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.
ELECTORAL, POLLING AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS, COMMENT AND NEWS FROM THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CLARK. POOR LITTLE ELECTION, IT HAS 32 PARENTS AND NONE OF THEM SAY THAT THEY WANT IT. IF USING THIS SITE ON MOBILE YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK "VIEW WEB VERSION" TO SEE THE SIDEBAR FULL OF GOODIES.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
2025 Tasmanian Election: Pathways To Government
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.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons
LYONS (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN)
2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin
FRANKLIN (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)
2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Clark
CLARK (2024 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)
2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Braddon
BRADDON (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 JLN 1 IND)
2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass
Tasmania Remains Ungovernable: 2025 Election Tallyboard And Summary
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.
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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:
Smithton and Queenstown (Braddon)
Hobart (Clark)
Rosny (Franklin)
New Norfolk (Lyons)
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
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.
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
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:
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.