Nightcliff By-Election (This May Be A Very Short Thread)

Just a quick thread on the Nightcliff by-election (NT) caused by the resignation of the Greens' Kat Macnamara. NT elections don't have many booths and at present we're waiting for the big prepoll which is most of the count, with Suki Dorras-Walker (Grn) leading Ed Smelt (ALP) by 22 votes 2CP 536-514 on the 2CP votes counted so far., with a small number counted only to primary  The big EVC could put this one to bed once it reports on primaries and 2CP... or it could be on we go.  

8:05 The primaries from the big prepoll are in and Dorras-Walker 1220 leads Smelt 1051 Paudel (CLP)  738 Scott (IND) 629.  With almost 1000 votes from Paudel and Scott to add, if the flow so far continues Labor will move to a substantial lead.

9:30 Long wait for the bomb to drop ... (apparently the count is done but has not been posted yet)

10:40 Finally up and subject to checking if the votes so far counted it appears that Labor have won as Smelt is 141 ahead after preferences.  Margins over 100 in general stick in the NT.

Sunday: If Labor's lead holds this will be another relatively rare case of a major party beating a non-major from behind on preferences. But this particular scenario (Labor beats Greens on Coalition preferences) is becoming more common.

Monday: A check count has increased Smelt's lead to 158 and confirmed that he will win. A very welcome urban gain for NT Labor after being reduced to four bush MPs in 2024.

Tasmania Redistribution: Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

 

The much-awaited proposal redistribution of Tasmania's federal (and by normal standards, state) electoral boundaries has been published.  I discussed the challenges facing the Redistribution Committee in my piece Clark Must Expand, But Where?  In the draft proposal, the winner is "south".

The Committee (note, it is not correct to refer to the Committee as "the AEC" as two members are AEC and two are not) has proposed one of the more radical options that was considered in the process.  Somewhat against my expectations based on the large movement of electors, they've decided that the further creep of Clark into Kingston, cutting parts further south off from their urban centre, really was unsustainable and it is now time to bite the bullet.  They have recommended the southern boundaries of Clark, Lyons and Franklin as proposed by former Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman (there was a similar proposal by current Clarence Councillor James Walker).  Clark becomes Hobart City, Kingborough and the Huon Valley, Franklin becomes Clarence, Brighton, Sorell and the lower and central east coast and Lyons becomes, well, whatever that is.  In the north they've gone for the orthodox approach of Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale into Bass, so I don't think anybody got their exact suggestion in full.  

The approach that has been taken is to give each of the three electorates an urban centre, which means Greater Hobart is cut in three with each part getting a hinterland.  Taken this way, Tasmania's cities are split up between the five divisions, rather than having one almost purely city division and one almost purely rural one.  Lyons is also less sprawling reducing the number of tiny towns any new candidate has to canvass.

As a Clark resident (just under 2 km from the proposed border with Lyons) I think that proposed neo-Clark makes a high degree of thematic sense.  It no longer has the old Hobart/Glenorchy divide with two halves that were both decidedly left-wing but socially quite different.  Most of the proposed neo-Clark links in socially with aspects of Hobart City very well - Kingston and Blackmans Bay with Taroona and Sandy Bay, the very green Channel, Bruny and far south with South Hobart/Cascades/Fern Tree and so on.  Having traditional Huon Valley forestry and farming areas in the same seat as the inner city does stick out but I expect the seat would get used to it.

Most of neo-Franklin makes a lot of sense too though as it extends up the east coast held together by a relatively minor LGA that sense becomes a little stretched; Bicheno in the same seat as Bellerive etc.  It's neo-Lyons that I still find to be rather odd.  Glenorchy is the urban centre and it connects to New Norfolk, but its connection to the Midlands is interfered with by passing through the Brighton LGA, the main point of which seems to be making it easier for me to pass through all five electorates in one day.  This is strongly driven by a concern about boundaries not crossing the Derwent River but I'd be interested to know how many Bridgewaterians (I'm sure there is some shorter lingo, Bridgies?) connect more with Clarence than they do with Glenorchy.   Probably to me this lack of direct connection of Glenorchy to much of Lyons through the highway is the most difficult part of this proposal.  This said, as I've been stressing all along, every possible solution seems to have something big wrong with it.  Omelette, eggs.  

Initial feedback on twitter is quite positive but I can't tell if the respondents are Tasmanians or not!  I've started the same not-a-poll here in the sidebar.

Political Impacts

Ben Raue and William Bowe have compiled stats on redistribution estimates.  (EDIT: See also Antony Green).  William finds that the 2PP impact (if that's still a thing in 2028) is negligible save that Lyons becomes about a point better for Labor and Clark close to the reverse.  (Ben's estimate for the Lyons improvement is larger.)  Ben's Senate analysis is really helpful in steering around all the chaos of independents (and the Green candidate withdrawing from campaigning in Franklin) - on an underlying basis Labor loses 2.4% in Clark, largely to Liberals and a little to the Greens.  Labor gains two points in Franklin where the Greens lose 4.3 and the Greens improve nearly three points in the new Lyons  at the expense of the Liberals.  

Ben also has estimates for state level where Labor seriously struggles in the new Clark, though that is partly because both David O'Byrne and Peter George ran in the ex-Franklin section, when probably now only one would run.  New Franklin is notionally good for the majors on account of a reduced independent presence on the east coast, but O'Byrne would pick up votes in Brighton and Sorell LGAs.  The Shooters Fishers and Farmers lose ground from there no longer being a single non-urban electorate though One Nation might look at the new Lyons still with interest as they are capable of getting votes in northern Glenorchy.   

For parties there would be some interesting decisions to be made.  For instance based on local support levels for particular candidates the Liberals could shuffle Eric Abetz from Franklin to Clark, Jane Howlett from Lyons to Franklin and move Madeleine Ogilvie from Clark to Lyons to have an incumbent with connection to Glenorchy.  Labor could do the same thing with Dean Winter, Josh Willie and Jen Butler.  For the Greens there's a question whether they would keep Rosalie Woodruff in Franklin, or given her historic support base in the new Clark section run both her and Vica Bayley in Clark to shore up their chances of two seats and find a new candidate for Franklin.   Another factor here is that Tabatha Badger is currently contesting the Greens' Senate preselection, and if she wins that then Alastair Allan who lives in the Lyons part of the new Franklin may become an MP for the current Lyons.  

For independents Kristie Johnston is the former Mayor of Glenorchy, but over time her support has shifted into Hobart City (in part because Hobart City hates the planned AFL stadium but it's not really an issue in Glenorchy).  If Peter George ran again, his support is slightly stronger in the new Clark, and Johnston and George could be treading on each others' toes a lot if they ran in the same seat, but the Labor vote is so weak there that it's plausible both would still win - creating a rerun of Franklin 2025 where out of two independents, two Labor and two Greens somebody has to lose.  Overall the redistribution is a nuisance for several of the current state non-Greens crossbenchers, Johnston and Carlo Di Falco probably most of all.  

Federally, Ben has given an estimated margin of IND vs ALP 9.2% for Andrew Wilkie in Clark, based on simply giving him Peter George's 2CP results in the old Franklin.  I also think Wilkie would do better than that, but I will have a close look at how much better if the proposal is adopted, including studying how various modelling methods fared in the seats where incumbent teals moved into new territory.  

The other disclaimer I should add regarding the boundaries applying to state level is that there have been grumblings from some supporters of both major parties about the current 5x7 seat system, accompanied by very weak arguments.  The federal boundaries will flow on to state if nothing changes with the state electoral system, but I can't yet be absolutely certain that's the case. I would hope any attempt to change the system to either 7x5 or 35x1, at least, would get short shrift in the independent-dominated Legislative Council given that no party has a mandate for such vandalism.  

The Redistribution Committee has also indicated possible interest in renaming Franklin on the grounds that its namesake is extensively commemorated and relatively irrelevant and the change in the seat's shape is a major one, but it was not persuaded by any of the suggested alternative names that have been offered, in terms of connection to the new electorate.  An anomoly if the electorate name Franklin is kept is that the town of Franklin will now be in Clark.  The hunt is on for a persuasive and preferably pronounceable new name for the seat.  

What happens now?

Firstly there is now a feedback phase where people who are displeased by the proposed redistribution can make comments (which I will probably cover in an update to this article), and then a phase for comments on the comments.  People can also in this process support the proposed boundaries or suggest minor amendments.  (It is not clear what those would be given the current draft's near-total adherence to LGA boundaries).  It sometimes happens that radical redraw proposals encounter a tsunami of objections and are withdrawn, but we will see if this happens.  My recommendation to anyone objecting to the draft is to say what you would do instead and explain you consider it better.

There has been some misreporting to suggest that voters will receive new MPs representing them once the redistribution completes (if the proposal is adopted).  The current boundaries and representative arrangements remain in place until an election is held on the new boundaries (whatever they are), and this includes for any federal by-elections that may be held in that time.  

Clarification:  In the case of a state election, the boundaries become the state boundaries once the redistribution is finished and formalised at Commonwealth level and legislation adopting the results has been passed at State level.  On this basis it is possible the boundaries could first appear at a state election held before the federal election, but given that the determination of the federal boundaries is scheduled for 8 October 2026, that would not apply to any state election held this year.  However state MPs would also continue to represent their current state electorates between the adopting legislation being passed and such an election being held.  

NB The excellent auredistribution site has been reconfigured with the current draft.

Why Did One Nation Win 11 Seats In Queensland 1998 But None In 1998 Federal?

The One Nation party (which I am on the verge of restyling Wuss Nation after its sobbing about its poor supporters being traumatised by filling out ballot papers) has been attacking compulsory preferential voting in the leadup to the South Australian election.

Linked into this I came across a narrative from Pauline Hanson which I thought deserved detailed examination.  Interviewed on Sky (and yet again, where else) Hanson told the tale of how in 1998 her party won eleven seats from scratch in the 1998 Queensland election and noted that it was optional preferential voting.  Then she moved on to the 1998 federal election where although her party won over a million votes, all the other parties recommended preferences against One Nation and they didn't win any seats.  Famously she lost Blair where the major parties cross-recommended against her.  

She doesn't in this excerpt mention what became of those eleven Queensland seats.  Every single one of those MPs quit the party or the parliament by the end of the 1998-2001 term, though One Nation did retain two of those seats and win a third with different candidates.    But my interest here is, is there really any causal link between the current OPV/CPV debate and what happened in those two elections?  Or are the explanations different?  A warning that this article is very numbery and has been graded Wonk Factor 4/5.

Tall Cories: Bernardi's Bunkum About Preferences

I was going to leave a comment about this until the next SA roundup but I feel that Cory Bernardi's nonsense about compulsory preferential voting should be dealt with a little faster than that.  Normally writing a whole article about what may well have just been a two-word misspeak might be considered mountain/molehill territory.  However Bernardi's statement has been reported uncritically by at least one media source, circulated by the party, and strangest by far, given a free pass on social media by some people who have brains.  

One Nation have also claimed off the back of Bernardi's comments that "we will make preference deals a thing of the past by giving voters the choice to distribute their preferences or not. "  But in fact optional preferencing doesn't do that.  It reduces the rate of deals as some parties choose not to recommend preferences, but many parties do still recommend preferences (which is what people often mean when they say "preference deals") and may negotiate about these decisions (actual deals).  There were several accusations about "preference deals" in the 2023 NSW state election.  

Bernardi in an interview from Sky (where else) said this re One Nation when asked about what preferencing decisions One Nation might engage with for the upcoming SA election:

One of our actual key policies this year is to make compulsory preferential voting actually optional, so that people don’t have to, or are not forced to, vote for a party that is against their values, or is against their lifestyle or how they want to live their lives.

Now, firstly here, the hide of him!  This is Cory Bernardi spouting the virtues of people not having to have the slightest imposition that might be claimed to cut across their values, their lifestyle or how they want to live their lives. Cory Bernardi is best known for trying to stop same-sex couples from being allowed to get married.  

EMRS: What Happens When You Take A Mess And Then Throw In One Nation?

EMRS Lib 29 (-5) ALP 23 (-2) Green 15 (-2) IND 15 (-4) ON 14 (new) others 4 (-1)

Seat estimate off this poll if election "held now" Lib 10-13 ALP 9-10 Grn 5 ON 4 IND 4-5 SFF 0-1

EMRS have released basic details of the first Tasmanian voting intention poll to include One Nation in the readout (I will add a link to the full report when it is up).  One Nation are in the process of registering for state elections but are not registered yet.  This follows a federal poll for the state they released on Friday.  

The addition of One Nation has immediately seen them record a substantial 14%, but this is well below the 24% they recorded in the Tasmanian federal poll, with the Liberal vote in particular holding up much better.  One Nation's gains have come from across the board, but especially from a government that was already down on its election result in the previous poll, meaning that when this poll is compared with the election, most of the 14 points is at the expense of the Government which is down 11.  Labor and the Greens are not so far off their state marker, Independents may in effect be down somewhat given that Tasmanian state polls offering a generic "independent" option tend to overestimate election support for independents by about 4 points.

South Australia 2026: What Can The Right Still Win?

Polling for SA election is very lopsided with right very fragmented

Estimate if Newspoll is correct: approx 1 Liberal and 3 One Nation seats

Off YouGov: approx 4 Liberal and 1-2 One Nation seats

Polling may moderate by election day

------------------------------------------------------------

I've been hoping for enough material to start substantial coverage of the South Australian election and it's finally arrived with polls by Newspoll and YouGov.  Prior to that there had been a string of extremely lopsided polls last year, and a Fox&Hedgehog poll in a similar vein early last week.  The YouGov poll pretty much replicates Fox&Hedgehog's finding that the conservative side is split in two with the Liberals bleeding greatly to One Nation while Labor enjoys a massive lead.  The Newspoll is even worse for the Liberals and could (if it happened) even wipe them out completely.  My estimate is that on average for the Newspoll voting intentions the Liberals would win one seat and One Nation about three, and for the YouGov poll that the Liberals might manage three or four and One Nation just one or two; it's possible there will be about as many (or more) independents as right-party MPs.  However there is a lot still to unfold with where One Nation support goes during the campaign and whether the Liberals can improve.  

What is suggested by the polls so far really aint supposed to happen.  The Malinauskas government is only at the end of its first term, but it is federally dragged, and not even by a first term federal government at that.  John Bannon in 1985 was the last State Premier to get a seat share swing at all in that circumstance.  But these are incredible times in polling and Peter Malinauskas is very popular (with a +40 Newspoll netsat).  At the same time we have what looks like a severe disruption if not a realignment on the right nationally and the SA Libs are a disaster zone.   One has to roll one's eyes repeatedly at news that "Liberal strategists" are hoping for a sympathy vote they don't deserve and trying to argue that a viable opposition is needed.  That worked so well for the similarly hapless outfit that was reduced to two seats in WA 2021.  

Farrer By-Election 2026

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)
By-Election 9 May
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

The rolling of Sussan Ley as leader of a floundering Liberal Party has led to a fascinating by-election for her seat of Farrer.  This guide will be updated from time to time with any polling news and with items of interest re candidates etc.  I will be providing live coverage on the night of May 9.

Farrer

Much of the electoral history of Farrer has been told in Antony Green's post here.  It has had just four MPs since 1949, three Liberals and a National.  Until very recently it had only ever been of the slightest interest when vacant.  Tim Fischer easily won the seat for the Nationals at the 1984 general election.  On his retirement in 2001 Sussan Ley gained it for the Liberals by 206 votes after preferences, the result being so close only because Labor ran and recommended preferences to the Nationals.

The seat has never been 2PP-competitive, only sneaking into technical 2PP-marginal territory by a handful of votes in 1972.  It saw its first serious independent attempt when Albury Mayor Kevin Mack ran against Ley in 2019.  This attempt was so hyped that betting agencies gave Mack a roughly even chance of winning but Ley won very easily, clearing 50% on primaries with a 60.9% 2CP.  

Until the 2025 election Ley had the longest active streak of wins on first preferences in the parliament (seven) but the challenge from Voices of Farrer and Climate200 endorsed Michelle Milthorpe severely dented Ley's primary vote and Ley finished up with only a 6.2% margin after preferences.  However, Farrer remained one of the most conservative seats in the country, ranking 11th on Coalition House of Reps 2PP down from 8th in 2022.  Some might think its 2PP being near the top of the list was down to Ley's personal vote but this is actually not true at all; on above the line Senate 2PP Farrer was in fact the Coalition's fourth best seat nationwide. 

Who's in the mix?

There are five four possibly competitive forces in Farrer.  Comments re candidates will be added when known but this is not intended as a candidate guide. 

* Liberals.  Will contest.  Justin Clancy (MP for Albury (Lib 16.3%)) was reported as a possible Liberal contender (setting up a scenario where he and Helen Dalton might both resign their state seats to run) but isn't running.  The candidate is Raissa Butkowski, a 

* Nationals.  Will contest.  The Nationals candidate is Brad Robertson, a former military commander.

* One Nation.  Will contest. Sooner than they might have liked, One Nation faces a potential get off the pot moment.  If their national polling is still as high as at present following the change in Liberal leadership then they would be expected to poll strongly in this by-election and failure to do so would damage their momentum and raise some questions about their standing in the polls. The One Nation candidate is David Farley, a prominent agricultural businessman.  As is common with One Nation candidates he already has a problematic past comment that has resurfaced - but this one is also attracting more endorsements than most.

* Milthorpe (IND).  Will contest. Michelle Milthorpe immediately announced she would run for Farrer again.  

Also-rans 

Interesting by-elections often attract large fields of uncompetitive micro-party and obscure independent candidates, some of whom are often paper candidates from nowhere near the electorate.  Farrer could easily have a total field well into double figures.

* The Greens' candidate is Richard Hendrie. 

* Family First (v 2) immediately announced they would re-run Rebecca Scriven who polled 2.15% in 2025.

* Gerard Rennick People First announced they were running, to the vivid interest of nobody; they came last with 2.02% in 2025.  

* Jordi Queiruga (IND) is an economist whose name in that form draws a whole three hits for me in Google.  His website calls for "Sustainable immigration" so I'm classifying him as not a teal.  

* The unregistered Riverina State Party (which supports a new state covering the Victorian/NSW border areas) has expressed interest in running but this may be contingent on its registration being approved in time, which appears extremely unlikely.  The party submitted a list of 1646 putative members to the AEC in late October 2025 but has not been advertised yet.  The advertising phase followed by AEC assessment takes more than a month and party registration freezes once the writ is issued for the by-election.  (I've heard they may have passed AEC checking prior to advertising.)

I am aware of at least one more possible minor independent but in the case of stray Facebook posts I like to wait until things get more concrete before reporting them.  

Not Contesting

* Dalton (IND) Helen Dalton is the state MP for the district of Murray, which is the western end of Farrer.  She won the seat in 2019 as an endorsed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate but running a largely independent-style campaign.  She quit said party in 2022 over water issues, and was returned as an independent in 2023 with an outright majority in a field of ten candidates.  Dalton was already canvassing a possible run for Farrer in 2028.  She would have to resign her state seat to contest.  On Mar 6 Dalton confirmed she would not contest.  

* Labor:  I did not believe Labor could have be competitive if they ran and I could not see much reason for them to risk embarrassment by doing so, so I was not surprised they decided not to bother.  Independents will miss that portion of their Labor preferences that comes from how to vote cards, but it is also possible in such a crowded field that an ALP run could have squeezed out independents and stopped them winning.

Prospects

This section will be edited where needed to update it.  As of 15 March we have a messy four-way battle where it is not obvious who the final two will be.    The AEC will have a challenging task in picking which candidate pair to use for the notional two-candidate count on the night (they may go with Liberal vs Milthorpe just because those were the final two last time, though there has been one poll suggesting One Nation could make the final two.)

Farrer is a relatively strong seat for One Nation, but not super strong.  Their Reps primary of just an average 6.6% is misleading because it would have been affected by Milthorpe and the relatively large field.  In the Senate, One Nation polled 9.96% in Farrer, compared to a NSW total of 6.06%.  If their national polling swing is real and flows through to Farrer they should be looking at a primary of at very least high 20s and probably much more (because One Nation tend to get inflated swings in strong areas) - but it's not that simple.

At the 2025 election, minor right preferences did not assist Ley vs Milthorpe, with One Nation, Family First and GRPF breaking only slightly to her and Trumpet of Patriots and Shooters Fishers and Farmers preferences breaking to Milthorpe.  This suggests a lot of the voters in Farrer while anti-Labor aren't wildly pro-Coalition either and are looking for any alternative ahead of the majors (something we also saw with strong ON flows to independents in the 2022 SA election).  I'd expect on that basis that any independents that run and One Nation are to a more than obvious degree fishing in the same pond.  Perhaps this will make it hard for One Nation to get a really high primary.

It is possible that Milthorpe could get a large enough primary from many of the seat's non-conservative voters to lead on primaries, with the question then being how strong are the flows between the conservative parties and in what order they are knocked out.  Butkowski seems a good choice by the Liberals to attempt to cover off against Milthorpe.  

Dalton would have been a dangerous opponent on preferences had she run and made the final two, but with a splintered vote and having to sit between Milthorpe and One Nation it could have been hard for her to do so.

All kinds of modelling and calculations may be entered into as to what might occur here but in a rural electorate and with this being a by-election and not a general, I suspect a lot of it will be about candidate quality and the outcome could therefore be quite different from any modelling attempt.  

Polls etc

Single-seat polling is unreliable.

An Australia Institute seat poll (presumably a uComms poll) was reported on 9 Mar taken sometime between 5 and 9 Mar with "One Nation topped the count at 28.6 per cent of the total, followed by independent Ms Milthorpe (23.3 per cent), the Liberal Party (19.1 per cent), Labor (not running - 9 per cent), undecided voters (8.6 per cent) and the Greens (3.9 per cent), and the remaining 2.3 per cent favoured another party or candidate."  The news.com.au report omitted a feeble 5.2% for the Nationals.  While the media report said 64.1% of the non-One Nation voters would not consider voting for them at all ... which doesn't necessarily mean they won't preference them.  After reallocating Labor and undecided thanks to the full poll report (with a few minor design issues not helping) I estimate the primaries at One Nation 31.4 Milthorpe 29.4 Liberal 21.7 National 7.4 Green 5.4 other 2.7 (an underestimate as other was excluded from the undecided voter follow-up), unaccounted for 1.8.  Note that Milthorpe's support could be overestimated by her being named, so there's actually a good chance here that the final two would be One Nation vs Liberal, making it possible the Liberals could retain on Milthorpe and Greens preferences.  As with many uComms polls the 18-34 age group is curiously conservative looking in this poll.  A question in the form "who do you least want to win" gets One Nation 37.1 Milthorpe 29.5 Liberal 22.2 National 11.2.   

In non-poll news:

A projection tweeted by the 6 News @auspoll6 Twitter account (with One Nation very narrowly winning) was incorrectly claimed to be a poll by some accounts despite being explicitly labelled as a projection based off Newspoll and as not being a by-election prediction.  The tweet has now been deleted following criticism, including from Pyxis who conduct Newspoll.  What was not stated in the tweet was that the projection (with One Nation narrowly beating Liberal) was not even a uniform swing projection off Newspoll but was a projection of what would happen in Farrer if a general election was held now based on various (as far as I'm aware) unpublished assumptions about how the primary votes found by Newspoll would be reflected in particular seats.  There is a danger even if someone grasps that such a model is a projection of them thinking that there is one particular way to project a seat off a national poll, or even that projecting a seat off a national poll is any kind of reliable exercise.  

Other projections such as MRP outputs are of limited value too.  MRP outputs are meant to be collectively indicative of groups of seat types, and not reliable for a single seat at the best of times.  But also they are not designed for by-elections.  For a by-election what we want to see is seat-specific polling, preferably neutrally commissioned, transparent and certainly without any "aided vote" preambles.

Betting

Amusingly, seat betting has been seen.  Seat betting is not reliably predictive.  As of 16 Feb an early offering was NAT 2.00 Ind 2.99 ON 4.50 Lib 4.75 ALP 34 Greens 67.  

23 Feb: Ind 2.50 Nat 2.60 ON 3.50 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

5 Mar: Ind 1.91 Nat 3.40 ON 4.33 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

As of 13 Mar the above odds hadn't moved, a different site had Ind 1.65 ON 2.75 Nat 4.50 Lib 8.00.  On 15 Mar Ind was out to 1.75 and Nat in to 3.75 on that one.  

16 Mar: Second market now at Ind 1.90 ON 2.40 Nat 3.75 Lib 9.00.  

More will be added through the campaign.  

DemosAU: Status Quo-ish Poll, But Is There An Elephant Outside The Room?

DemosAU: Liberal 35 Labor 23 Greens 15 IND 17 SF+F 4 others 6

Although poll finds Liberals down five on election, most likely result based off this poll would be no seat change from the 2025 election

The new quarterly Tasmanian state DemosAU poll is out (link to Pulse coverage), with the pollster joining EMRS in regularly canvassing Tasmanian state politics being a most welcome development.  It's my habit to write a separate article for every new Tasmanian poll that appears at least outside campaign season, but I don't have a huge amount to say about this one.  It's actually quite similar to the November EMRS with primaries of 35-23-15-17-10 compared with 34-25-17-19-5.  

The slight improvement of the Independent vote compared to the election is of no consequence given that Tasmanian polls tend to overestimate the Independent vote anyway.  The Liberals have dropped 5% on the primary vote, which on a uniform swing places Braddon in danger to the Greens (given they beat the Greens by 5.3 points there in 2025) but I would expect some of the losses to go to candidates whose preferences would help the Liberals more than the Greens.  As for the Labor primary, hmmm ... 23%, that's not good.  DemosAU does have some tendency in polls elsewhere to have major parties a bit lower than other polls, but at this stage compared to EMRS this is not apparent here.

Not-A-Poll Reset 1 of 2026: Ley Rolled

Well at least she lasted longer than Alexander Downer.

As expected by a strong plurality of voters in my sidebar Not-A-Poll, Sussan Ley, who replaced Peter Dutton, was the next of the canvassed leaders to depart.  However for a while prior to the 2025 Tasmanian election, Jeremy Rockliff was in the lead.  Rockliff would have got a fair few more votes except that I closed off the poll while the Tasmanian election was being resolved.  This is something I do so people don't get credit for voting for a leader who was in the process of losing an election in the count on the night, but in Rockliff's case the uncertainty about whether he had survived dragged on for over a month.  In recent weeks almost all the action has been on Ley, who between 28 and 31 Jan got 37 votes in a row, but there was still the odd flash of dissent (someone voted for Chris Minns on Tuesday!)

This is Not-A-Poll's fifth successful prediction in the last six changes, improving the overall record for this series to 7/14.