Political pundits have weighed in on Premier Will Hodgman’s reluctance to reveal the date of the 2018 state election, with one expert saying he cannot see the political advantage of such tactics.
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Mr Hodgman has only confirmed that an election will be held in March, but has so far refused to disclose a precise date.
According to the State Parliament’s caretaker conventions, once an incumbent Premier announces the date of an election, the government enters caretaker mode.
This means it is not able to initiate any new policies, as it is not permitted to access public service resources such as departmental data.
Political analyst Richard Herr said he was “baffled” by the Premier’s decision to “play cat and mouse with the date”.
“If he’s trying to avoid caretaker conventions, the fact is that as far as the public service is concerned, they’re aware that the election is underway, they’re aware that they have to behave with non-partisan propriety,” Dr Herr said.
“So I don’t see that it’s a whole lot different than the introduction of formal caretaker conventions.
“I think the public service would probably feel very reluctant to do work that looked as if it was really building the platform for an election campaign – even now.”
Dr Herr said the reason for this was that the government had made “repeated assurances” that the election would fall at some point in March.
“Up until the caretaker conventions kick in, you can ask the public service for data on electricity use or all sorts of things that you might be able to use as campaign fodder,” he said.
“Because it’s related to the ministries’ work, not necessarily to an election.”
Dr Herr added that this was the only reason he could see that the Premier would want to hold off on revealing the election date.
“That’s the only advantage that one can see, if it’s a real advantage,” he said.
Another political analyst, Kevin Bonham suggested Mr Hodgman may be concerned that Tasmanians would start complaining about the election campaign being too long if he announced the date sooner rather than later.
This is despite the fact that one can name an election date without actually calling an election.
“Once the date is named, people say the campaign’s effectively started, even if the election hasn’t been formally called,” Dr Bonham said.
He speculated that the election would be held on either March 3 or March 17 (which is the same day as the South Australian election) due to two long weekends falling in that month.
When contacted for comment, Mr Hodgman simply said the election would be held in March.
“In the meantime, we’re getting on with the job of governing, as we were elected to do,” he said.
