Democracy Sausage: Tasmania’s minority report

Is Tasmania ungovernable or just badly governed? Why do the major parties keep pretending they have mandates when voters have abandoned them? And what does Tasmania’s experience with minority governments tell us about where Australian democracy is heading?

On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga are joined by Associate Professor Kate Crowley and Ben Raue to discuss Tasmania’s perpetual political instability in the wash-up from July’s election.

Kate Crowley is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tasmania’s School of Social Sciences. She is an expert on minority government and environmental politics, and editor of ‘Minority Government: The Liberal-Green Experience in Tasmania’.

Ben Raue is an election analyst and founder of The Tally Room, one of Australia’s leading sources for electoral analysis, maps and data covering federal, state and local elections.

Mark Kenny is the Director of the ANU Australian Studies Institute. He came to the University after a high-profile journalistic career including six years as chief political correspondent and national affairs editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times. 

Marija Taflaga is the Director of the ANU Centre for the Study of Australian Politics and a Lecturer at the ANU School of Politics and International Relations.

Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to democracysausage@anu.edu.au. 

This podcast is produced by The Australian National University.