2016 Site Review

Another year done for a site that is now just over four years old.  When I started this site I intended it just as an interim site while I explored other options, but in spite of some very minor frustrations (like difficulty in stopping spammers from even submitting comments) I've seen no compelling reason to move.

This year was a federal election year and the activity pattern for the year looks like this (the units are sessions per week):

The federal election and its post-count events basically swamp everything else.  Senate reform performance reviews maintained a high level of reader interest through to mid-August and after that the rest of the year was quieter, with little spikes for the ACT and NT elections. The massive federal election spike meant that this year had about 128% more traffic than last year, and about 60% more than the previous busiest year (2014).

What Chance One Nation Seats In The Tasmanian Parliament?

Recently there have been some noises about Pauline Hanson's One Nation trying to break into Tasmanian state politics at the next election.  The next state election still could be 15 months away, if the parliament goes full term, and before then we'll have the WA and probably the Queensland elections, which both look like fertile ground for the resurgent party.   But anywhere might be fertile ground if a recent ReachTEL in Victoria that had the party on 9.4% there is to be taken even half-seriously. One Nation's current national surge might fall in a big heap by the time Tasmanians next go to the polls, but let's suppose it doesn't.  I thought it was worth a detailed look at the sort of chances the party might have, supposing that it makes a serious effort.

The case for One Nation as a threat is pretty easily stated.  The party very nearly won a seat in the state at the Senate election, albeit when competing for one of twelve seats rather than one in five per electorate.  Its primary vote was low (2.57%) but it received about another 2% in preferences from micro-parties that might reasonably be expected not to contest the state election.  Throw in regional variation and it's easy to project One Nation above 6% in both Lyons and Braddon.  Throw in that the party's national polled support is running close to double what it polled in the Senate and something like 10% in these seats starts to look pretty viable.

One Nation might appeal to some voters who are displeased with the current state government but would hate to go back to another minority government where the Greens hold the balance of power.

Poll Roundup: 2016 Year In Review

Aggregate 52.0 to ALP (+0.1)
Labor would win an election "held now"

It's about the time of year when polling shuts down for a few weeks, so as usual I will post an annual recap.  If there are any late polls then I will edit the text to add them in.

In the three weeks since the last roundup, we've seen some evidence that the anti-Coalition trend in polling has softened, but not all that much.  Newspoll has come in from 53:47 for Labor to 52:48, while Essential's last three readings for Labor have been 51, 52, 53.  I aggregated the Newspoll at 52.1 and the Essentials at 51.3, 52 and 53.1.  There was also the Ipsos discussed in the update to the previous piece.  All up I have things at 52.0 to ALP, down from 52.4 three weeks ago:

Whatever is going on in February and March is likely to shape polling much more than whatever (if anything) is causing the very small comeback that we see here.