SATURDAY night was the night the lights were supposed to go out. The Labor governments in Tasmania and South Australia were facing their makers.

No one was in any doubt about the outcome in Tasmania. An unpopular government, famed for its ill-fated coalition with the Greens and noted only for its incompetence, was going down. Not only that, Labor was going down to historically low levels.

The Hare-Clark system in Tasmania was designed to be incomprehensible not only to the masses but to half the members of Mensa as well. While I can’t even pretend to understand all of its nuances, I do know that each of the five electorates elects five members.

If either party can get 13 seats, that is considered a triumph. The winning party would have to get 50 per cent of the first-preference vote to achieve this and that is no easy feat. That Will Hodgman’s Liberals got 14 seats says it all. It was a historic high for the Liberals, a disastrous low for Labor and a catastrophic debacle for the Greens.

Labor did poorly in the cities, towns, villages and hamlets. In 40 years of watching politics more closely than most, I haven’t seen electoral carnage as massive as this. Only one member per seat is not just bad, it is particularly dreadful.

None of this was apparent in listening to outgoing Premier Lara Giddings’ speech. It sounded much more like a victorious boast than a concession speech from a premier who had led her party to its worst-ever defeat.

media_camera Lara Giddings delivers her concession speech after Labor was defeated at the 2014 State Election.

Not a single mention of why Tasmanians had deserted Labor in droves. All we heard was a recitation of the great government she had led and of the great policy legacy of previous Labor premiers.

If Tasmanians were expecting even a hint of contrition, they were sadly disappointed.

Giddings did not even go near to telling her party or Tasmanians that she would be resigning forthwith. It was obvious that she is contemplating staying on. This was a display of arrogance that would do Alan Joyce proud.

You can’t preside over disasters and pretend it’s not your fault. I said on Sky News on Saturday night that “Harry the horse’’ would be a better candidate for opposition leader. My money’s on Harry.

Just as I was thinking it was safe to go back into the water, along came the Greens leader, Nick McKim. He went even longer than Giddings’ 20 minutes.

I couldn’t help thinking that neither Labor nor the Greens had lost.

McKim gave yet another rousing victory speech. His party had lost more than 40 per cent of its vote at the last election but McKim was unrepentant. This told me everything about the absolute conviction the Greens have about every pronouncement they make.

media_camera Greens leader Nick McKim’s speech went longer than any other leader’s but gave no indication that he had lost, and lost badly.

Their belief in their own infallibility is so strong they will doubtless pass a vote of no-confidence in the Tasmanian electorate at their next general meetings.

There will be no committee examining why the electorate rejected them so comprehensively, because their egos are too big to jump over. This is not merely an exercise in self-justification, it is an exercise in self deification.

The new Tasmanian premier-elect, Will Hodgman, was dignified, restrained and suitably humble in his speech. He managed to strike the right tone and hit all the right notes. It is a pity his father, the colourful former federal member Michael Hodgman, was not alive to see the win for himself.

Will Hodgman served eight years as opposition leader. This is unheard-of longevity in the job and he can never be criticised for lacking persistence or courage.

There should be a rule preventing any party from governing anywhere for more than 10 years.

The longer you go, the further you drag the talent pool to the shallow end. Tasmanian Labor was asking for 20 years and that was always going to be a bridge too far.

This is an extract from a column by Graham Richardson published in The Australian newspaper yesterday.