placed in Lyons and the last seat in Bass is a multi-party scramble with five or six contenders - we will know the outcome of that around August 2.
Meeting the House
The first thing I want to underline is that whatever the numbers, whatever the deals, whatever the deal-shaped objects, Jeremy Rockliff is the incumbent Premier. As the incumbent he has the clear right by convention to be recommissioned in order to "meet the house" and enable it to decide his destiny. Also he clearly intends to do it. It is common for Premiers in minority governments who appear to have lost the election (and it is not clear this is the case for Rockliff yet) to do this, because in theory an MP who was going to back the opposition might change their mind in the middle of the debate, and because decisions about whether a Premier has lost confidence should be made by Parliaments and not by the Governor's reading of MP's letters. The widespread misreading of Johnston's 2024 letters is a good example of why confidence needs to be determined on the floor. It is only where the office of Premier is vacant that the Governor must make a provisional decision.
