No Premier, no problem

Tasmania is running better without a captain

Tasmania is currently in caretaker mode. There’s no Premier running wild, no new laws being rushed through, and certainly no stadium deals signed at midnight. No last-minute favors for political mates. You can read more about what “caretaker mode” entails for governments here.

And you know what?

Everything feels strangely… calmer.

Our hospitals haven’t collapsed (any more than they already had). Schools are still open. The roads haven’t swallowed us whole. And for once, the State Budget isn’t being twisted into a campaign prop.

Welcome to Tasmania under a caretaker government. It’s arguably the most functional we’ve been in years.

No Jeremy, no Dean. Just progress

Both major parties have spent the last year making governance look far harder than it needs to be.

Jeremy Rockliff was obsessed with stadiums, silencing dissent, and blaming anyone who dared ask a hard question. His government have faced some serious criticism regarding budgets and transparency. His half-baked TasInsure doesn’t stack up.

Dean Winter walked away from the crossbench rather than form a government, then dragged us all into an early election with no clear plan, no platform, and no numbers. Reports from the time highlighted concerns about his leadership. He tried to do an Albo and be pictured with a Medicare card as if it was a policy.

Now, in their absence? The air feels clearer. Government departments are simply… getting on with things. No one’s leaking to the media every ten minutes. No one’s holding press conferences about press conferences.

Caretaker mode isn’t exciting, but that’s precisely the point. It’s stable. It’s quiet. It’s shockingly adult.

Perhaps the problem was the premiers all along

This moment tells us something critical: it’s not the system that’s broken – it’s often the people who try to run it.

Strip away the spin doctors, the ego battles, and the last-ditch pork-barreling, and Tasmania keeps ticking along. In fact, it ticks along better.

• No stadium backflips. The controversial Macquarie Point stadium project has been a major point of contention.
• No policy-on-the-run.
• No grand announcements with no funding attached.

It’s been refreshing to go a few weeks without hearing about billion-dollar distractions while essential services crumble. Perhaps this is what governing for the public, not just for headlines, truly looks like.

The case for a new kind of leadership

So, what comes next?

Because let’s face it: neither Rockliff nor Winter deserves to return from this. They’ve both shown they can’t lead, they can’t negotiate, and they can’t maintain a stable government. They treat democracy like an inconvenience and voters like background noise.

Let’s support independents and crossbenchers who can genuinely hold government to account – not tear it down for their own gain. Independents in parliament are essential, not wreckers as the major party leaders have you believe.

The best thing to happen to Tasmania’s government in months was… nobody being in charge.

That should genuinely scare the major parties. And it should wake up the rest of us.

Let’s not return to the same chaos just because the election timer went off. Let’s build something better – on purpose this time.