Tuesday, July 22, 2025

2025 Tasmanian Election: Pathways To Government

This article is part of my Tasmanian election 2025 postcount coverage.  
Links to individual postcount pages: Bass Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons

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I did write a fair amount about the formation of the next government in the tallyboard thread but it's got somewhat buried in the postcount pages and I wanted to do a new thread to discuss the different pathways to government that might occur after the election. At this time we are starting to see what I suspect will be rather a lot of gnashing and wailing on the pages of The Australian (especially if Labor keeps trying to form government) but a lot of it is clueless.  (Just a note in case anyone thinks I am part of the gnashing and wailing for my tallyboard heading "Tasmania Remains Ungovernable" - nup, it was a reference to "become ungovernable"; I am celebrating the way Tasmanians collectively refused to be told what to do and gave the major parties back another mess.)

As I start this article the numbers sit at Liberal 14 Labor 10 Greens 5 IND 4.  The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are strongly placed in Lyons and the last seat in Bass is a multi-party scramble with five or six contenders - we will know the outcome of that around August 2.

Meeting the House

The first thing I want to underline is that whatever the numbers, whatever the deals, whatever the deal-shaped objects, Jeremy Rockliff is the incumbent Premier.  As the incumbent he has the clear right by convention to be recommissioned in order to "meet the house" and enable it to decide his destiny.  Also he clearly intends to do it.   It is common for Premiers in minority governments who appear to have lost the election (and it is not clear this is the case for Rockliff yet) to do this, because in theory an MP who was going to back the opposition might change their mind in the middle of the debate, and because decisions about whether a Premier has lost confidence should be made by Parliaments and not by the Governor's reading of MP's letters.  The widespread misreading of Johnston's 2024 letters is a good example of why confidence needs to be determined on the floor.  It is only where the office of Premier is vacant that the Governor must make a provisional decision.  

The Australian quoted from a "constitutional law expert" Donald Rothwell who is actually primarily an international law expert suggesting that the Governor might intervene and refuse to recommission Rockliff for this purpose if there appeared to be a deal against him or even if he didn't have enough proof of stability.  The ABC then talked to the same expert and made the same claim about his expertise, clearly copying The Australian in choice both of source and description.  In fact, this would be completely contrary to precedent - Don Dunstan in 1968, Robin Gray in 1989, Rob Kerin in 2002 were all Australian Premiers who chose to "meet the House" though it was clear enough they would be voted out.  (Well maybe not so clear to Edmund Rouse).  

Two articles in the Australian have already catastrophised about Section 8B of the Constitution Act 1934 which obliges the Governor to fill all ministries by seven days after the return of the writs.  This is a silly section that should be got rid of but the persistent arguments that it creates a crisis in government formation are just wrong.  There is no problem with recommissioning the existing Premier and their nominated Ministers pending the sitting of parliament - if they are voted out, as Robin Gray's government was in 1989, no harm is done.  Michael Stuckey's article writes "a caretaker government lacks legitimacy, which in turn could stall governance indefinitely,".  Oh no how terrible!  How indefinitely can a caretaker government stall governance if it either stands (at least to the degree that it can stop caretaking) or falls as soon as the parliament resumes?  

Now, here are the three most obvious ways the current situation gets resolved.  They are not the only possible solutions.  This article is not to say which is the most likely, it is just to spell out what they look like and how they happen.  

1. Liberal Government with confidence and supply

In this scenario the Liberals negotiate their way to 18 seats' worth of MPs who will give them confidence and supply so they can resume governing.  They get to 16 with the 14 they have won, whoever wins Lyons (since it's between them and Carlo Di Falco) and David O'Byrne.  I should point out that neither of those are givens yet.  O'Byrne supported them in the last parliament, but did so on the basis that Labor did not have their hands up.  Whether he would do so again if Labor were trying to form government is an open question - perhaps with the carrots including a path back to the party - but it's at least plausible that he could back the Liberals again instead.  The Liberals then need to work with the Bass winner, who needs not to be Labor or the Greens, and they also need Craig Garland.  

Although Garland voted for no confidence in Jeremy Rockliff in the last parliament he comes across as pragmatic and outcome focused and has said he is open to a confidence and supply deal but wants outcomes.  Perhaps the Liberals can mend the fences with him but he is not at all likely to do it for free.  Also there will be a high Embarrassment Factor for the government if they go down that path because they could have done that in June and we wouldn't be here.  

Kristie Johnston and Peter George have both indicated they will not provide confidence and supply guarantees but will rather treat confidence and supply vote by vote, so at this stage I doubt they are a part of this scenario.

2. Liberal Government without guaranteed confidence and supply

In this scenario the Liberals may receive confidence and supply guarantees from some crossbenchers but they are short of 18 votes.  However, they survive in the absence of a willingness to vote them out.  This continues the situation they were in from August 2024 to June 2025 after the fallout from the collapse of the Jacqui Lambie Network grouping left them with new written confidence and supply agreements with Miriam Beswick and Rebekah Pentland but no formal agreement with Andrew Jenner.  (As I will not tire of saying, they never really had one with Kristie Johnston, and anyone who thinks they did either hasn't read or can't read what Johnston actually said in her letters).

Even if this is the situation at the start of Parliament, the Liberals under Jeremy Rockliff (and that's an important proviso, it does not necessarily transfer if Rockliff is replaced) are entitled to remain in office until they lose another vote of no confidence.  If that doesn't happen immediately, they can carry on because confidence exists in the absence of proof otherwise.  If at any time the parliament decides to vote them out, then that's the end.

There are two versions of this scenario.  The first is that Labor is ready to govern but there are enough crossbenchers who are unwilling to grant the Liberals confidence and supply, but also unwilling at least temporarily to vote for a no confidence motion to remove the Liberals.  The government would last for as long as the crossbenchers took to change their mind.   An interesting figure here is Peter George, because George comes to the parliament without the history of the rest of the left(ish) crossbenchers and has also said that he would not have supported the previous no-confidence motion.  It may be he considers that supporting a no-confidence motion as a formality to form a new government is different to bringing down one that is already running.  

This may sound unstable as hell, but we've been here before.  From 1996 to 1998 the Liberals under Tony Rundle governed without a firm confidence and supply agreement with the crossbench Greens because the House declined to vote the government out.  

It may still sound unstable as hell, because it is.  The current situation is completely different in that whereas Labor pledged to govern in majority or not at all going into the 1996 election (with every candidate signing to that effect) in this case Labor went into the election open to minority government under conditions.  So the Greens in particular only had the option of continuing to support the Rundle government or causing an election they'd be blamed for.  

In the second variant, the crossbenchers have the numbers to vote the government out if Labor helps them but Labor has chosen to take the L.  In this case the government continues until Labor decides it's time to take over.  The problem with doing this for any lasting period is that the crossbench can demonstrate, via a motion of no confidence that Labor refuses to support, that Tasmania has become an effective grand coalition, and that Labor is no longer opposing and is keeping the government in office when they could be the government instead.  There were hints in this direction in the previous Parliament but it never actually materialised on the floor.  

This by the way is why Labor absolutely shouldn't at this stage concede.  Labor would be criticised if they conceded for having an absurd position: they thought the state's budget was dire enough to send the government to an election, but then they choose to stay in Opposition rather than take government and do anything about it, in a situation where they clearly could. 

3. Labor Government with presumptive confidence and supply

In this scenario, Labor or a willing crossbencher moves a no-confidence motion at the commencement of Parliament.  In 1989 after some troubles with the standing order that required a two-thirds majority to suspend standing orders (which was set aside at the start of the 2024-5 parliament for that parliament only but should really be disposed of for good), the Greens and Labor effected this by moving an amendment to the Governor's Address In Reply.  Like so:


However the wording of the motion this time could need considering given that there are some crossbenchers who have indicated they will vote on confidence and supply on a case by case basis.   It might have to be adapted and those crossbenchers might need to indicate to the Governor that while they were not promising confidence and supply to the government indefinitely, it was their intention to support a Labor government and they expected, all else being equal, to be able to do so for some time.  It would need to be clear to the Governor that no Liberal leader or Government was going to command the confidence of the House and that Labor was the only hope for stable government and had some realistic prospect of governing for at least a reasonable time.

(Governor Bennett's decision to make Michael Field and the Greens jump through hoops to demonstrate stable intentions before Field's government was sworn in has been controversial to say the least. The motion above plus perhaps confirmation from all involved of their stance should have been enough - see also Anne Twomey).

In terms of arrangements with the Greens, Labor would proceed with the Greens' support in passing the no confidence motion, but would based on their statements so far avoid making any deal with them.  A deal is an exchange of desirables.  A gift of confidence with nothing in return is not a deal.  But there may already be discussions behind the scenes on how this not-a-deal would be delivered.  

Installed in government, Labor would have daunting headaches.  Under their current rules that preclude coalition governments with outside support, Labor would need to provide a ministry from a PLP of thirteen members. This is one fewer than in the 1989-1992 term, however the Labor Party's rules do allow them to accept independent ministers (just not ministers who represent another party), which could include Legislative Councillors.  (I have had suggestions that the party's platform is moribund because of the federal intervention anyway and the PLP and admin committee will do what they like, but I don't expect Green ministers all the same.)  Much like the Field government they would be faced with tough decisions in a fiscal crisis, but unlike the Field government they would have been aware of the crisis and promised only modest measures to address it, so every time they brought in harsh medicine they would be told that they knew yet hid their plans from the people.

Having in effect and in widespread public perception caused the election but polled their worst primary vote since 1903, with a swing from them to the sitting Government which had won the primary vote by 14 points (more than Gray in 1989), then taken government having not even tried to before they forced the election, Labor would face severe public legitimacy problems.  The term would be marked by Concerned Voters Associations, constant calls for the abolition of Hare-Clark, though the same thing could have happened off these vote shares in terms of who governed in a single-seat system too - because so many left voters voted for the Greens and independents.  I would probably need to set up a Media Bullshit Register page to deal with all the false claims being put to air by instant Tassie experts from the north island.  (In fact I am not that far off doing that already).   In some ways it would be worse than 1989 because even the Field Government did not take power after a primary vote swing to the government.  And in 1989 there was no social media ... shudder!

Labor would also be supported by a crossbench with almost as many MPs as themselves which would be hungry to deliver outcomes for supporters and probably not content to spend four years sitting around supporting Labor in the name of stability and losing Laborial motions on the stadium, salmon, forestry and whatever else.  The Greens might not want to give Labor guaranteed confidence and supply either, at least not for terribly long.  The lurking threat of sudden execution can have a powerful effect in greening up a government around the edges.  

The most likely combination for this scenario is all of Garland, Johnston and George, or two of them plus a favourable Bass winner.  However Di Falco and O'Byrne aren't out of the possibility list yet.  

Formal confidence and supply seems a lot less likely unless somebody changes their position but in theory 10 Labor + 5 Greens + favourable Bass winner + Garland + either Di Falco or O'Byrne.   Even if the independents here are willing the question is why should the Greens be if it is in return for nothing.

We will learn much more about the chances of these options over the next few weeks.  The counts are scheduled to finish on August 2, followed by the return of the writs which starts the one-week countdown for a Premier to be commissioned, but if it is not clear who will have 18 seats at that point then negotiations can continue all the way until Parliament actually sits (which I have heard but not confirmed is late September).  

Sunday, July 20, 2025

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

LYONS (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN)

(At Election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 Nat)

SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green
SEAT PARTY CONTEST: Carlo Di Falco (Shooters Fishers and Farmers) leads Stephanie Cameron or Richard Hallett (Lib) and is strongly placed.
SEAT WINNERS: Jane Howlett (Lib), Guy Barnett (Lib), Mark Shelton (Lib), Jen Butler (ALP), Brian Mitchell (ALP), Tabatha Badger (Green)
SEAT LOST: Andrew Jenner (Nat)

NOTE: The Lyons count involves a complex Hare-Clark scenario and has been rated Wonk Factor 4/5.  


Last and very far from least, Lyons, with an interesting final seat contest.  It will be one of the great stories of Tasmanian elections, whatever you think of his politics, if serial candidate Carlo Di Falco gets up for the battling but ever trying Shooters Fishers and Farmers at his 8th attempt at public office (that's even one more than Craig Garland).  The party's campaign was so bereft of visible presence that I thought they would have trouble getting over the far more visible Nationals, even though the Nats campaign was, putting it kindly, cow manure.  

I start this piece on Sunday night with 64.7% counted.  Lyons generally lags because of having a high out of electorate vote and is lagging even more this year, so this count is still very incomplete.

The Liberals have 3.319 quotas, Labor 2.301 quotas, the Greens 1.075, Di Falco 0.572 and the Nats 0.339.  There's also .394 quotas between eight colourful independents, of whom just one is clearly left-wing.  

On paper Di Falco has a whopping lead even if it may drop off somewhat in what's to come, and he also has the advantage of being a lone candidate.  His total cannot lose votes to leakage, he will just keep gaining preferences through the cutup.  

That sounds extremely callable but the potential issue that I see is the split within the Liberal ticket.  Yes it's the Ginninderra Effect again.  Jane Howlett has topped the poll [edit 24/7: not anymore!] with quota and her surplus will elect Guy Barnett if he doesn't end up getting a quota on primaries too.  But Mark Shelton has less than half a quota (currently .458) and leads the next Liberal Stephanie Cameron by just .17 of a quota.

To illustrate how this works, let's suppose the preferences coming from the other three Liberals and the small Howlett surplus split evenly between Shelton and Cameron and none of them leave the ticket.  On current numbers this would leave Shelton on 5039 votes, still well short of quota of 6768, and Cameron on 3888.  That puts Cameron almost level with Di Falco, who is on 3869.  These candidates would be the final three, they all wouldn't reach quota, and if the Liberals could get twice as many preferences between them as Di Falco they could both beat him,   

However, votes do leak out of tickets; the two Liberals will drop about 200 each to leakage from these numbers, some of which will go to Di Falco.  

A question is also how even the split between the Liberals will be.  In 2024 these same two candidates ended up as the last two Liberals standing and Shelton gained 2201 votes to Cameron's 1905.  Shelton especially gained on votes from outside the ticket (Tucker who is now a National and also the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers who won't be eliminated this time) but Cameron gained on two of the three Liberal exclusions, including Richard Hallett who is on the ballot again this year.  Cameron could do well on the Liberal exclusions this time because all three minor Liberals are fellow farmers and two of them are fellow female farmers.  Do the Lyons Liberals have any other sort of candidate?  

I haven't been able to find a 2 Liberals vs 1 SFF preference case that's really comparable; I did find that with 3 vs 1 SFF got 417 preferences to the Liberals' 755 off the preferences of John Tucker (then IND) in 2024.  This suggests it won't be easy for the Liberals to get a strong enough flow from Nationals or others to bother Di Falco.

Also I suspect the indie votes will help Di Falco.  Some of them are likeminded candidates (Bigg is a former SFF regular) and anti-stadium voting may strengthen the flow from the Nationals as well as minor indies.  

All up I think the Liberals have to at least improve their current position relative to Di Falco by several hundred votes before they're really in the hunt, and that while it is not as clear as the party totals suggest, Di Falco is currently very well placed.  

While Labor are close to the Liberals on raw total their vote is too concentrated in their two leading candidates Jen Butler and Brian Mitchell, so Labor have no ability to stay in touch with Di Falco on current figures.  The Nats will also at some point get reduced to just John Tucker, who will not get over Cameron and therefore won't be able to get Liberal preferences. 

Tuesday 22nd: Yesterday's phone votes did weaken Di Falco's position slightly, he now has .559 Q vs Liberals .3.324.  66.7% counted.  

Wednesday 23rd: Di Falco down again on out of division votes, now .553 vs Liberals 3.369.  82.15% counted.  I saw some scrutineering of IND/Nat candidates who will be excluded, which in general suggested the Liberals may make some gains on Di Falco, but nothing that looks like enough all else being equal.  

Thursday 24th: Not sure where this came from but Barnett has got ahead of Howlett and is now topping the poll; currently both are over quota.  Also the Shelton/Cameron gap is out to .20 quotas which is not good for the Liberals' chances of holding two candidates above Di Falco.  

6 pm: Di Falco 0.544 Liberals 3.358.  

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

 FRANKLIN (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED): 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 2 IND
SEAT WINNERS: Eric Abetz (Lib), Jacquie Petrusma (Lib), Dean Winter (ALP), Peter George (Ind), David O'Byrne (Ind), Rosalie Woodruff (Grn), Meg Brown (ALP)
SEAT LOST: Nic Street (Liberal)

IND (Peter George) gain from Liberal


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Franklin looked like the most exciting seat in the leadup with two strong independents, the Liberals fighting to hold their three seats, Labor fighting to gain one and the Greens having come quite close to two in 2024.  Nobody expected the latter to repeat.  Towards election day the view that the Liberals would drop a seat to Peter George strengthened and this is what appears to have occurred.

On Sunday night with 72.3% of enrolment counted, the Liberals have 2.726 quotas, Labor 1.822, the Peter George ticket 1.389, the Greens 1.078 and O'Byrne 0.911.  Peter George has polled exceptionally well, holding nearly three-quarters of his federal election vote.  He and Kristie Johnston are the first non-proto-Green independents to top the poll in a seat since Reg Turnbull in Bass 1959.  

George's preferences will be very leaky - I have heard about a third go straight to Rosalie Woodruff, bypassing George's low-profile support cast.  Eric Abetz will either reach a quota on primaries or very early in the cutup (perhaps even off George's surplus) and then a long series of cuts from the bottom up will eventually elect in some order Winter, O'Byrne, Woodruff and Petrusma.  The final act of any significance is likely to be the exclusion of the third Labor candidate, at which point the second Labor candidate should go well clear of the Liberals' Nic Street,

Even if the primary vote gap between the parties disappears, the problem for the Liberals is preferences.  They are slightly more exposed to leakage from their ticket but this will probably be cancelled out by the Labor ticket being slightly leakier.  The big problem is the .467 quotas that at some stage will leave the Greens and George tickets.  While some of this will exhaust, what of it doesn't exhaust (probably at least two-thirds) will greatly help Labor against the Liberals.  If the gap between Petrusma and Street stays where it is then the Liberals have a slight advantage by being able to hold two candidates below quota, but that disappears once they get even 0.1 of a quota in preferences, and if they don't get that they can't win anyway.  So the only way a ticket split could help the Liberals is if Street catches up to Petrusma and past experience suggests if anything that she will pull away.  The Liberals have absolutely nowhere to get a preference advantage from and I don't think they could win from even stevens let alone from (notionally) 691 votes behind.  

There is a 749 vote gap for Labor's second seat between first-term incumbent Meg Brown and high-profile unionist Jess Munday, whose campaign was marked by unconvincing claims she was ineligible.  Such gaps are generally not closed.  There will be a large volume of Greens and George ticket preferences flowing into this battle however so I will keep an eye on what happens here, and am holding off calling this internal contest for the moment.  

The real tension here is that party outcast David O'Byrne is 135 votes ahead of the ALP leader Dean Winter, and could outpoll him.  There is no love lost between these two and we could be in for heavy duty trolling if the lead survives.  O'Byrne has been overshadowed a little by George here but 11.4% is a strong number in its own right and the combined major party vote has been even lower in Franklin than in Clark.

Monday 21st: Phone votes added today (counted as postals) did nothing for the Liberals, in fact they went backwards slightly.  I have heard of a large scrutineering sample where Labor beats the Liberals by 35 points on a 2PP basis off George preferences.   Some of that will get stuck with other candidates (a lot with the Greens but the split off them will be even stronger).  To be clear Franklin is not in play.  

Exciting Update: In the David O'Byrne - Dean Winter grudge match, O'Byrne's lead has been cut to 59.  I expect Winter will be elected before O'Byrne because he has three very low scoring ticketmates, so the battle is for primary vote bragging rights.  In 2021 Winter outpolled O'Byrne by 321, in 2024 easily.

Wednesday 23rd: O'Byrne vs Winter now down to 45!  I did some scrutineering of a few things irrelevant to the result today.  Firstly the Peter George ticket is so leaky that in the samples I saw, somewhat more of his votes were going to the Greens than staying with the ticket.  We will get a clearer idea next week when George's surplus is thrown.  Secondly I sampled 235 Greens votes for 2PP (defined by which major party a vote hits a candidate from first) and they broke 53.4% Labor 4.4% Liberal 42.4% exhaust (after reweighting), a very similar pattenr to Clark.  

Meg Brown is now 862 ahead of Jess Munday.  In all probability that's too much so I've put Brown in the winners list above but with a TBC just in case something very odd happens.  

Thursday 24th: Out of division prepoll added.  Meg Brown now over 900 ahead of Munday. Grudge match update: O'Byrne now 81 ahead of Winter. 

5:40 pm: Winter overtakes O'Byrne on postals, now 13 ahead!

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Clark

CLARK (2024 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED) 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND
SEAT WINNERS: Kristie Johnston (IND), Ella Haddad (ALP), Josh Willie (ALP), Vica Bayley (GRN), Helen Burnet (GRN), Marcus Vermey (Lib)
WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Simon Behrakis (Lib) leads Madeleine Ogilvie (Lib) and expected to win but gap should close on preferences


After deciding the government in 2021 and delivering two Greens for the first time ever in 2024,  Clark doesn't have so much excitement in 2025.  Two Greens elected comfortably?  Seen that before!  Indie tops the poll? It is Clark after all.  John Macgowan doesn't even get 666 votes?  It is Clark after all. 

What we do have however is a cage match between Sandy Bay butcher Marcus Vermey (about whose position on the Liberal spectrum I still know nothing after three elections covering) and incumbents Simon Behrakis and Madeleine Ogilvie (long ago a Labor MP for the seat).   This is a repeat of the 2024 intra-Liberal contest in Clark but in that case Vermey was too far back.  This time he's in the lead.

Kristie Johnston has as mentioned topped the poll with 1.20 quotas.  She and Peter George are the first non-proto-Green independents to top the poll in a seat since Reg Turnbull in Bass 1959.  The Liberals have 2.46 quotas, Labor 2.21, the Greens 1.75 and ex-Liberal independent Elise Archer 0.25.  

In theory the evenish split between Vermey, Ogilvie and Behrakis might give them chances of staying over one of the two Greens but the two Greens have a good split too.  At candidate level Helen Burnet (second Green) leads Ogilvie by 217 with about the same number of votes to distribute within each of the tickets.  The Greens prefs should be slightly leakier but the Liberal preferences are splitting three ways while the Greens preferences are only splitting between two candidates.  Furthermore there are 2417 surplus Johnston and Labor votes that will favour the Greens (to the extent they don't exhaust) and I have heard that Archer's preferences are splitting pretty evenly on a 2PP basis between the majors, so they won't greatly help the Liberals.  And there's little reason why they should, since Archer ran against the stadium.  Also there are a couple of ungrouped INDs whose preferences will help the Greens.

Therefore it comes down to, at present, Vermey 4629 Behrakis 4180 Ogilvie 3510.  In 2024 all these stayed in the count til the end and Ogilvie gained 2598, Behrakis 2406 and Vermey 2029, so Ogilvie needs to do better on preferences to overtake at least Behrakis.  What was notable in the 2024 count, however, was gender-based preferencing.  Ogilvie made substantial gains when two female Liberal candidates were excluded and also on the preferences of ex-Liberal independent Sue Hickey.  Behrakis made his largest gain vs Ogilvie on the preferences of a male Liberal, Jon Gourlay, though he didn't gain from the other male Liberal.

In this election there is another ex-Liberal female independent in Elise Archer, and also within the Liberal ticket there are more votes for minor female candidates (2010) than minor male candidates (1343).  This was not the case in 2024.   Kristie Johnston having surplus probably won't help Ogilvie much as almost none of it will go to the Liberals.  

670 votes is 670 votes though, it's quite a large lead for one of these things, and I am highly doubtful that the differences between this cutup and 2024 are worth nearly 500 votes more of Ogilvie gain.  Indeed, Archer has fewer votes than Hickey had last time.  I find it extremely hard to see how Vermey could be passed by both rivals and I think Behrakis is a strong favourite to stay above Ogilvie.  

Monday 21st: Behrakis has increased his lead to 733 votes.  

Tuesday 22nd:  I have heard of some scrutineering sampling that has Ogilvie catching Behrakis off other Liberals at a rate that would make her competitive.  I'm intending to do some of my own tomorrow.

Wednesday 23rd: Total I scrutineered a sample of 191 minor Liberal votes (it takes a lot of hanging around to see them!) and after reweighting the flow came out at Vermey 30.8% Ogilvie 35.4% Behrakis 27.0% and a rather low 6.8% leaked.  On that basis off the Monday primaries Ogilvie would reduce the gap on Liberal preferences by about 288 votes.  Liberal scrutineers have what I expect are larger samples.  I expect updated totals soon in which the primary gap is likely to close, partly off Ogilvie doing better on out of electorate votes (I was too busy to remember to check by how much!) and partly because there's a 50-vote bundle to be corrected from Behrakis to Di Florio.  From what I saw Ogilvie shouldn't be expecting to gain much off anybody outside the party.  In particular, Elise Archer's votes mostly don't flow to the Liberals at all.  I have now called Vermey in because there is clearly no way they will both pass him, indeed I'll be surprised if either does.   [Update: Behrakis still leads by 713 after today's counting which seems reasonably comfortable, on projection still over 400 after Liberal preferences.]

For interest I also did some 2PP scrutineering of 265 Greens votes with a result of Labor 54.9% Liberal 4.2% exhaust 40.9%.  

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Braddon

 BRADDON (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 JLN 1 IND)

(At Election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Nat 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED) 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND
SEAT WINNERS: Jeremy Rockliff (Lib), Gavin Pearce (Lib), Felix Ellis (Lib), Roger Jaensch (Lib, TBC), Anita Dow (ALP), Shane Broad (ALP), Craig Garland (IND)
SEAT LOST: Miriam Beswick (Nat)
Liberal gain from National


One election Braddon canes the Liberals by becoming the first non-marginal seat to be lost by an Opposition to a Government in federal election history.  The next election, this ... there can be no purer example of how Tasmanians view state and federal politics differently.

While I thought the Liberals were a chance for four seats here I thought it would most likely be by squeezing the Greens through a favourable distribution of votes in their ticket.  Instead the Liberals have polled a stonking 49.7%, let's call it 50% because it may well get there, in their own right.  

The Liberals in Braddon have 3.97 quotas, Labor 1.90, Craig Garland 0.82 and the Greens 0.58.  I'm not bothering with third decimal places here because this result is clearcut.  Garland as a lone independent will improve his position relative to the Greens because he cannot leak votes whereas they will leak votes as minor candidate are excluded, but it doesn't matter because the Greens would not get near him anyway.

Premier Rockliff has 2.53 quotas in his own right.  His surplus will elect Gavin Pearce.  On past form it will also bring Roger Jaensch up closer to Felix Ellis and well clear of Giovanna Simpson (Jaensch has a history of polling modest primary votes but huge shares of Rockliff's surplus),  but that will be confirmed early in the cutup.  Then exclusions from the bottom up and at some point all of Ellis, Jaensch, Dow, Broad and Garland will all either cross quota or be left without quota but way clear of the Greens.

In the event that the Greens were competitive the poor concentration of their vote in the seat, with only 36.6% being 1 Bleyer, down from the 53.0% for Darren Briggs last time, would be a major problem for them anyway.  Garland has performed very well in roughly doubling his 2024 vote.

Except for Garland the remaining independents have mostly served to clutter up the ballot paper and have polled risibly low vote shares, as have the Nationals.  

As this seat is completely settled barring the confirmation of the usual Rocky/Roger surplus surge, I won't be paying Braddon much attention in this postcount.  However, there will be some updates. 

Sunday 20th: Liberals 2 votes short of 50% today. 

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass

BASS (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN)
(At Election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green
SEAT PARTY CONTEST: Multiple contenders - Labor and SF+F appear to be best chances, other possible contenders are Liberals, Greens, Razay and (very remotely) Pentland
SEAT WINNERS: Bridget Archer (Lib), Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (GRN)
WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Jess Greene vs Geoff Lyons (ALP) - or both may win
WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Simon Wood/Julie Sladden/Chris Gatenby (Lib) - may not be for a seat
SEAT LOST (TBC): Rebekah Pentland (IND)

NOTE: The Bass count involves a complex Hare-Clark scenario and has been rated Wonk Factor 4/5. 


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INTRODUCTORY NOTE: What Is Leakage?

Leakage is very important in the Bass result.  Leakage occurs when a candidate is excluded or elected and some of their votes instead of flowing to other candidates within their party flow to candidates from outside the party or exhaust.  Parties are more prone to leakage when they have candidates who are way over quota or when they have several candidates to be excluded with substantial vote numbers between them.  Independents, or single-ticket party candidates, cannot leak and will often gain on parties through the count.  

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In trying to work out what might happen at this state election, one of the hardest things to figure out was what would happen to the final seat in Bass.  There were a range of possibilities but no one seemed to have their hand up for it.  I'm delighted to inform the House that this is still the case, if anything it's messier than I imagined possible.  Perhaps after tomorrow's prepolls this will change, but we will see.

As I start this thread Bass is 59.3% counted.  Tomorrow we have the Launceston prepoll which in 2024 was worth 16.8% of enrolment; it will probably be larger this time.  

The current quota leaders in Bass in the race for the final seat are:

Shooters Fishers and Farmers 0.368 quotas
Greens 1.316 quotas
Liberals 3.314 quotas
Razay (IND) 0.268
Labor 2.210 quotas
Pentland (IND) 0.190

When the Launceston prepoll is added the Liberals should go up to approaching 3.4 quotas, and all of SF+F, Razay and Pentland should drop.  

The cutup, when it starts, will start with the election of Bridget Archer who currently has 1.46 quotas in her own right.  Michael Ferguson has 0.83 quotas and may cross on Archer's surplus.  Janie Finlay is currently on roughly a quota and will cross either on primaries or very soon after (perhaps even on leakage from Archer.)  There will then be a long series of exclusions from the bottom that after the exclusion of various minor Greens and Liberals will eventually put Rob Fairs and Cecily Rosol over quota in some order.  

It may seem from the numbers above that Labor are trailing several others in the race for the final seat but here Labor have an advantage that Geoff Lyons and Jess Greene currently have almost identical votes (1475 and 1577).  If they can maintain that split then the 1.2 quotas Labor is left with eventually becomes close to 0.6 quotas for each of two candidates. They will not move as quickly on preferences as a single candidate for a party would, but that lead might be large enough to hold off the challengers. 

The other thing in Labor's favour here is that Finlay has almost exactly a quota which is perfect for them.  They have currently only .661 quotas in votes that can leak on preference throws on the way to either Lyons or Greene.  The Liberals have .858 quotas in leakable votes and most of this is in the Archer surplus.  I would expect that because of Archer's federal career and reputation for crossing the floor her votes may be leakier than the average Liberal.

In the event of the Liberals being in contention for four I suspect that Simon Wood will pull ahead of Sladden and Gatenby as an incumbent as he did last time.  

The Greens have lower exposure to leakage than either (.432 quotas currently) but they tend to have very high leakage rates and could well lose about as much to leakage as the majors.  The single-candidate contenders (the Shooters' Michael Frydrych, the independents Razay and Pentland), however, cannot leak, they can only accumulate preferences.  On that basis there's a fair chance, for instance, that Razay will pass the second Green.  

Anti-stadium preferencing, if it was a thing at all, could see some preferences pooling among the minor parties, but a cross-cutting factor is that some share of Greens preferences will always go to Labor - even if a Greens voter hates the stadium, will they really preference the Shooters over it?   Another factor is that SF+F don't usually tend to do that well on preferences.

I suspect this eventually ends up as a candidate race between the Liberals and Frydrych on the one side and the two Labor candidates on the other, and the question is whether the right-wing candidate (after preferences from the other one) can get over one Labor candidate after Labor has gained on Greens preferences.  

In theory an independent like Razay could get over Labor (if the split between its candidates becomes uneven) knocking out one of their candidates, whose preferences will then elect the other with a surplus.  But this isn't very helpful to the independent because there will be a lot of exhaust here.  For this reason I don't think the Greens, Razay and Pentland have serious chances here but will keep an eye on them.

Pentland is in the ungrouped column which will help with preference flows from indies but some of the other ungroupeds are quite Greens-friendly and there will be quite a bit of scatter, especially as Razay is in the adjacent column.

Expect we'll know far more about this one after the prepoll tomorrow.  

Sunday 20th:  Bass prepoll was actually weaker for the Liberals than expected with a below electorate average swing.  They made gains but so did the independents at the expense of Frydrych.  Now Greens 1.342 Liberals 3.336 SF+F 0.329 Razay 0.277 Pentland 0.204 Labor 2.193 - but remember that Labor's apparent last place is possibly really first!  Probably because I could not spell a word that long at 3 am I forgot to mention Labor winning would be another example of the Ginninderra Effect; the DemosAU seat sample pointed to this possibility in this seat.    A blow for the Liberals' chances to have not made a serious gain in this prepoll.

Monday 21st:  I have heard of a small multi-booth scrutineering sample with a colossal leakage rate from Archer - I doubt it will be fully born out but this firms up my expectation that Archer will leak a lot more than the average Liberal ticket leader, I'd expect double digits at least.  

Phone voting was processed today (these are recorded as postals, the mail-in postals are still to come).  The Liberals lead on the notional tally now with 3.348 from the Greens 1.342 SF+F 0.325 Razay 0.277 Pentland 0.202 and Labor 2.186.  The signs of high exhaust rate off the Liberals are handy for Frydrych as they increase the chance that he will be over the last Liberal and be able to access such Liberal preferences as don't exhaust.

PS I have heard that on a further sample the leak off Archer dropped but was still through the roof (around 25%), also that Pentland prefs are mostly scattering (if anything slightly favouring Labor against some opponents).  

Thursday 24th: I think an update I posted to this page yesterday failed to go through or got overwritten accidentally (happens often).  After today's counting the notional tally still has the Liberals leading on 3.344 Q, from SF+F 0.320 Greens 1.319 Razay 0.279 Labor 2.203 and Pentland 0.201.  Geoff Lyons has moved just ahead of Jess Greene but it's possible Greene will do better on preferences anyway (though I'm not sure, Lyons does have a high profile as a former federal member) - in any case I think the chances both win are quite good.  Labor should benefit strongly on Greens preferences but the Liberal preferences are likely to exhaust at a higher rate, assuming the Liberals are excluded before Frydrych which I think is rather likely.  In the Liberal race for probably nothing Wood leads Sladden by 84 with Gatenby 45 further back.

Tasmania Remains Ungovernable: 2025 Election Tallyboard And Summary

Tasmania 2025: Liberals Have Won Most Seats
Government formation however TBD
Rockliff has stated intent to be recommissioned.  If he proceeds, Parliament will need to pass another no confidence motion if it wishes to remove him and install Winter.  

Expected Seats 14 Lib 10 ALP 5 Green 4 IND 2 in doubt
BASS 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN multi-way contest for last seat - possibly Labor and SF+F best placed
BRADDON 4 LIB 2 ALP 1 IND
CLARK 2 LIB 2 ALP 2 GREEN 1 IND
FRANKLIN 2 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN 2 IND
LYONS 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN, SF+F leads Liberals for final seat and appears strongly placed

Links to seat postcount pages:

Other articles:


(Update at bottom of this page re comments in The Australian 20 July)

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After the 2024 election, Labor (with ten seats) could have sought to form government with the crossbench, but did not.  After bringing down the Rockliff government with a no-confidence motion this June, Labor could again have sought to form government, but did not.  And so we had an election, and they've again won about ten seats.  In the process they've further embarrassed themselves with what is likely to end up as their lowest primary vote since 1903.  Now maybe they can take government if they want it, but they will do so with a weaker mandate than had they done so last time.  

Based on the words of the leaders tonight, Jeremy Rockliff intends to be recommissioned as Premier at least to "meet the parliament".  If he can stitch together a basis for supply and confidence then well and good, but to continue in office he doesn't strictly need that. All he needs to continue is for there not to be 18 MPs willing to pass a new motion of no confidence in order that Labor be installed.  Even if 18 MPs do form a deal against him, he is still entitled to be reappointed and make the others vote him out on the floor.  Of course, if he can get 18 that will be better for him, but that may not be at all easy.

It remains to be seen whether Labor will want to potentially govern in the light of a new day, considering how much fun it wouldn't be and how embarrassing it is to be so reluctantly dragged to that fate.  But if they are still interested then they may need all of  the five Greens, Craig Garland, Kristie Johnston and Peter George.  And George is interesting because he comes to all this with clean hands in terms of the motion passed in the previous parliament.  He has said that he would not have voted for the previous no-confidence motion.  Perhaps he would view a fresh one differently.  If not, then Labor needs an extra seat from somewhere, with Bass a messy possibility.

It also appears Labor intends to let the Liberals try to negotiate their way to 18 first, but just how hard the Liberals might try is another question.  Even without 18 solid votes on confidence and supply, if there is not a lined-up deal against them the Liberals might well just go back to the parliament and govern as if nothing had occurred.  They would know full well that Labor would hardly bring them down while unwilling or unable to take government themselves any time soon.  So Labor - if they want government at all - cannot rely on the Liberals failing to get to 18.  They must be able to get 18 themselves.  It's important to note both George and Johnston have said they won't make confidence and supply agreements and intend to treat each vote on its merits.

There may be more clarity re Labor's intentions in coming days - it did not take long in 2024.  On this thread I will post updates about government formation as well as updating the tallyboard at the top.

Some summary comments on the numbers so far.  The Liberals have a swing to them everywhere but Franklin, where their vote is the same as last time but there are more people to beat, so they look like dropping a seat.  Their Braddon performance is the standout where I thought they were in the mix for four but most likely via some candidate-vote-splitting pathway off 3.4 quotas or so, not by just getting four quotas off the cuff.  

Labor has swings against them everywhere but worst in Franklin (Peter George effect) and also Lyons (with no Rebecca White).  The Greens have a status quo overall vote share and most likely seat share.  The Independent vote was overstated in polls by as much as I expected it to be, and the four expected winners have won with no others looking that likely to join them (though there's still some kind of chance in Bass).  The big four indies have all polled very well, but most of the remaining forty have embarrassed themselves.  It is too easy to run for Tasmanian parliament without having any serious support.  It slows the count down and makes voting more confusing for voters, and I suggest the Parliament in future require 100 signatures to run.

The Nationals have come and tried and failed again, deservedly so.  Serious questions should be asked in Canberra of the wisdom of the federal party's involvement in this ludicrous campaign and why they allowed a state branch that endorsed candidates who had sent Liberal governments to elections.  Moreover they've been shown up by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers who ran a far more limited campaign with just one candidate per seat, yet are leading the race for the final seat in Lyons with a splendid vote. 

The Jacqui Lambie Network ticket elected three MPs at the last election then collapsed.  The very low votes for all three show that they were only there on the Lambie name and did not build any real personal vote in just over a year.

Did Tasmanians vote for a change of government at this election?  I'm really not sure that they did. If anything, they voted to punish Labor for causing it, though those doing the punishing went to crossbenchers, not just Liberals.  Estimating Hare-Clark 2PPs is challenging, especially with the high Independent vote this election including a high vote for left independents, but the Liberals might just win a statewide Hare-Clark 2PP (my first back of envelope attempt was 51-49; it may be refined later).  But sometimes in Hare-Clark the party that would win the 2PP still loses the election, as happened in 1989.  

Can this parliament be stable?  If the Liberals continue in office after all that Labor will surely be chastened against any repeat of this performance and may even come under pressure to rule out no-confidence attempts for some time further.  If Labor takes office they will have to work with the Greens and independents who will not support them on several key policy areas.  With so few MPs to work with it will be as thankless a task as that confronted by Michael Field in 1989.  

Once upon a time, minority governments in Tasmania were invariably smashed and replaced by a majority of the other side.  Whatever else, Jeremy Rockliff has at least broken that hoodoo, though perhaps only because of the premature nature of this election.  I asked if the 2024 election was Hare-Clark's new normal, for this one at least it seems it was.  

More to follow, now on to the Bass postcount.  I expect Bass to be my only postcount thread tonight, with the rest posted tomorrow.  

Sunday 20th 10:15 am: It is also worth noting that just because Garland voted for the previous no-confidence motion does not mean he will vote for a new one if the Government is responsive enough to his concerns.  But this only even arises if they need his vote to sutvive.

Sunday 20th late night: Dean Winter's press conference today gave a pretty clear indication that Labor is having a serious sniff around re taking minority government.  While ruling out any deal with the Greens, Winter seems open to accepting confidence and supply for nothing, and questions Rockliff's ability to form a government.  

The Australian today contained the following:

Constitutional expert Donald Rothwell told The Australian Mr Rockliff could not expect Ms Baker to automatically commission him to test his support if he could not demonstrate that support existed.

“I don’t think under the circumstances that the Governor would say ‘Test your support’, because of the fear that she may well end up commissioning a Liberal government which could literally fall on the first day,” said Professor Rothwell, of the Australian Nat­ional University’s law school.

“The Governor will be cautious … given what happened in June (the no-confidence motion against Mr Rockliff). The Governor will, I think, also be proactive in terms of having discussions with both sides until such a point as (she) is completely assured.

As best I can determine Donald Rothwell is primarily an international law expert anyway.  In any case, the above is inconsistent with established tradition regarding the right of an incumbent in a minority situation - however doomed - to "meet the House" and see if they can survive.  Australian examples included Don Dunstan in 1968, Robin Gray in 1989 and Rob Kerin in 2002, all voted out.  

There is no reason to fear commissioning a government which would fall on the first day as that government would not have time to do any damage.  If the Premier wants to be recommissioned to test their support it is by far best that their support or not be determined by the Parliament than by an unelected Governor's opinion of who has the prettiest collection of letters of support.  It is only when there is no incumbent that the Governor needs make a choice of who is the best person to send back into the House based on who the Governor thinks is most likely to command the support of the House.  Here the Governor is entitled to expect some evidence of support (such as a Parliamentary motion of confidence in the new Premier).  

Of course, if Rockliff discovers he is well short of the numbers and that Dean Winter has the numbers, he has the option to resign.  I believe we won't see that as the Government will be very keen to argue that its replacement is illegitimate and try to make all its crossbench supporters wear the blame for installing it.

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Tasmanian Election Day 2025

Live coverage at this link on election night

This article is part of my Tasmanian 2025 election coverage.  Click here for link to main guide page including links to effective voting advice and seat guides.

--

We're here again Tasmania.  It seems like only yesterday that I was writing such a piece, because it almost was.  Today ends the shortest gap between elections in any Australian state since Vince Gair's Labor government destroyed itself in Queensland 1957 and started 32 years in the wilderness.  

The 11-year old Rockliff Government is chasing history that it seems to be struggling to achieve yet again.  Not since 1921 in any Australian jurisdiction has a government been forced to an election by losing a no-confidence motion and survived.  Not since 1959 has a Tasmanian government that served a whole term without a majority survived, and not since 1964 has a government elected in minority done so.  (The Reece government gained a majority for a chunk of its term on a 1961 vacancy recount).  

Tonight I will be doing live coverage for Pulse Media which will be at the link below the picture above, unless advised otherwise.  There will probably be an intro comment up around 6-ish depending on logistics but expect the real action to start around 6:30 and go til around 11 or possibly later.  I will be based at the tally room.  I ask media other than Pulse not to contact me by phone or email between 5 pm and the end of the live coverage.  I may be available quickly after that for a few other interviews (feel free to say hi in the tally room when I don't look too busy to arrange).    Scrutineers are very welcome to send me news and figures by phone or email.  

There may be a "late night live" thread here.  I may start postcount threads late tonight or they may be left til tomorrow morning.  For tomorrow, I will be available for interviews mostly though I will be pretty busy through to 4 pm and unavailable for up to an hour at times.  Media are not to call or text me between 1 am and 9 am unless booked tonight.  

My main guide page is here with links to individual electorate guides and effective voting advice.  For those seeking voting advice, I recommend to number all the boxes or at the least to number every candidate who you think is OK or better.  This may make your vote more powerful and it cannot harm your preferred candidates.  If you vote 1-7 for a party and stop, your vote can play no role in determining which other parties are successful.  Check that you have not doubled or skipped any numbers, especially not between 1 and 7. Do not use ticks or crosses.

Concerning the result I have issued an aggregate of public and semi-public polling which was written up here with minor revisions in my coverage of the final YouGov here.  This should again not be considered a prediction.  It's an assessment of what the polls should be taken as saying after accounting for the overestimating of the independent vote at the previous two elections.  There are obvious polling methods reasons why the independent vote appears likely to be overestimated again, but it would be very funny and chaotic if it was higher, so let's not rule that out entirely.  The final seats in Bass and Lyons are very hard to pick for me and while my reading of the polling aggregate gives both to Labor putting the total at 13-12-6-4, I would not be much surprised if one or both fell over to Inds or fourth parties - that said I don't entirely rule out Labor gains elsewhere.  

Several things about the counting tonight and in following days:

1. The count tonight will be significantly less complete than in past years.  The Tasmanian Parliament made a change in which the count of postals is delayed for a few days while it is checked that postal voters have not been marked off at a booth.  The TEC has also advised that the following prepolls will report tomorrow (morning through to early afternoon) not today:

Launceston (Bass)
Smithton and Queenstown (Braddon)
Hobart (Clark)
Rosny (Franklin)
New Norfolk (Lyons)

The TEC intends to report the remaining nine prepolls tonight but because of the large increase in prepolls, and the fact that Tasmania has not adopted a 4 pm start for prepoll processing, I expect this to take some time.  Also they expect to close for the night at 11 pm.   I may add some comments about the behaviour of these booths and past postcount shift effects to this article later today.

2. The count of booth votes early in the night may be much less representative than in past years.  Australia in recent years has had a number of elections (particularly NSW 2023) where as the on-the-day vote reduces, the on-the-day vote becomes less representative of voters as a whole (more left skewed generally) and also the scope for errors in projecting other vote types becomes larger because there are more other votes.  There is a particular reason why this could happen this year, which is that voters who have "voted angry" about being Groundhog Dayed to the polls (some for the fifth time in 21 months) may have been likelier to vote early.  

3. Keep in mind that raw quota totals are not always a reliable predictor.  A party with a slightly higher quota total will sometimes lose to a party or candidate with a slightly lower total.  Factors to consider here are: leakage as party candidates are excluded, the way candidate vote shares are spread within a party and of course preferences, which may have more impact than usual this year.  Especially, independents running by themselves (as opposed to independent groups like Peter George's and Adam Martin's) often stand better than a quota total indicates because an independent cannot leak votes to other parties but can only receive leakage from them.  In 2024 Craig Garland, starting on 0.40 quotas, defeated the Liberals' fourth candidate despite the Liberals starting on 3.65.  Hare-Clark's nearest thing to preference snowballs could be more prominent this year because of anti-stadium voting, but there are limits.  Votes always scatter and never flow nearly 100% between candidates.

4. Certain candidates will do better or worse at certain stages of the night.  In 2024 David O'Byrne started slowly and built up votes as large blue collar Eastern Shore booths reported last.  We can monitor swings for O'Byrne from 2024 this year, but Peter George is likely to display the reverse pattern.  He will tend to poll through the roof in small coastal booths and drop off later.  I will be using his federal vote to try to project where he is going. In past elections we have often seen high votes in the first few booths for: Liberals in rural booths in Bass and Lyons, Craig Garland and Felix Ellis in Braddon, and Greens and left-wing candidates in Clark (Fern Tree booth) and Franklin (Bruny Island booths).  

5. In recent elections it has been usual for all the seats to be known at party level by the end of election night except for a couple, with a few more undecided at candidate level.  In 2025 the party lineup is simpler in some seats than in 2024 but we will still probably have a few to several undecided at party level tonight and a few to several more undecided at candidate level - because of the incompleteness and unrepresentativeness of the count.  We will learn a lot more on Sunday.

6. The Hare-Clark system is often blamed for the time it takes to count Tasmanian elections.  In fact the major cause of the delay is the 10 day waiting period for the last postal votes to arrive, with the preference distribution taking about 5 working days.  

7. The informal vote may look very high on the night but can go down a bit as votes are checked and postals added, so we will only have a vague idea tonight.  It will be interesting to see how it changes from the unacceptably high level in 2024, which was a result of the Parliament's failure to adopt savings provisions for the shift to 7 members.

8. Turnout is never known on the night and always looks low on the night.  Journalists: do not comment on turnout until all the primary votes are counted in 10 days' time.  

9. There may be some confusion and perhaps even spurious claims about where the apparent result is headed tonight, especially if the Liberals win the most seats but do not have a path to government other than the opposition parties completely failing to bang the rocks together.  I will cover this in detail on my site over coming days if necessary; the Formation section of my guide is a good place to start.  

Not-A-Polls

I have been running Not-A-Polls in the sidebar to get a feeling for how readers think the election will go.  The overall projected total has never budged from 12-12-5-5-1 but through the campaign what started around 12.0 Liberal 12.6 Labor has shifted to 12.3 Liberal 12.0 Labor.  In the late votes Labor has done particularly weakly with the last 50 votes on each major party coming out at 13.05-10.6, but these were mostly taken before last night's YouGov poll.  A reminder that winning the most seats narrowly or even perhaps by a few appears to be not enough for the Liberals to win the election.

The Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll in the sidebar will temporarily close at 6 pm.  It will reopen in coming days only if it appears that Rockliff may have a path to government that is longer than simply meeting the parliament and losing another no-confidence motion.  

I may add further comments today if there are any voting day incidents.  For those still going to the polls stay safe, the wintry winds are blowing.  I hope everyone enjoys the coverage tonight and in days to come, whatever they think of the result.  

2024 Postcount Shifts

As much for my own reference as anything else, in 2024:

* In Bass the Greens lost around 0.6% from the booth count to the final primaries, with ungrouped losing about 0.3% with the Liberals gaining about 0.9%.  From a count including the prepolls expected tonight the Greens lost about 0.2%, ungrouped lost 0.3% and the Liberals gained 0.7%.

* In Braddon Craig Garland dropped 0.5% and the majors each gained about 0.4% from the booth count.  After including prepolls expected tonight all parties were within 0.2% of the final total, with the Greens making the largest subsequent gain and Labor slipping backwards.

* In Clark, the Greens lost 1.4% from the booth vote to final, the Liberals gained 0.9 and Sue Hickey gained 0.6.  Including the prepolls expected tonight made the Greens vote representative (they do badly in Glenorchy prepoll) and it was now Labor who were overrepresented by 0.7% with the Liberals and Hickey having 0.3% to add.

* In Franklin, the day booth count overestimated the Greens by about 1% and underestimated the Liberals by the same amount.  Including the prepolls expected tonight the Greens were still over where they finished by 0.6% with the Liberals and O'Byrne a few tenths under.

* In Lyons, the day booth count was largely representative, but slightly underestimated John Tucker.  The on the night figures after prepolls were highly representative with the Liberals dropping 0.2 from that point on.

As noted above I expect these shifts could be a lot bigger in 2025.  

Friday, July 18, 2025

Tasmania 2025: YouGov Has Majors Much Closer

 


This article is part of my Tasmanian 2025 election coverage.  Click here for link to main guide page including links to effective voting advice and seat guides.

YOUGOV Lib 31 ALP 30 Green 16 IND 20* Nat 2 SF+F 1
* could be overstated through poll design issues
Seat estimate for this poll Lib 13 ALP 11-12 Green 6 IND 4-5

Thankfully a final YouGov public poll has appeared for the fairly sparsely polled Tasmanian state election, albeit unfortunately without seat breakdowns, and if it is to be believed then Labor are doing better than the recent DemosAU and Liberal EMRS internals have suggested, and the Liberals are doing much worse than the latter.  I was hoping we would get a poll today and suspecting it might pull my aggregate in line with the widespread view that Labor has run a poor campaign and is at risk of losing vote share, but it's actually better for Labor than the polls since the last YouGov have been.  This would find the Liberals with a measly one-point lead which would give them no possible path to government assuming that Labor is willing to take it and the Greens to help Labor do so.  Indeed it's not impossible if this poll's true that Labor and the Greens could get a majority together (a Labor/IND combined majority would be unlikely).  It's always possible that YouGov's polling of the state has a house effect, but this could also be true of the DemosAU polls.  (There is some history of Labor often doing badly in robopolls for state elections, and DemosAU is primarily a robopoll, albeit one that weights for education, which should help).  

Anyway, we have two main final polls with a very different take on where Labor will land but it remains the case that no poll has given the Liberals more than a remote path to government if the forces that voted for the no-confidence motion work together.  And it would be pretty silly for Labor and the Greens at least not to - by working together here I just mean being willing to kick the Liberals out in another no confidence motion if needs be and then at least have some minimal arrangement to satisfy the Governor that Dean Winter can be Premier.   While there's no poll that gives the Liberals a clear path, the better polls for them wouldn't have to be too far wrong for them to get 15 seats with three they might work with (say Rebekah Pentland, David O'Byrne and John Tucker ... hmmm I'm not really sure Jeremy Rockliff and Tucker can work together ...)  But at this stage that would be fairly surprising.

Poll Design Wonkery

I've seen the Clark readout for this poll which offered respondents the choice of the three big parties (without candidate names) and the five independents running for Clark, named, and asked the respondent to rank all these in order.  I am not sure what the exact method was for Braddon where there are five parties and 14 independents!  Whatever, I feel that all else being equal naming independents but not naming party candidates must result in some voters picking an independent who would not do so if they saw which party candidates were running in their seat.  The "oh I've heard of and like ..." factor.  We need to bear in mind here that many voters don't really know who the MPs for their seat are until they come to prepare their vote, which is why profile is so important in Hare-Clark.  It might be that independents really do get the 20% that polls have them on but if so I'd suspect it would be because there was some other issue cancelling out the one I've raised.  

The other thing here is that YouGov have published a 2PP based on this which is 55-45 to Labor.  But the YouGov method is based on greatly underestimating the level of exhaust.  Voters had to pick at least seven independent or party options before they were able to exhaust.  In reality, Hare-Clark is a form of optional preferencing at party level and a voter could select one party running seven candidates and stop (in Clark where there were only eight options this amounted to effective full preferencing but in other divisions depending on the number of options it would not).  What is interesting here is that 55-45 is about what I would expect for as near a thing as can be estimated to a real Hare-Clark 2PP for this poll (compared to about 50.5 to Labor in 2024), and so this 2PP might be pointing to weak preference flows to Labor from Green and independent voters.  64% of forced preferences from a voter pool that's mostly Green and IND voters seems really low even allowing for a degree of exhaust, and might suggest some blowback for Labor's me-toos on the stadium and salmon.  The flow of Green preferences in Tasmanian elections is much more volatile than federal elections, though they don't have nearly as much influence.  It could also be that this is a result of YouGov's ballot method (the private uComms had an 81% flow to Labor which sounds a bit much!)

[EDIT: The above paragraph has been edited on account of YouGov allowing for a degree of exhaust at least in some divisions.  Previously I assumed that it did not allow for any.]

Leaderships

The YouGov finds Jeremy Rockliff with a really bad net satisfaction rating of -19 (34-53).  This is quite a contrast with EMRS's net favourability ratings, which have generally showed him neutral to somewhat positive, but satisfaction with performance and favourability are not always the same thing.  Dean Winter also fails to delight the YouGov survey junkies with a net rating of -13 (27-40).  Winter's name recognition is still low here but the instant notoriety of being blamed for yet another election seems to have across other polling I have seen moved the needle to "Who is this guy?" to "Oh that guy who caused the bloody election!"  If he gets elected and goes well then it will pass.

There is also a question about who the voter would like to be Premier on the premise that no party has a majority. Here Dean Winter has a 55-45 lead on a forced choice; I have heard that prior to forcing it was 41-37.  Not surprising given the "2PP" result.

There is also a question about the government's TasInsure proposal.  The question was: "Do you support or oppose the Tasmanian government setting up its own state-owned insurance company to tackle soaring premiums?"  While I'm sure no bias was intended, I don't like this question wording.  "To tackle soaring premiums" is an argument for the proposal and can also imply that the policy would be effective,  I would have omitted the last four words, and I don't think the 41-29 positive response can be read too rosily in light of that issue.  If one is going to talk about what the policy does then maybe one should talk about what it would cost, perhaps using information derived from the business case ... oh hang on there isn't one.  I am not saying TasInsure is a tactically dumb policy, by the way - for a voter affected by the cost of insurance the government comes across as at least caring and listening however ineffectually, and hey it got the stadium out of the news cycle for most of the week.

Aggregate V2 (Not a prediction)

I plugged this poll into my aggregate and changes were minor with no change in the overall outlook, where based on the very few seat polling subsamples available Labor would have a good chance to win 12 seats.  I'm not sure I believe that but the YouGov at least says it's not as out-there as people were telling me when I put it out.  Once again the aggregate is not a prediction - it's something I offer as a view of what the polls collectively should be taken as pointing to after adjusting for any obvious issues.  That said, while Labor feels high in general I find it hard to be confident it is wrong about any seat.   

The concern I mentioned about the IND vote apply to a lesser degree to name recognition within parties - it's a good reason to suspect some of these samples could be off even if the overall voting intentions aren't.  The Liberals have a couple of big hitters in Bridget Archer and Gavin Pearce in the northern seats, which can push them towards four in Braddon and take votes off the depleted Labor ticket in Bass.  But this stuff only goes so far and unless there is really strong anti-stadium cross-preferencing in Bass, Labor can actually benefit from not having a clear second candidate.  

I do wonder about the Nationals polling and whether it's a bit low because the sort of person who might vote for the Nationals might not be a big online survey taker or phone answerer. As silly as their campaign has been, they might do a bit more in Lyons.  A question here is whether the anti-stadium preference flows will be strong enough or will preferences from conservative INDs scatter to the Liberals and the more centre-left INDs scatter to Labor over the Nats.  We do need to keep in mind here that the stadium isn't everything - it's a high salience issue for a substantial minority of voters but a lot won't shift their vote on it.  Is opposition to the stadium really salient for conservative voters, or is it more the left-leaning voters for whom stadium support is a dealbreaker? 

Note in the following table that "unclear possible seats" refers only to if the aggregate's numbers are exactly right.  It does not take much variation for the Liberals to potentially win four in Braddon or for Labor to not win in Lyons, for example.  


(Revised weightings EMRS Feb .03 EMRS May ,06 uComms June ,06 DemosAU June ,12 YouGov June .14 DemosAU July .24 YouGov July .35)

The Fontcast episode just up includes a whiteboard section that despite them slamming Labor's campaign is far more bullish on Labor's chances of three in Clark with Luke Martin (who they say has had some incredible number of voter contacts).  One might argue that if Labor does badly in Bass and Braddon then this gives them more votes for a given vote share in Franklin and Clark where they have fairly high profile recruits, and even keeps alive the aim of dislodging David O'Byrne in Franklin (though no-one seems to think this is a thing).  The Fontcast crew do seem pretty keen on Pentland's chances of retaining in Bass which would make her the first winner from the ungrouped column since 1959; I have not so far seen any polling to back up this.  

In 2024 we saw preference flow drama with Craig Garland winning from about 5%.  This was a scenario I had modelled in advance though I thought it was unlikely to play out on election night and for a few days thereafter.  (Garland even claims I wrote him off! I never did!)  In 2025 the possible scenarios for someone dislodging a major party candidate from way behind are much more difficult to model in advance.  It's worth bearing in mind that preference flows in Hare-Clark are almost never all that strong.  When an indie is excluded with several other groups in the hunt their vote will always scatter, though it will help some candidates more than others.  

I should say that anecdotally it's easy to find claims that voters are completely fed up with the majors to the point we could get an outcome far more radically anti-majors than 2024.  That sort of outcome, where there's a blowout in the indie vote and a greatly increased crossbench, shouldn't be written off entirely.  But I don't think the polls are supporting it, and it's easy for people who move in politically engaged circles (or do vox pops in the middle of the PRC*) to see this stuff everywhere.  

Roll on a fascinating election night, I'll have an election watching tips post up tomorrow.  

Oh and at some stage I suppose I have to vote! 

Thursday, July 17, 2025

2025 Tasmanian Polling Aggregate V1

Live coverage on election night on Pulse Tasmania - Link will be posted here when known - No paywall!

TASMANIA 2025 POLLING AGGREGATE (NOT A PREDICTION) Lib 35.0 ALP 30.3 GRN 15.3 IND 14.9 NAT 2.5 SF+F 1.9

IND adjusted for design issues with polling independents

Seat Estimate for this aggregate (total of electorate estimates in brackets) Lib 13-14 (13) ALP 10-12 (12) GRN 5-7 (6) IND 4 (4) NAT 0-1 (0) SFF 0-1 (0)

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage. Click here for link to main guide page including links to seat guides and voting advice.  

(18 July: Aggregate has been updated here, with minimal changes.)

This article is not a prediction

Just wanted to make that extra clear!  Some people cannot read.  

Today's party polling reports

The Mercury today reported an EMRS Liberal Party poll with Liberals on 37 Labor 26 Green 14 IND 19 leaving just 4 for others, which I'm told by Brad Stansfield is based on c. 1000 unique interviews this week and last.  On these numbers if accurate I would expect Labor to roughly hold station on 10 or maybe gain one off the absence of JLN, Greens to hold station on five or perhaps gain Braddon, INDs to win the usual four (given that the 19 is likely to be an overestimate) and that leaves about 15 for the Liberals.  

Labor gave the media (but not to this stage me) some Pyxis findings about voters saying the government did not deserve re-election (34-53) and apparently some analysis claiming that various polls translated to a large two-party preferred lead for them (which would be interesting to examine since Tasmania has effective optional preferencing at party level).  However no voting intentions have been seen from this, and indeed no polling supporting the view that Labor is doing well has emerged to counter the Liberals' narrative that their position is improving.  The former finding isn't very useful alone because voters can think a government deserves to be chucked out and also that the Opposition isn't ready, and in these cases voters will often stick with what they know.  Also in Hare-Clark where some voters holding this view support parties that run away from attempting to form government when they could be able to, it doesn't necessarily lead to change. 

Most seats, does it matter?

Before I start this piece I should just say a few words about the current situation. There have been polls mostly suggesting that the Liberals will win the most seats, but there are also signs that that alone could be irrelevant.  In yesterday's leaders debate Dean Winter did not rule out accepting confidence and supply from the Greens without a deal or ministries, and even tried to say he couldn't say no (he can, Governors can be very persuasive but in the end nobody has to be Premier on terms they don't want).  He also said he would try to make the Parliament work out of respect for voters.  Unless denied, this looks like a strong sign that Labor is preparing if needed to accept confidence and supply from the Greens if offered without conditions, and hence go into government.  If Labor doesn't gain seats there would be some embarrassment involved but the line would be yes we didn't do it last time, but this time it's a Budget Emergency so we must accept the support of the Gr**ns.  It might not be that simple though - firstly they may need more than just the Greens.  

Secondly there is still a pathway if the Liberals do better than their polling for the Liberals to get to 18 seats they can work with - it's just that not a single poll has really supported that pathway so far, though some are close.  And it's always possible that if Labor has an in theory route to government but has done poorly they could concede again.  

Contra to a since corrected claim in the Conversation today this isn't Europe and a single party winning the most seats has no special status in the process of attempting to form government.  There is just a history of leaders saying it does, or setting other markers like most primary votes (which actually did formally matter in the 1950s!).  The question is really who can command confidence and supply, however many seats they have that are their own party.  In a no-majority situation the incumbent Premier has the call as to whether they wish to test their numbers, which they can do even if they don't have the most seats or there appears to be a deal to anoint someone else.  

About this aggregate

Late in the piece in any Tasmanian campaign these days I try to put together an aggregate of what the non-internal polls should be taken as saying collectively.  If the polls are broadly accurate, after adjusting them for any obvious reason why they might not be, what should we take them as pointing to?  This approach has had a great predictive record down the years (nailing the seat tally in 2004, 2010 and 2021 and being one seat off on two parties in each of 2006, 2018 and 2024) but every year lately I feel that its luck is about to run out  in view of limitations of the polling.  I am very dearly hoping for one more public poll (at least) so this year's might work better.  This particular election so far is not as sparsely polled as 2021, but it is less well polled than 2024.  The polls we've had since the election was called variously have little, no or a not very good track record in Tasmania and we're sorely lacking a public campaign period EMRS after they were hired by the Liberals.  

I define a public poll as a poll where the commissioning source is not a party and commissions the poll with the clear intention of always releasing it.  By this standard there have only been three public polls in recent months, an EMRS in mid-May, the YouGov poll in late June, and the Pulse Media DemosAU July 6-10.  Hopefully there will be more.  I know YouGov are in the field but am unsure if this is a public poll (I did expect one so maybe tonight or tomorrow).  I have put a "V1" on this article in hope that more polling will become available and I'll be putting some new aggregate numbers in a new article if so.  If that happens I will link to the new version here.  

In the greyer realms there have been a uComms June 10-11 (commissioned by an unknown source and not released but I've seen the results and briefly stated them here) and the first DemosAU that was commissioned by an unknown peak body.  

There have also been four three 500-550 vote waves of Liberal-commissioned EMRS samples, but I refuse to aggregate party polling (and after seeing how the federal Liberals' polling went at the federal election, I think people will understand why, though I suspect EMRS are doing the same things they always do and their numbers are more reliable.)  I might use seat breakdown data from the party polling if I had the full set, but the numbers that have been released have been cherrypicked. Labor has also referred to party polling, but not to voting intentions, only to numbers regarding voters wanting a change of government and to claims about two-party preferred support (none of which translates in Hare-Clark).  

Poll weightings

Because polls are scarce in Tasmania I will usually use several months of polls in an aggregate but with a very low weighting for the older ones.  I also don't want any single firm to dominate the aggregate especially if it hasn't been tested at an election here before.  I have applied a weighting formula that accounts for the recency of each poll and also my impression of the accuracy of the poll in the Tasmanian context (considering both Tasmanian and national track records and also how much we know about how accurate the poll is, eg we know a lot about EMRS in the Tasmanian situation but not a lot about DemosAU).   On this basis the weightings I came up with were:

February EMRS .05
May EMRS .09
June uComms .09
June YouGov .22
June DemosAU .19
July DemosAU .37

The EMRS and uComms polls included Jacqui Lambie Network, who then turned out not to be running.  JLN votes in general scatter in preference flows; using Franklin 2024 as a model (because it was a case where their whole ticket was excluded) and with an ambit figure for Nationals based on Nats running ex-JLN candidates I've come up with 25% Labor 23% IND 17% Lib 15% Nat 14% Green 6% SF+F as an estimated redistribution for them.  I have also done some redistributions of the Others vote for cases where neither Nationals or Shooters, or one and not the other, were included.

The Independent vote has been overestimated - severely - in polling at the past two elections.  It is difficult to say exactly how much by because some of the polls included Independent as a standalone while some lumped Independent with Others.  As best I can determine no poll at the last two elections has named all the candidates on the same footing, which I believe is the only way to avoid the problem.  My estimate of the average overestimation of the IND vote in five campaign period polls from the previous two elections is 3.8%.  I'm not sure the polls are still overestimating what independents will actually get, because there may be a surge to independents in the last weeks of the campaign (DemosAU as the youngest current poll will have an average data age of 11 days on election day) but I think that this is a serious design issue with Tasmanian polling that needs to be addressed, and that the solution is to poll online and list all a party's candidates after its name in brackets.  

After redistributing the overestimate proportionally (which may or may not be a good idea) what I get is Liberal 35 Labor 30.3 Green 15.4 IND 14.9 Nat 2.5 SF+F 1.9.  

Well I was certainly surprised by the 30.3 for Labor when their most recent public poll was just 24.7!  I would think that at the moment many election watchers agree with the narrative that Labor is doing badly and forcing the early election has backfired, and therefore would hold that even the early campaign polls are already totally irrelevant and that the Liberals' internal polling is more accurate.  

To explain this number, firstly I believe all the polls are overestimating the independent vote, so Labor's vote is likely to have been suppressed by a point or so in every poll.  Secondly with the exception of the two DemosAU polls, all the other polls in the aggregate had Labor well into the thirties - the YouGov outright and the others once I remove JLN from the mix.  If Labor has crashed then why did the YouGov taken at the same time as the previous DemosAU have them ahead, and does one or the other have a house effect?  (YouGov seat polling performed well in Tasmania at the federal election.)  It may well be that things have changed so much through the campaign that the older polls should now be totally ignored, but in that case we don't need an aggregate as we can look at the July DemosAU poll and see what it is pointing at.

Electorate breakdowns

The next step is to apply electorate breakdowns and here there is unfortunately not much to work with.  During the previous term EMRS ran a voting intentions dashboard with rich seat data but it ceased functioning some time late last year; I didn't scrape any of the post-election data from it but in any case anything from 2024 is probably irrelevant anyway.  This leaves me with just one YouGov seat by seat sample and two DemosAUs.  I could also use the results of the previous election but this is dangerous in view of the large changes in the fields of independents running, particularly in Franklin.  

I've merged these seat samples with more weighting to the recent DemosAU and less to the earlier one, and also applied a 2-point adjustment in Franklin where I suspect the Greens are being particularly disadvantaged by Peter George being named as a headline option but not their candidates.  As with 2024 there is then a lot of banging clanging and screaming of numbers as I force them to sum to the appropriate levels and what I eventually got was this estimate of how much the polls point to the parties underperforming or overperforming their state vote in each electorate:


Some of these may look and probably are wrong individually, but they are my read of "what the polls say".  As applied to the primary vote figures, these then produce this:



Bass: After accounting for independents being likely to be overestimated in the polls, there aren't any fourth forces sticking their head up for a seat here so the aggregate expects the big three to win all the seats.  Here Labor would probably beat the Greens, either on outright totals or via an even split between their candidates.  The way the Greens would win is if there were strong flows to them from excluded anti-stadium indies, which I suppose is possible.  But more likely 3 Labor - which I'm sceptical about firstly because no Michelle O'Byrne and secondly because it's hard to credit that Bass elects only one anti-stadium candidate.   It is possible in Bass that enough anti-stadium vote pools with some independent or National to get them over the line (eg if the IND vote is less overestimated in Bass than I think) but at this stage these numbers aren't showing it.

Braddon: Craig Garland hoovers up enough of the independent vote here that he would be expected to win - probably not with quota on primaries but we've seen what he does on preferences last time.  The lone Green would be trying to stay ahead of the fourth Liberal and the key question here would be the split in the Liberal ticket.  If it was reasonably pro-Jaensch so the Liberals could hold three candidates below quota for a long time they might be able to win the seat, especially as most preferences are bad for the Greens here.  However if Labor are well over two quotas the Greens have a preference source, provided that Labor doesn't manage to keep their second and third candidates ahead of them (in which case Labor could win three but it seems very remote).  On the aggregate numbers the Greens should win but with a worse Labor primary they may not.  (My view is four Liberal is still a real chance here.)

Clark: straightforward on these numbers  (Yes there is almost as much IND vote as Green but it will be heavily focused in Kristie Johnston and the rest will scatter).  

Franklin: Also appears straightforward on these numbers, though the majors are not that far off an extra seat between them.  David O'Byrne would probably be short of quota but not short enough that either of the majors would beat him.  Rosalie Woodruff is clear in this projection with the adjustment I made, but not by an enormous amount.  The Greens have polled remarkably badly in both YouGov and DemosAU samples in Franklin though much better in the small EMRS subsample the Liberals claimed.  While I don't doubt Peter George will knock a hole in the Greens vote I suspect they've struck a few coincidentally really bad samples here based on issues with sampling this electorate.  

Lyons: Labor probably just beats the Nationals (or SF+F but I understand their ground game barely exists) on these numbers with the assistance of Greens preferences assuming that the Greens really do that well.  However it is possible flows from SF+F and indies could be good enough to get the Nationals home, especially if Greens voters refuse to preference Labor over the stadium.  

Anyway, that is how my public-ish polling aggregate stands for now.  I hope to have a more data-informed version some time tomorrow!