Tasmanian Labor has confirmed they are divided and stand for nothing in another embarrassing ‘Becflip’ over the Government’s Presumptive Mandatory Sentencing Bill.
After opposing it for a decade, the right faction of the Labor Party – led by aspiring Leader Dean Winter – has rolled Rebecca White, forcing the Caucus to support the policy.
The division was openly on display with the prominent left faction member Michelle O’Byrne, openly revolting against her leader and party, refusing to vote with the Party to support stronger penalties for child sexual offenders by failing to attend.
Ms O’Byrne, a self-proclaimed aficionado of Westminster democracy is well aware that pairing arrangements do not stand when paired parties intend to vote together.
The exiled David O’Byrne also abstained from the vote, despite speaking against the Bill, further demonstrating the deep divisions in the Labor Party.
Astonishingly, just moments after Tasmanian Labor voted to support the bill in the House of Assembly, Labor refused to support the suspension of standing orders in the upper house, preventing the Bill from being debated and delaying it from becoming law until 2024.
Whether it was a glaring act of incompetence or sheer hypocrisy, it is clear that Whishy Washy White has lost control of her own party.
This is just another example that Labor is trying to have it each way – they want Tasmanians to believe they support it for political convenience, and then vote it down in the darkness of night when the media have gone home.
They are all over the shop.
If there’s one thing Ms White is successful at, it’s reminding Tasmanians why they’ve overwhelmingly rejected her at the ballot box twice.
In the words of Tasmania Labor’s own former President, Ben McGregor last night, “Labor stand for nothing”.
And Tasmanians know it.
