SUCH are the portents that even the Greens are now predicting an outright Liberal win at the election this weekend.

“The Tasmanian people will elect a hard-line Eric Abetz-run Liberal majority government in Tasmania,” said Greens leader Nick McKim in a none-too-subtle dig at Will Hodgman’s apparently close links with Right-wing Liberal powerbroker Eric Abetz, whose former chief of staff took over four years ago as head of the Opposition Leader’s office.

Certainly the latest ReachTEL Poll commissioned by the Mercury — showing 54.6 per cent support for Hodgman as premier, and statewide 47.4 per cent backing for his Liberal Party — makes another hung parliament seem unlikely.

The only certain prediction that can be made is that Labor will not win enough seats to govern in its own right.

Indeed, after the power-sharing experiment that delivered a remarkable level of stable government and co-operation between Labor and the Greens, the ALP looks to be on the brink of electoral extinction.

Although it’s a long shot, the opinion polling suggests the Greens could win more seats than Labor, and thus become the official opposition, leaving Labor humiliatingly as a crossbench party.

That would be almost unthinkable for Tasmania, which at heart has always been a Labor state. Labor has been in government in Tasmania for 63 of the past 80 years. It spent a record 35 consecutive years in office from the 1930s through to the end of the 1960s; it governed Tasmania for 45 of the 48 years between 1934 and 1982.

But Labor is facing the electorate for the third election in a row with a first-term premier. Even Lara Giddings admits the Labor faithful feel jilted by the four-year partnership with the Greens.

The polls, and history, point to a Liberal win. Single terms of minority and coalition government in Tasmania have invariably been followed immediately by a comfortable win by the opposition party.

It is not that minority government — or, as we had for four years, “power-sharing” coalition government — does not work, or that it threatens the democratic process.

Indeed, “creative tension” generated by no single party being able to dictate the political agenda has led to some of the best examples of reformist government in the state’s history.

The Bethune Liberal-Centre Parties coalition government (1969-72) delivered more reforms in three years than consecutive Labor administrations had done in 35 years. There were long-overdue improvements to the Criminal Code, police training and the prison system; road safety was taken seriously for the first time; and tourism was recognised as an industry worth promoting.

The written Accord between the Field Labor Government (1989-92) and five Greens ended in tears, but only after the Government had made some notable environmental reforms and great strides in getting Tasmania out of a financial hole that had been dug by the Liberals.

And the minority Rundle Liberal Government (1996-98), which operated thanks to the unwritten and informal support of the Green cross-bench, was credited with numerous initiatives — gay law reform, and the tightening of lax gun controls in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, to name just two of the more memorable ones. Liberal premier Tony Rundle described it as “the most dynamic period of government in recent political history”.

But the problem with minority government is that neither of the major parties, Labor nor Liberal, enjoys having to compromise by accepting policies of a partner, be it the Greens or a rebel breakaway independent.

And the punters, the electors, dislike it just as much. The business community considers minority government unstable and uncertain; and the voters think minority government looks too chaotic, too untidy and unruly — that it makes it difficult for a government to “get things done”.

The reality is very different. The Labor-Green Government of the past four years provided stability and was not a particularly bad government (especially given the limitations created by the ill-advised cut in the number of MPs in 1998). Parliament’s critical mass has been reduced to below what is necessary to provide a cabinet, opposition, backbench or parliamentary committee system of sufficient breadth and depth to cope with the complexities of 21st century government in a highly competitive federation.

And faced with the serious financial constraints, it is doubtful whether any other government could have done much better than those led by David Bartlett and Lara Giddings in coalition with the Greens.

Under a Liberal government there will be a swing back to the Right, after a period during which social issues such as euthanasia, abortion and gay marriage were at least debated, and attempts were made to reach a settlement in the forestry wars

The Liberals have not offered a fiscal agenda much different from Labor’s. They have merely promised to improve on Labor, but without much in detail. Even the promise to reduce the size of the public sector workforce is vague.

The Liberals have had a small-target strategy. They have refused to even participate in debates when the Greens are present (as if they can dictate who may and who may not contest the election).

With minority government becoming more the norm — not just in Australia both federally and in all states, but in Europe, Britain, Canada and New Zealand — the challenge to the parties is to convert the results delivered by the voters into stable, acceptable, popular reality.

Hodgman has threatened to refuse to form a government unless the Liberals win at least an absolute majority of 13 seats.

It is a peculiar promise that amounts to saying he would rather see Labor continue in minority government, than step up to the plate himself.

Giddings has not gone quite so far, and has promised only not to form another alliance in government with the Greens.

But given the opinion poll results, neither leader seems likely to be faced with that dilemma.

The bigger issue for Tasmania’s natural party of government is how to return from an electoral bloodbath.

Wayne Crawford is a former Associate Editor at the Mercury and a Walkley Award-winning political reporter.