Legislative Council 2023: Launceston, Murchison and Rumney Live

Launceston: CALLED (6:51 pm) Rosemary Armitage (IND) re-elected overwhelmingly
Murchison: CALLED (6:32 pm) Ruth Forrest (IND) re-elected overwhelmingly
Rumney: CALLED (7:17 pm) Sarah Lovell (ALP) re-elected overwhelmingly

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Updates (Scrolls to top)

Tuesday: All over and Lovell was indeed taken to preferences to an extremely token degree, finishing exactly six votes shy of 50%.

Wednesday: With Lovell now eight votes below majority, the TEC has thrown Pickin's preferences to establish for sure that she wins.  Notably the Liberals came third on this split getting only 27% of the Shooter preferences (Mulder 41 Lovell 32).

Monday: Quite to my surprise Sarah Lovell has dropped just below 50% in Rumney (five votes below at the moment) so we may see a meaningless throw of Adrian Pickin's preferences to get her over the line yet.  

9:00 That's all for tonight!  Normally I write an end of evening wrap but the meaning of the above is all too obvious. Two of the incumbents have not attracted serious opposition and have polled very well against what opposition they did get,  And in a rinse and repeat of Pembroke last year (except with a higher Labor primary), the voters of Rumney are very happy with Sarah Lovell and not remotely interested in having a Liberal MLC at this moment.  

9:00 Ruth Forrest breaks record.  Ruth Forrest has recorded the highest ever Legislative Council vote for a candidate with three or more opponents, beating the 66.4% set by Peter McKay in a field of five in Pembroke 1976.  It appears she will even record the highest vote for a candidate with two or more opponents, beating Hugh Hiscutt's 70.95% in a field of three in West Devon 1989.

8;48 Rokeby finally in; it didn't do much.  Lovell ends the night on 50.46% and will almost certainly remain above 50 as there is not that much left to add.  

8:31 Rokeby still not in.

8:17 Checking if Ruth Forrest has broken a record with her vote here.

7:57 All ordinary booths in in Launceston and Armitage now on 77.45%, which will probably increase further - OK, it was only against a low-profile Green but rather impressive.

7:51 Only Rokeby to go in Rumney.  Actually Lovell did not break 50 in adjacent Clarendon Vale so we'll see where she is after this in terms of breaking 50 overall.  

7:48 All booths (but not yet prepolls) in in Murchison and Forrest is on a massive 70%.

7:43 Lest anyone speculate about any harm the Liberals' disunity late in the campaign over mandatory sentencing might have done them, the swing on prepolls so far is 20%, so no.  But it would also appear that there is no voter demand for this stuff either.

7:36 Lovell is falling back towards 50 but still has Rokeby, a historically red booth, to come so looks likely to win on primaries (or if not to be very very close.)

7:31 Rosemary Armitage's vote in Launceston is rising as less Green booths report and she is now leading 75.6-24.4.  That isn't dreadful for the Greens but nor do they have anything to brag about.

7:28 Risdon Vale also in, a mere 15.5% swing to Labor there.  It doesn't look like Lovell is being taken to preferences and we won't get a 2PP for this seat, at the moment it might be something like 63-37 if there was one.

7:17 A helpful scrutineer sent me a bunch of seats including South Arm where Lovell has another massive swing following a 26% swing in Richmond (the latter of which impressive enough to cause me to decide I'd seen enough).  Lovell is now well above 50 on both my projections and cannot be caught so this is an early night and let the commentary about the Rumney result commence!  

7:08 A flood of booths in and Lovell is doing extremely well, on over 50% primary. My projections say that this won't change with one putting her on 50.7 and one on 52.6 and the Liberal primary projecting to a rather feeble 24.2 (enough to shade Mulder).  Note that only one of these booths has a LegCo match for 2017 (however that is the higher projection).  

7:05 The small Agfest booth is in in Rumney and it's a great start for Sarah Lovell (ALP) with a 14% swing to her compared to 2017.  (This booth is not matched to the state election.)  This was Mulder's best booth in 2017 and he is down 12% in it but I would not read much into that yet.  

6:53 Have called Launceston as well. As expected with a few booths in the Green vote has fallen to the low 30s.  Nothing in yet for Rumney.

6:50 The only suspense left in Murchison is whether any of the others can take a booth off Forrest.  Jones came reasonably close at Edith Creek but that booth is very Liberal and if not there where?  

6:43 Armitage wins Launceston Central but it's reasonably close, 58.8-41.2.  This however is one of the strongest Green booths in Launceston and it is very likely that the Green vote will decline from here on in.  

6:33 Another flood of votes in Murchison and with Forrest on 62% primary I have called the seat.

6:26 Ruth Forrest 96/136 in the first booth in Murchison, Calder.  A 10% swing to Forrest in that booth (noting that she won 57-43 in a two candidate race last time.) 18% swing to Forrest in Tullah which she actually lost last time.  In all likelihood callable already and an outright win on primaries likely.

6:25 Won't be long now!

6:10 Just confirming this thing is on! Polls have closed.

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Intro

Live coverage of the 2023 Legislative Council counts will be posted here tonight from 6:00 pm.  As well as covering the numbers that come in I will be doing booth-matched projections for the Labor vote in Rumney based off both the 2017 result and the 2022 state election, and projections for the Liberals off the latter.  I am not projecting Tony Mulder's vote as his 2017 vote was more or less flat across the different booths and the structure of the 2023 contest is completely different - but obviously I will keep an eye on what he's getting!  I am not projecting Launceston (which I expect to be uncompetitive) or at this stage Murchison (no useful basis, other than arguably Forrest's 2017 vote which I'll keep an eye on.)  I don't have info on what will be counted tonight but recent past nights have seen prepolls and a portion of postals counted.  Note that 2-candidate preferred is not counted tonight, only primaries.

This is a very quick intro as I'm on double duty tonight, finishing sorting of hordes of tiny snails from fieldwork I've been doing for the last 14 days in a row.  My guides to the contests were here: Launceston, Murchison, Rumney.  I also had a guide to the recent LegCo voting patterns.

When commentary starts, press refresh every now and then for the most recent updates.  At the peak of counting these may come every 10 minutes or so.  Any counts still in doubt will be followed here over coming days.