Paul Lennon - past his use-by date

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.