A feature article in the Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Telegraph last Friday, not published on the web, has some not very nice things to say about Denison Independent MHR Andrew Wilkie. Normally mainland media comment would not be taken all that seriously in Tasmania, but two factors make it important.
One is the difficult position of the Gillard government, the first federal government to operate in a hung parliament since the Menzies, Fadden and Curtin governments between 1940 and 1943. Julia Gillard’s government depends on Wilkie (together with Victorian Green Adam Bandt and two former Nationals Independents from New South Wales, Windsor and Oakshott) for its very survival.
The other is the author of the article, the Telegraph’s new feature writer Graham Richardson. A friend of the Packers, a lobbyist against poker machine reform and a supporter of the “it’s un-Australian – a licence to punt” campaign by the gambling industry, he is no friend of Wilkie. Richardson, a former Senator from New South Wales and a key figure in the New South Wales ALP Right, is a modest man who doesn’t brag about his achievements. He is rightly credited with the making and unmaking of Prime Ministers and Premiers. With the help of Stephen Conroy and Bill Shorten he engineered the downfall of Kevin Rudd, but of course he won’t claim any of the credit. He is a tough and creditable opponent.
Recent opinion polls suggest that Labor might win an election under deposed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, but might lose one under Gillard. Richardson will have none of this. The headline of the feature article says it all. It reads “Julia’s worst fear is not Uncle Kevin.” Who is Julia’s worst fear? It isn’t Tony Abbott according to Richardson. It is Andrew Wilkie.
Richardson says Wilkie worries him, for he has wild eyes, the eyes of a zealot. He won’t compromise and he doesn’t care about being re-elected, unlike almost every other pollie.
Wilkie isn’t the only pollie with anti-gambling credentials. They come and go and can sometimes defeat legislation. Victoria didn’t get a jackpot totalisator in 1957 when the ALP and five remaining DLP members of the Legislative Council saw an opportunity to unite with two anti-gambling Country Party members to defeat the Bill. Victoria and every other state later got a TAB as a result, in Victoria’s case just two four years later when the Coalition had control of both houses of the Victorian parliament. Fred Nile in New South Wales is also a zealot, but he lacks numbers in that states upper house on gambling matters, but can sometimes get his way on other things. Nick Xenophon, a close friend of Wilkie and an Independent Senator from South Australia, was elected on an anti-pokies campaign. He has influence in the Senate, but will lose it to the Greens after July 1, with the increased representation of Greens in the upper chamber.
Xenophon in South Australia was never been able to get his way on pokie questions, for the loss of revenue is too great for the ALP and the Coalition parties irrespective of which party forms government. Outside parliament the greatest supporter of Wilke and Xenophon is probably Stephen Mayne, a Manningham Councillor and founder of the online news site Crikey, which unlike Tasmanian Times operates under a pay wall for much of its content. Mayne has contested several elections in Victoria on an anti-pokies platform, never with success, although he came close in Northern Metropolitan Region for Victoria’s Legislative Council last year, being narrowly defeated by a Liberal.
Richardson is confident that the Gillard government will improve its position in the polls, but feels it needs to run its full term if it is to have any chance of re-election. Will Wilkie bring down the Gillard government? It is a big price to pay on the pokies issue if the proposed pre-commitment scheme for players is not made mandatory, or isn’t adopted soon enough. Tasmania has a history of close and hung parliaments. In Canberra there has been only two hung parliament elected in the last 100 years, in 1940 and 2010.
What happened in 1940? Two Independents initially supported the Menzies government, but Menzies was replaced by the Country Party leader Arthur Fadden, who served as Prime Minister for two months. The Independents, Coles and Wilson, voted against the Fadden government in a confidence motion and the Governor General called for John Curtin, the leader of the ALP, who served as Prime Minister until his death in 1945.
Will Wilkie do a Coles and Wilson? If he does Julia Gillard may ask the Governor General, Bill Shorten’s mother-in-law, for a dissolution. Or the Governor General might ask for Tony Abbott.
Reference: Graham Richardson, “Julia’s worst fear is not Uncle Kevin,” Daily Telegraph (Sydney), Friday 24 June 2011, Page 34 Opinion.
Lyle Allan lives in Melbourne and is a close and informed observer of politics, especially Labor Party politics.
