Tasmania Redistribution: The Franklin Renaming Fiasco

In 1984 there was a proposal to rename the electorate that is now called Lyons (and was then called Wilmot) "Truganini".  For a little while this was being reported and discussed in papers, there was widespread opposition and the change was withdrawn.  Wilmot became Lyons instead.  I was twelve years old at the time and I remember this in broad outline.  But I wonder if the Augmented Electoral Commission's corporate memory goes back this far.  

Unfortunately we yet again have had a redistribution proposal for a Tasmanian electorate to have an Aboriginal name where that proposal has been supported out of pretty much nowhere and sparked significant opposition.  Last week's boundary announcement has seen 272 written submissions, most of them opposing the proposed replacement of the name Franklin with Tongerlongeter.

I want to contrast this with the process that led to the replacement of the name Denison with Clark.  By the time this change was made in the 2017 redistribution, there was a very well organised movement to change Denison to Clark.  This proposal had been active in the previous cycle and by the 2017 cycle its adherents included several prominent Tasmanians, judges, current and former politicians and there was even a petition supporting it.  It is true that the new name was not endorsed until the Augmented Electoral Commission stage but by that stage the proposal was so well known that anyone with anything to say had said it, and the change of name attracted only three further objections, I don't think any of them from Tasmanians.  People might have agreed or disagreed with the change but people knew why the change was being proposed, why Clark if there was a new name, and why there were objections to Denison.

Contrast this with debate about changing Franklin.  Redistribution processes always attract a certain level of commentary from redistribution buffs who live outside the state and who propose changes as a hobby, so the presence of a small number of suggestions that electorate names be changed doesn't necessarily mean anything.  In the 2017 cycle there were very few suggestions to rename Franklin (I counted two in the initial round of submissions).  

The present cycle was initially similar.  Only three submissions in the original round proposed retiring the name Franklin, two of these largely on the grounds of irrelevance and one citing only a match with an area and the policy to use Aboriginal names where possible.  All these were submissions that supported major redrawing and at least one, I believe two, were by non-Tasmanians.  So as of the start of this redistribution the support in submissions for retiring the name Franklin no matter what, within the Tasmanian community, basically did not exist.

Things got messy only once the Redistribution Committee proposed to radically redraw Franklin by giving that part south/west of the Derwent to Clark and adding in much of the east coast and Brighton LGA. The Committee wrote that while it found arguments for changing the name of Franklin persuasive "it was not persuaded that the names proposed or otherwise considered by the Committee to date demonstrated sufficient connection to the reconfigured electorate."  It then wrote "At this stage, the Committee proposes retaining the name Franklin, but encourages the public to provide further name ideas and feedback for consideration by the augmented Electoral Commission."

This then resulted in dozens of suggestions, but many of them read like the submitter was suggesting a name for the augmented EC to use in the event that it wanted to change the name, rather than making an argument for change.  Some submitters were under the false impression that a change of name was required given the scale of redrawing, and only about eight provided arguments for renaming Franklin (and these were typically skimpy and of the form that he was an irrelevant colonial white Pommy bloke).  Here I think the Augmented Commission has not quite grasped what has happened with its conclusion that "Most submissions proposed or supported a change to the name of Franklin."  Many were simply suggesting a name for consideration if one was wanted, because they had been asked to provide "name ideas".  The Augmented Commission has correctly noted that Franklin has been adequately commemorated elsewhere (and I add in Tasmania with his or his wife's name commemorated in  town, a river, a square and no fewer than sixteen Franklin Streets - just for starters) but aside from that provided few other reasons for retiring the name.  (Speaking of the river one of the submissions again thought it was in the old seat of Franklin - sigh, it in fact starts in Lyons and flows mostly through Braddon!)

The proposed new names were all over the place with several submitters having clearly not got the memo about ensuring connection to the electorate.  But nonetheless two did come up with one name that for sure appeared very well connected to a new electorate lacking famous people obviously connected to it, that ticked the box of being an Aboriginal name in a state that doesn't have any, and that was otherwise the name most guaranteed to ignite a public culture war: Tongerlongeter.

In weighed Tony Abbott with an op ed in which among other things he ridiculously claimed that there existed an electorate called Truganini in the ACT and that that name could be moved to Tasmania.  Far from taking proper responsibility for an incredible factual blunder he then wrote "I should thank readers for pointing out an inadvertent error in the original piece – my claim that there was already a seat of Truganini in the ACT – which shows why “information” should be triple checked."  Rather than accepting responsibility for a howler that was either a massive case of brain fade or an AI hallucination, Abbott (a former PM, current Liberal federal president and supposed published historian!) was here saying that since he had stuffed up nobody else's information should be trusted either.  

The AEC - as required by legislation - provided less than a week for written submissions on the proposed name, or the option that one can go along on July 31 and speak for just five minutes.  This process is unsatisfactory and must be changed for future cycles to allow more time for written submissions where there is a significant difference in proposals between the two stages.  That is especially so where a proposed namesake for an electorate is not well known to the general public and research is required to draw conclusions about them.  There should be a full JSCEM review of the redistribution process to ensure that there is more time for submissions when a name is proposed that was not canvassed in the previous stage and, ideally, to make it harder for the AEC to look foolish or engaged in politics.

In the time available there were still 272 submissions, far more than at previous stages.  By my count eleven are duplicates (including one where a submitter says basically the same thing in a personal and organisation capacity), just three solely concern boundaries, two were withdrawn and one was entirely blank.  Excluding all those I count 20 submissions in favour of Tongerlongeter, 234 against and one conditional, and the in favour submissions are more common early in the submission pile.  (This may reflect word taking time to spread among potential opponents but I also noted that in my informal twitter "polls" of my followers, support was much lower closer to the end of the process - presumably on account of awareness of complaints about lack of consultation with Aboriginal groups.)  Many submissions were anonymous or pseudonymous so there may have been some multiple submissions.

Questions have been raised about the extent of consultation with Aboriginal groups.  The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (which opposes the change on grounds of inappropriateness and spelling) says it was not consulted.  It is not clear what Aboriginal groups were consulted or the subject of failed attempts and it would be interesting to know.  Outsiders and even some Tasmanians may assume that the TAC speaks monolithically for all the Palawa people but in fact Tasmanian Indigenous politics is way more complicated than that. (A good example was the Voice which both the TAC and the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation opposed out of concern that it would give too much power to the other - in the TAC's case it considers the CHAC to be largely non-Aboriginal - while at least two high-profile elders supported the Yes case.).  Here I note submission 261 by the local (to neo-Franklin) Parrdarrama Pungenna Aboriginal Corporation, which supports and consents to the change and rejects the TAC's spelling concerns.  The TAC has raised some eyebrows by not making a submission themselves at any stage of the process, though for all I know they may be boycotting it or may appear in person at the final stage.  I have known them to appear at state electoral inquiries in person.  Only about eight of the submissions were by anyone claiming to actually be Palawa, in some cases unverifiably, and some of those were not supportive.  

The objections

Of the objections, about 33 provide no actual objection to the renaming, though I've included in that some that simply say there is no reason to change (without saying why not).

I've classed reasons provided by opponents into themes; there were many.  The most common theme (about 69 submissions) I've headed "murderer" - that Tongerlongeter and/or his fellow fighters killed settlers (who objectors describe as "civilians"), that these killings were in cases especially brutal, in some cases included women and children and included torture. 

The next commonest (about 29) I've headed "too long" - that the name is too long, hard to spell, hard to pronounce, and might even invite ridicule to the MP representing the seat.

About 22 said that Franklin was a good chap in various ways who should be commemorated, some of these laying it on a bit thick by turning him into a great scientist on the way.

About 20 objected to the lack of sufficient consultation regarding the name.

About 17 regarded the change as some kind of erasure (as I've pointed out above Franklin would be far from erased, he's very widely commemorated as it is).  Related to these a few suggested the change reflected anglophobia!

About 16 argued for preservation of Franklin on the grounds of it being a Federation electorate or a quasi-Federation electorate.  Many of these followed Tony Abbott in making false claims about this.  The seat of Franklin did not exist at the time of Federation as Tasmania elected its MHRs by a single Hare-Clark election held statewide since it had not passed legislation to divide the state into divisions.  I am unsure why it had not done so.  The most egregious submission here is sub 68, an extremely AI-smelly sub by an author who unless it is an imposter has a PhD, which says Franklin was "established at Federation in 1903." Federation was in 1901.

(The best solution to this "Federation division" thing is to argue that the 1903 Tasmanian names do not have quite the status of the founding electorates but nonetheless deserve strong consideration for existing nearly as long.  The attempt to fudge them as Federation electorates based on them being created during the first term is just untenable - they did not exist and were not represented until the second election.)

About 15 submissions argued that the name change was simply divisive.  About 12 objected to it being a waste of public money with none of these providing the slightest evidence of having any idea what the cost would actually be.  About 11 argued that Tongerlongeter was an irrelevant figure to modern Australia, to European democratic traditions, to the parliamentary process and so on.  A similar number objected that changing the name at all would be confusing whatever it was changed to.

Less common objections in no particular order:

* that Tongerlongeter is too poorly known

* that Tongerlongeter would not have wanted this commemoration

* that the proposal lacked evidence of public support (some wanted truly daft levels of public support demonstration, worst of all submission 80 which wanted ... a referendum on all name or boundary changes!)

* that there are too many Indigenous names

* that this is political correctness or wokeness gone mad

* that Tongerlongeter fought against what is now Australia

* that he should be commended in another way

* that this is tokenism or pandering

* that there is simply no compelling case for change

* that a woman should be chosen instead

* opposition from the TAC / lack of consultation with Palawa (one raising this objection strangely thought the proposed namesake was a "she")

* that the renaming is political and compromises the neutrality of the AEC

* that a neutral name of a place, plant or animal should be used (if we do this can we please make it Pademelon?)

* a small number disputed Tongerlongeter's actual degree of connection to the electorate

* and worst of all, some suggested an alternative of Harradine.  (For all his skill in getting goodies for his state, I strongly disliked the way Brian Harradine also used his Senate power for unrelated anti-abortion politics, and am strongly against this proposal.)

Perhaps surprisingly, there were no nominations for Neil the Seal, whose connection with the electorate is well established, if a little bit forceful at some times.  

Harradine wasn't the only alternative suggestion that bugged me.  There was a rather cute suggestion to name the electorate Mathinna because she was the adopted child of Franklin, but the more I read about Mathinna the more I found the proposals for her or Truganini (who had little connection to the electorate) to be generally little more than saccharine white guilt.  Mathinna seems to have been adopted by the Franklins as Lady Jane's pet noble savage, then orphaned when Governor Franklin was recalled when she was eight, and to have then led a difficult life from then on, perishing at a tragically early age.  We should be naming electorates after contributors to our nation, not its victims; we should remember them in other ways.  

Few political figures have weighed in this time around.  Guy Barnett on behalf of the Tasmanian Government (162), the Tasmanian Liberals (216) and Tasmanian Labor (269) all opposed the proposal (at least in Labor's case for now).  The Government argues the name should not be changed without a compelling widely supported alternative following sufficient consultation.  The party submissions cover similar ground regarding lack of consultation and voter confusion.  

Franklin the baddie?

In the leadup to the renaming of Clark there was a strong campaign by supporters to depict Denison as unworthy of representing this great seat since he was in fact an anti-democrat.  One would expect similar for Franklin but there's not a lot of it in the submissions - though the tight time frame could be a reason for that.

A recent Mercury op ed by historians Cassandra Pybus and Nicholas Clements (co-author of the major book re Tongerlongeter) ridiculed Franklin as "an old fool who was such a glutton that he was said [by convicts] to eat two sheep for dinner each night".  They also argue that Franklin was a dud administrator and that he and his wife collected Aboriginal remains.  The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry has a different view on his administration, arguing that he had a tough time of things but was largely just naive at politics, getting set up by a real baddie, John Montagu.  Those entries however are dated and it would be good to see a real debate about the facts on this - one the public hasn't had because there has been no push to rename Franklin in the recent past.  What isn't in dispute is that Franklin was only even here for six years.  

Clements' submission (203) provides an eloquent argument that Tongerlongeter's resistance had no alternative to killing settlers and that conventional warfare simply isn't comparable, and also debunks Abbott's comparison to John Batman.  But his submission doesn't say much about Franklin.  Pybus (226) on the other hand declares "If the electorate continues to be named for this egregious couple I intend to be very public in ensuring that the electorate understand the terrible things they did to the original people of this place."  Well sure, but if that is so could you not have done that at an earlier stage of this process?  It might have helped?

Where to now

There will be a public hearing on July 31 prior to a final decision in August.  It's hard to see how the Tongerlongeter proposal can survive such a weight of submissions against it, and if it did the state could even come under pressure to decouple the state and federal names for the seat.  

Of the alternative names I have covered Mathinna above, and Woureddy would encounter some similar objections to Tongerlongeter (especially as Wikipedia claims that Woureddy at one point responded to his brother's killing by raping and killing his brother's ex-wife, a few submissions picked up on this, though I have no idea if that is accurate or not). That leaves Jessie Spink Rooke (suffrage and temperance campaigner) who was supported in some submissions.  But to pick Rooke at this point would seem an obvious decision to pick any white person quickly and without much scrutiny and I don't see that as a great idea either.  (Rooke also seems to have been most based in the north-west).

It took a long time to get Denison renamed to Clark.  I don't think it will do any harm if Franklin is left for another cycle to allow this debate to mature, and hopefully the new electorate to come up with its own answers.  

Victoria 2026: The Election Where All Sorts Of Things Can Happen!

Victoria Aggregate Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3
(polls are probably underestimating "others" vote)
2PP estimate 52.0 to Coalition vs ALP, shadow-2PP ALP 50.1 vs One Nation

Currently Coalition would be likely to govern in minority with One Nation support, with One Nation seat tally around the mid-teens

One Nation and Labor seat numbers are highly dependent on Coalition preferencing decisions

Both major parties are still capable of majority government with a modest swing from current primaries

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It's been forever - largely because of the amount of work I had on in the first half of the year - since the last time I looked at Victorian state polling in the leadup to this year's election in any depth but finally a good time to do so has arrived.  What I see, at the moment, is a picture with a lot of possibilities.  Arguments can be made on current polling that the Allan Labor Government, while currently behind, is not far from surviving.  Arguments can also be made that it is not far from losing the election so badly that it may not even be the second party.  For now this is a really difficult election to model - much harder than South Australia - but perhaps by polling day things will get a lot clearer.  This one is a rather mathsy modelling article that has been rated 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale.  

One thing I cannot stress enough is that this looks like being the first Australian election for a long time where how to vote cards really matter.  At elections in recent decades how to vote cards have been vastly overhyped, especially by media, given that only about a third of voters follow them, and those who do follow them are mostly major party voters whose preferences are rarely distributed in competitive seats.  Furthermore among Greens voters the 15% or so who follow them would probably nearly all preference Labor above the Coalition even if the card said otherwise, so it's not clear that Green how to votes have any real impact these days on the two-party picture at all.  

But on current polling it could be that one major party or the other will be eliminated in close to two thirds of seats.  And at that point whether or not the Coalition recommends preferences to One Nation ahead of Labor will have a huge impact on what would currently be dozens of ALP/One Nation contests. This week saw the release of a Trades Hall Redbridge MRP poll where off 27% of the vote and based on preferences nominated by respondents, One Nation wins only 12 seats.  I am certain that if One Nation's vote is really that high and the Coalition recommends preferences to them, they will be winning many, many more.   But I don't think One Nation's vote is that high now, let alone whether they can hold it to the election.

Recent Polling

The Trades Hall Redbridge MRP (or is it Redbridge-Accent?) with a sample size of around 6500 raised some mysteries since it is unclear to me if it is fully independent of the AFR poll conducted June 17-28 with a sample size of 5516.  The primary vote figures of both have One Nation on 27 and both majors on 26.  The Greens primary in the Trades Hall poll was reported by The Australian as 12, however that was alongside Others on 8, and Redbridge normally forces the sum to 100.  The AFR has reported the Greens primary as 13 in an article on the Trades Hall poll, which is also what was in the AFR poll.  No dates for the Trades Hall poll have been reported anywhere (many people decided it must be fresh polling when it was reported on July 14, but with commissioned polling this is frequently not the case).  Unless advised otherwise I'll be assuming these two samples overlap.  In any case, I'm not considering the Trades Hall poll in estimating voting intention, as it is a union poll and there is plenty of public polling to go on.

I see again no need to resummarise poll data summarised elsewhere but there have been five recent public polls - the monster AFR Redbridge, two Resolves, one DemosAU and a Freshwater.  The DemosAU is an outlier with the Coalition leading Labor on primaries by nine points while Freshwater has the lead at four and the other three have the two major parties tied.  My own rough aggregate of this polling is Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3, which I estimate at a classical two-party preferred of 52.0 to Coalition.  Bludgertrack has Labor 26.8 Coalition 27.1 Green 12.5 ON 23.0 others 10.6 with a 2PP of only 50.1 to Coalition.  Estimating 2PPs is difficult at the moment because One Nation has affected the nature of the "others" pool compared to past elections (meaning that a true last-election flow is not a sensible concept) so it's possible Labor gets a somewhat better overall flow than I think.  

Even my 2PP may sound like that's not too bad for Labor if One Nation is all a weird dream and the election behaves normally.  On a uniform swing basis the 2022 election produced a very skewed pendulum where even that 7% swing takes out only eleven of the 56 seats Labor won in 2022, leaving them with 45/88, a majority.  But there is always a level of effectively random variation in seat swings on top of cases where one party just outcampaigns the other in the marginals, and on top of personal vote effects, and in this case it's important to look just above the waterline implied by that swing.  Labor have five seats on between 7% and 8% and a further nine between 8% and 9%, but only three between 4% and 5% and three between 6% and 7%.  So if it really is 52-48 to Coalition the Coalition is going to win the 2PP in some of the Labor seats that would not fall by uniform swing, and indeed on my usual seat model Labor only wins the 2PP in an expected 43.3 seats after considering personal vote effects, and that includes an expected 3.9 2PP wins in seats held by the Greens.  That's only just a loss on average, but it gets worse.

The Redbridge MRP has the Coalition winning a median of 39 seats, Labor 35, One Nation 12 and Greens 2.  For their 2PP (53-47 to Coalition) that number of Labor 2PP wins (37) is pretty similar to what my model expects (it has 39.7 2PP wins).  But Labor would not do even that well in a real election where the Coalition recommended preferences to One Nation.  

I have remodelled the primaries from the Redbridge MRP based on how I would expect preferences to flow on this assumption.  Before I do this, a reminder that of course I know MRPs are not accurate on all specific seats and are designed to gauge an overall picture (One Nation for example will not be getting 18% in Northcote!).  I also think that Redbridge(/Accent) are underestimating the Others vote in general, in places considerably (I mentioned some of this issue here).  But anyway I find the following differences:

* Thanks to weak respondent preference flows from the Coalition, Redbridge has Labor beating One Nation in Greenvale, Kalkallo, Mill Park, Cranbourne, Narre Warren North, Sydenham, Lara, Macedon, Frankston and Carrum.   I have all of these on Redbridge's numbers as wins to One Nation, though nearly all of them by 2% or less.

* Redbridge has Bundoora and Essendon as Liberal gains from Labor, I have them on Redbridge's numbers as Labor retains.

* Redbridge has Prahran with primaries of Labor 26 Liberal 26 Green 25 One Nation 16 (nah) and others 7 as a win to Labor.  We have seen this movie many many times and when One Nation preferences split three ways between Labor, Liberal and Green, the Greens will get more of them than Labor (this even recently happened off a highish One Nation vote in Heysen SA).  Even if they didn't the Others vote in Prahran usually has an Animal Justice component.  So Labor would be eliminated and the Greens would win the seat.

* Redbridge has Gippsland East, Lowan and Ovens Valley as Coalition wins; I have them as One Nation wins on their numbers.  (Again, I am not saying any of this actually happens, just that it is my reading of what would happen on these primaries).  

So instead of Redbridge's 39-35-12-2, under this assumption of the Coalition recommending preferences to One Nation I get 34-26-25-3.  At which point Labor are on the edge of falling into third place in the party seat total - though if One Nation were willing to even momentarily provide supply and confidence while Labor were not, such a case might require rethinking the usual "most seats" convention for who the Opposition is.  

I should note also that the Greens winning anything but Prahran on Redbridge's numbers would be contingent on the Liberals recommending preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor.  Ted Baillieu's decision not to do this in 2010 was so well received that it arguably got the Liberals just over the line for their victory that year, and the Liberals' reversal on that score in 2022 seemed like a shallow grovel for a hung parliament.  In the different political landscape around the Israel/Palestine and antisemitism issues since October 2023 a Liberal decision to again recommend to the Greens just to make Labor fight in a handful of seats would seem like a massive free kick for One Nation. So maybe Labor would get Richmond and Melbourne then (again, this is only off Redbridge's numbers, I am not saying that they are accurate!)

What if One Nation isn't so high?

My reworking of the Redbridge MRP is what I call the "hybrid vigour" scenario.  Labor isn't badly losing the two-party race against either the Coalition or One Nation but they get smashed in seat terms overall because of seats where they would beat the Coalition head to head but One Nation is in the final two and beating them instead.  (This applies on my numbers to seven of the seats where Redbridge has Labor winning - in Frankston, Carrum and Macedon my numbers have them narrowly losing the 2PP as well).  On Redbridge's respondent preferences One Nation can dislodge the Liberals in a seat that is a close 2PP battle but the flows to One Nation are so much weaker that Labor wins the seat much more easily.  But in South Australia this didn't happen.  We saw some seats where One Nation was actually competitive that the Liberals never get near winning - and that was against a very popular first-term Premier not a 12-year old government headed by a Premier with some of the worst personal ratings we have seen.

But also, Redbridge tends to get One Nation on the high side compared to other pollsters (this is a long-running thing) and my aggregate has them lower.  When I rescale Redbridge's sample to my own two-party estimates (I get Labor leading One Nation 50.1-49.9, compared to One Nation leading 51.2-48.8 if I use Redbridge's primaries) Labor now saves South Barwon and Eltham from the Liberals and Greenvale, Mill Park, Cranbourne, Narre Warren North and Lara from One Nation, while the Coalition now on my estimates by uniform swing off Redbridge's seat primaries beats One Nation in Berwick, Bendigo East, Gippsland East and Ovens Valley for a total of Coalition 36 seats Labor 33 One Nation 16 and Greens 3.  

Australian Election Forecasts (which was outstandingly accurate in South Australia) currently has a nowcast with midpoints of Coalition 37 Labor 30 One Nation 13 Greens 5 (the totals of their midpoints aren't forced to 88, so the majors would probably get one or two more) off primaries of Coalition 28.1 Labor 25.2 One Nation 22.1 Green 12.7 others 11.8 - a pretty similar outlook to my best remodelling of the Redbridge MRP above off primaries that are slightly better for the Coalition and worse for One Nation. Their forecast is that One Nation will come down a little bit more by election day.  I also want to mention a new and very thoroughly considered modelling site The Swing Is On which off primaries of Coalition 27 Labor 25.5 One Nation 25 Greens 12.8 others 9.7 has 37-33-13-5. 

Overall, it seems that if One Nation does get 27% and the Coalition recommends preferences to them, then they should get a pile of seats and not just the dozen in the Redbridge median estimate.  But what I am seeing here both in my own reworking of the Redbridge primaries and in the other modelling being produced is that when the One Nation vote drops from there to the 23-25 range those are falling off rapidly.  They're still doing much better than in South Australia but South Australia had Labor on a much bigger primary.  An objection I often see is that One Nation still have no candidates and how will they win seats anywhere where their candidates are nobodies.  But if this is a systematic issue then their vote will be somewhat lower.  Candidate effects only go so far and some little-known One Nation candidates were able to win in South Australia.

At some point I may also produce my own model of the party vote shares, using such things as past One Nation primaries (though the upper house primary in 2022 was so low with so many competing similar parties that it's not a great guide) and demographic indicators.  That would also allow for taking into account personal votes, as it seems to me that in South Australia the personal votes of some of the Liberal incumbents enabled them to hold seats that should otherwise have fallen, especially against One Nation.  One Nation could do particularly well in vacant seats since there is no "politics is stuffed but my local member is a good sort" kind of sentiment.

Can Labor win on both flanks?

I'm going to assume that if Labor and the Greens win 44 seats combined then they still govern; somebody would crack.  So from the numbers I have off the Redbridge MRP poll (my preference flows but its primaries) Labor needs to do enough to win 15 more.  And it turns out that with a uniform 2CP swing back of 2.75% they would do this.  That corresponds to a primary vote swing of about 3% to Labor if it comes fairly evenly off the Coalition and One Nation.  So, while things look bad for Labor on the primaries in current polling, it's possible they can retain government with a primary vote as low as 29% - but only if the split between the Coalition and One Nation stays.  If One Nation's primary falls and the Coalition's rises then this is no longer possible, because the Coalition's 2PP will rise in the classic Labor vs Coalition seats, and there will be more such seats as One Nation is increasingly knocked out in third.

In South Australia, One Nation's vote held up to its polling very well.  This may be different though; everybody knew who was winning that election and so protest voters were entirely free to vent.  In this case the Coalition may be able to drive the argument that this one really matters and that if you want to throw Labor out you shouldn't muck around with an unstable party.  

So let's also take this the other way, how close might the Coalition be to a majority?  I can find enough seats to get them there if I give them a 3.1% 2CP swing off my estimates off the Redbridge primaries in every seat.  It's a little trickier than that because a couple of them are Coalition-One Nation seats where a uniform Labor to Coalition swing isn't enough to beat One Nation, and above that 3.1% the winnable seats for the Coalition become scarce quickly.  But if the Coalition can get, say, 29.5% then that could be enough for them for a majority.  It's quite possible if the One Nation vote stays in the 20s that either major party can win outright if it can get its vote to 30.  Of course, this will leave precious little for the other one.  I am already seeing ads claiming that the Coalition cannot win alone and will require One Nation's support, but it is way, way, way too early to be sure that this is true.  

As it is possible at the moment for Labor to survive, it's also possible they get really, really smashed.  Redbridge had 25 seats as a lower bound on their numbers but if one imagines it is really 56-44 instead of 53-47, then Labor can be easily knocked below 20 seats.  I'm not really expecting that at this stage though; I think more likely if the Coalition win outright it will be because One Nation have not won a lot.

A final thing about the Redbridge model is that it seems to have Labor slightly underperforming in 2PP wins.  Perhaps this would happen as a result of uneven local swings.  However this was also widely expected in MRP style models for a while in the leadup to the 2025 federal election, and it ended up being not the case at all.  

I've previously mentioned the overall historic picture - 12 year old federally dragged governments tend to lose a lot of seat share, Premiers this unpopular who make it to elections have always lost, and governments that go to their third leader in the same term as would happen if Labor changed leaders have lost (usually heavily) except for a single case in the NT.  And with these historic priors I find it hard not to see the Coalition winning somehow.  But the split in the right and the soap-opera chaos of the current Opposition through this term raise questions as to whether the normal rules still apply.  

Is Group Ticket Voting Really On The Way Out In Victoria?

The last week has brought the encouraging news via both The Age and The Herald-Sun that Victorian Labor is preparing legislation to scrap Group Ticket Voting at the last possible chance before this year's election. According to the reports, the legislation will be brought in in the sitting week starting July 28, and would presumably pass both houses quickly in order to meet the VEC's August deadline.  

Let's hope this is finally it for all this nonsense!  I understand the smaller parties may be reluctant to vote for a new system under which their chances of winning any seats are greatly reduced for now thanks to the Bracks Government's entrenchment blunders, so I'll cut them slack so long as they refrain from making false claims in defence of their position.  But if any major party stands in the way or does nothing this time then there is no excuse for them not caring about democracy.  

To keep this originally well-intentioned but now discredited system would say that Victorians are second class voters who do not deserve the right to direct their own preferences as easily between parties as voters can in every other state that at least has an upper house.  It would say that it is less important that MLCs be accountable to the voters who elect them than that they be accountable to an unelected consultant who has openly admitted to coercing MLCs' votes on electoral reform with the threat of starving them of future preferences.  It would say that it is right that voters be presented with ballot papers flooded with dishonestly named parties that use catchy names to send the unwary elector's vote to the opposite place they would have wanted it to ever go.  To say these things by doing nothing at a time when conspiracy theories about Victoria's elections already thrive, at a time when faith in democracy is more than usually frayed in the West would be something we should never forgive nor forget.    

Alas at this stage there is still no official confirmation that the legislation is coming and no detail on its content (I have had further unofficial reports though that it is really happening), so I can't yet be sure that there isn't a catch.  One issue to be decided is whether the electoral system would be fully optional preferencing (the above the line voter is instructed to number from 1 to as many boxes as they like, as in NSW, SA and WA) or semi-optional (as in the Senate, the voter is instructed to number from in this case at least 1 to 5, though if they number fewer then their vote can still be saved).  Subject to ability to implement I'd strongly recommend the latter.  Preferences make more of a difference with 5-seat regions than with whole statewide electorates.

Scaremongering about One Nation has resurfaced but on current polling the Coalition and One Nation are for the moment well placed to win a combined majority of seats in the Council whether the system is changed or not.  The right is likely to win at least 23 of the 40 upper house seats unless Labor's position improves substantially or One Nation's vote collapses to the mid-teens or below. While group ticket voting might throw one or two of those undeservedly to the Shooters, DLP or, shudder, Family First, it currently looks unlikely that it would stop a Coalition/ON majority (or provide anything meaningfully better for the left in outcome terms if it did).  A quota-proportional system with or without GTV suits the right better on anything like current polling than a single-seat preferential one does, because the right is not losing nearly so many votes to leakage when one of One Nation or the Coalition is excluded.  

Labor, however, is at some risk of a seat tally nightmare if it keeps the current system, even if its vote improves a little on current polling.  Primary vote breakdowns of lower house support by upper house region released by Redbridge/Accent found the party's lower house support to be below two quotas in every region bar one. That is even though upper house Labor support under group ticket voting is typically lower than in the lower house, and even though Redbridge/Accent appear to be strikingly underestimating the lower house support base for "others" (parties and independents that are not Coalition, One Nation, Labor or Greens).  The most striking example of this apparent underestimation is that Redbridge/Accent have Others on 5% in Western Metropolitan, where Others polled 20.9% in 2022 with Victorian Socialists getting 5% by themselves!  

What the Redbridge/Accent poll is pointing to is a situation where Labor's second candidates could be so readily leapfrogged by minor parties even if they had most of a quota that Labor might conceivably scrape in in the lower house yet confront a Council where it held only eight or nine seats.  If GTV is abolished the less authentic minor parties may still run, but with no actual chance of winning they're unlikely to make as much effort and their preferences will splatter.  

It is not in the Coalition's interests to keep Group Ticket Voting either.  If GTV survives it is likely there will be micro-parties (and not just the obvious fake ones) sending preferences that would otherwise scatter to One Nation over them in what could be several races between the two for seats. This is yet another reason why the idea that Group Ticket Voting still especially disadvantages One Nation is delusional.   And there are also possibilities that minor right preference spirals for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers or others could displace the Coalition in some regions.  

Right-wing attention seekers linked to the Monica Smit/Avi Yemini fake parties push have been claiming victory following the reports.  The victory is not won, least of all by these blowins, until Group Ticket Voting is gone with the legislation to axe it given Royal Assent (and there could well be a pointless legal challenge too).  Also, I believe there has actually been a plan within Labor to scrap GTV at the last moment (so as to avoid getting crossbenchers offside earlier) for some time before their shenanigans.   

I am happy for any Victorian MPs or their staff who wish to talk to me about what is going on with this legislation or any aspect of modelling the upper house election in the leadup to the sitting week to contact me.  (Email address in sidebar.)

Deception Alley

I thought it would be worth noting just how many deceptively named party attempts are currently being made, and to track them to see how they go.  Unlike the Commonwealth, Victoria publishes the names of parties attempting to register before the applications have been fully checked, so the publication of a name as applying is no guarantee that the deceptively named party will be able to pass the 500 members test.  It only means a list has been submitted.  

I classify a party as deceptive based on any of the following:

- its name is known to cause or likely to cause confusion 

- its name is known or suspected to have been deliberately created so as to mislead about the party's purpose

- its name is apparently created to send Group Ticket preferences to a party alien to the party's apparent purpose

- it is applying for name changes between unrelated concepts 

- it is mimicking the name of a party popular overseas or an unrelated party elsewhere in Australia

This list is not necessarily exhaustive.

REGISTERED DECEPTIVE PARTIES

Democratic Labour Party (DLP) - once upon a time voters knew the difference between the DLP and the ALP on the ballot paper but these days it's evident that some don't

End Mass Immigration – Reform AU, nee Companions and Pets Party, applying to change to Christian Alliance Party – Reform AU

Freedom Party, applying to change name to Safety Victoria – Violent Crime Prevention

New Democrats, applying to change name to Put Australia First, Save The Environment

DECEPTIVE PARTIES SEEKING REGISTRATION

Climate Action Now (Smit/Yemini grouping)

Free Palestine (Smit/Yemini grouping, not to be confused with Free Palestine Party which is also seeking registration)

Fusion Party Victoria – Reignite Democracy (this is Fusion claiming they are stealing Monica Smit's slogan as a tit-for-tat but given this party has worked with Vern Hughes and have horrendous form on preference recommendations nobody should trust them or will care)

I’m Voting to Avoid the Fine (Smit/Yemini grouping)

The Republican Make Australia Great Again (name qualifies whatever the intention but see comments)

Several other deceptive party names including Muslim Votes Matter were being mooted but do not seem to have amounted to applications.  

Tasmania Redistribution: Announcement Day Live Thread

Today could be a momentous day in the history of Tasmanian electoral boundaries!  Or it could be a nothing-ever-happens.  Around mid-morning today there will be a boundary announcement.  If the announcement is either the same as the draft boundaries or only slightly different then that's it and the new boundaries will be official for federal elections after 8 October.  It usually takes several months for them to then be adopted at state level via legislation, so an early state election before, say, mid-2027 would not necessarily be on the new boundaries.  

Alternatively the Augmented Electoral Commission could recommend substantively different boundaries, which would result in further rounds of consultation.  I have seen no variations from process that would suggest there is any intent to do this so far, but I am not sure if that should be taken as a sign that it's not happening.  

My previous articles are here:

Clark Must Expand But Where?

Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

The Reaction

Once the announcement is up I will be posting details of what has been decided.  I'm not Ben Raue or William Bowe so please do not expect new margin calculations from this source.  However I will have summaries and comments about the decision, whatever it is.  

10:25 It's up!  The original decision has been endorsed except that the following change has been recommended:

"Bass gains the Break O’Day local government area.

Lyons retains the Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale localities."

This now means former Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman's original submission has been adopted in full!  The boundary changes are now final and the Franklin divide is dead! 

The Commission is proposing that Franklin become Tongerlongeter.  Submissions on the new name are open until 21 July with a public inquiry on 31 July.    The new name would tie Eden-Monaro and Capricornia for the most syllables in an electorate name and Kingsford-Smith for the most letters.

10:40  On the Break O'Day change the Commission has argued that putting Break O'Day in Bass better reflects community of interest considerations while keeping all LGAs in a single electorate. They have also argued that leaving Prospect Vale and Blackstone Heights counters a concern about Glenorchy being the only urban area in neo-Lyons.   I don't think that was much of a concern in the submissions, they were more concerned about Glenorchy dominating the rural portions of the seat.  

11:25 The placement of Break O'Day in Bass shifts one of the Shooters Fishers and Farmers' stronger areas into the seat, not great news for Carlo di Falco though immaterial compared to his party getting swamped by One Nation.  It is also not great for Bass independent George Razay.  It makes Bass slightly stronger for the Greens at state level and weaker for the Liberals, though a part of the Liberal weakness is hidden in a very high personal vote for Nationals candidate and former state Liberal MP John Tucker in the St Helens area.  

I reproduce Doug Chipman's map of the new boundaries from his original submission.   

11:45 My previous conclusions about impacts of this change on the southern seats are of course unaffected.  We are likely to in coming years see a game of musical chairs in the south as MPs based in the ex-Franklin part of neo-Clark, the ex-Clark part of neo-Lyons and the ex-Lyons part of what may be Tongerlongeter consider relocation (or in some cases retire).  

Ben Raue has posted new state estimates here.  I will be working on One Nation estimates for the new boundaries based off recent state polling as time permits.  

Various notes later:

* If the renaming of Franklin to Tongerlongeter proceeds Bass will be the sole surviving unchanged name in the state.  That would also be the first time the alphabetical order of the divisions has changed with none of the previous renamings (Darwin to Braddon, Wilmot to Lyons and Denison to Clark) affecting it.  

* Antony Green has conveniently added One Nation Reps primary vote estimates that find only a marginal increase in Clark (up 0.2), a very small decrease in Franklin (-0.1) and no change to one decimal anywhere else.  

* The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is objecting to the proposed Tongerlongeter on the grounds that he would be honoured by a "colonial construct" that he fought against (and they say died fighting against though perhaps died while fighting against would be more accurate.)  This reflects a culture clash - the redistribution process works by applying criteria and considering public submissions, but the TAC (which does not stand for by any means all Palawa people but is the major body in the south) issues resources of place names that anyone is free to use, but beyond that expects to be consulted.  

I am also seeing some right wing culture war type accounts warming up against the proposal, so it will probably be on Andrew Bolt by the weekend.  

DemosAU: Could Hare-Clark Help One Nation Shift Tasmania To The Right?

DemosAU Liberal 28 Labor 21 One Nation 21 Greens 14 IND 12 SF+F 2 Others 2

Seat estimate if these vote shares were recorded in election "held now" Lib 10 ALP 9 ON 8 Grn 4 IND 4

After a previous state poll which did not explicitly include One Nation, DemosAU have now included them in their Tasmanian state polling for the first time.  The party, which has been advertised for state registration, debuts on 21%, similar to the 19% it recorded in the May EMRS.  But if we add the Liberal and One Nation votes in the EMRS poll, we get 44%.  In the DemosAU poll, it is 49.

This raises a thought experiment.  Yes, we know One Nation is trashing the Liberal vote everywhere and that they would win seats from the Liberals in Tasmania right now.  But what if, by taking votes from Labor and increasing the overall right vote, they ended up taking a fourth seat for the right in Bass (where the right nearly won four last time anyway), a third seat for the right in Franklin (ditto) and - though this I think would be the hardest part - a third seat for the right in Clark?  (That's on the current boundaries; if the proposed new boundaries are accepted I expect similar scenarios to emerge).  

It's a very long way to the next election, or is it?  After the historic censuring of Premier Rockliff, as prospective Senator Stansfield notes in the latest Poll Position pod, at some point there will be another scandal.  And at that point Labor will have painted themselves into an even tighter corner than before. If they don't want to force another election that nobody wants and that now also floods the House with One Nation, they can either form a government nobody understands, or look comically impotent as they pass meaningless censure motions or do nothing.  

Tas Liberal Senate Turnover As Duniam And Askew To Go

I had a piece in drafts almost ready to release for weeks about this, but perhaps just as well I didn't since further developments have rendered the draft somewhat out of date.   The last few weeks have seen major news in the leadup to the expected 2028 half-Senate election with the Tasmanian Liberal ticket to lose both its incumbents.  Incumbent since 2019 Wendy Askew was to retire at the end of the term but will now resign in coming weeks while incumbent since 2016 Jonno Duniam will quit by the end of this year.  Askew's successor will get something like 20 months and Duniam's successor about 17 in the Senate in the lead-up to the next election, assuming it is on schedule and not early. 

The preselection currently underway is for the next election but I would expect that the top two candidates will inherit the seats of Askew and Duniam unless there are twists regarding availability.  

While it may seem disastrous for the Liberals to be go in with no incumbents, in some ways it is an advantage to them compared to if just one incumbent departed now.  The party now has more flexibility in planning a 2028 ticket from scratch without, for instance, feeling pressured to choose a female candidate as the sole winner of the vacancy race as might have been the case had only Askew departed. 

Essential Report Microblogging Disclaimers

Frequently I post federal polling results and calculations to the microblogging sites Twitter (X) and Bluesky (links to my accounts in sidebar); here is an example I posted today:

The standard items I include are the primary votes for all parties, any two-party preferred or Labor vs One Nation "shadow 2PP" issued by the pollster, and what I call "my conversion".  "My conversion" is a 2PP figure I get by applying my own estimate of 2025 election preference flows to the primary votes released by the pollster, and is the figure I use in my Labor vs Coalition 2PP aggregate and my Labor vs One Nation 2PP estimate, both of which can be seen on the sidebar together with a link to the methods page for them.   I have been including primary vote changes recently because of interest in whether One Nation is going up or down, but probably won't keep doing so for long.  (In fact the one shown has a typo in it, the Greens are down 1 not up 1).  

Hungry Lies: One Nation's Food Security Fibs

Please explain!

Yesterday I was posting some comments about how tweets on the Pauline Hanson twitter account mostly are not written by her, despite being frequently written in the first person.  Tweets signed "PH" or "-PH", the supposed signs that they are actually hers, seem to have largely dried up; after 23 in 2023 (mostly re the Voice) there were according to the advanced search function just two in 2024, none in 2025 and only two so far this year.  In the process I had a broader look at what else One Nation's social media was tweeting and came across a two-minute video for One Nation's current "Fire the Liar" campaign.  One claim, voiced in what appears to be Hanson's voice, caught my attention:

"Seven million Australians can only afford one meal per day.  In a country as prosperous as we used to be.  People are screaming out for change"

"Independent Australia": The Worst Website In Australian Politics?

In an article way back in 2015 I noted that the faux-progressive website "Independent Australia" was independent of "Quality control, consistency, accuracy and editorial skill."  Has it got better since?  Well no, if a recent attempt to soothe reader concerns about the One Nation surge is any guide, it seems to have got even worse.  I've decided to write a whole piece about this trainwreck to explain how abysmal IA's standards are and why nobody should be enabling their output in any way.

The most recent case is an article attributed - I have no idea whether correctly - to a Dr Jason Foster of RMIT.  Even the qualifications of the claimed author are something IA cannot seem to get straight.  The RMIT website states that Foster "holds a PhD in Media and Communication from RMIT, focusing on the representations of history in film and other media."  IA however claimed his PhD covered "media representations, politics and national consciousness", a claim that has since, without acknowledgement of error, been removed.

Before I deal with what is uniquely bad about this article and IA's failed attempt (?) to fix it, I will pick off a number of the low-hanging fruit, many of which are common myths about elections.