How Labor Won 94 Seats Off A Modest Primary Vote. It Mostly Wasn't Preferences

Example of a 2025 election whinge meme seen on social media

In the unhinging that has followed Labor's massive victory in the 2025 federal election, there has been a lot of scapegoating of preferential voting.  Some of this may be because the landslide seat result was unexpected.  In polls this mostly looked like a close election in terms of whether Labor could get a majority or not.  Many voices in the media made it worse by claiming Labor definitely or very probably would not get a majority, and continuing to claim it after the polls (such as they were) no longer supported that view.

Labor won 94/150 (62.67%) of seats with a primary vote of 34.56%.  Many people are saying this was caused by preferential voting.  In fact, it mostly wasn't.  This article explains how this 28.11% gap between Labor's seat share and their vote share was mostly caused by other factors.   I find it deeply unfortunate and concerning that many people are in response attacking our very fair voting system and supporting instead the pointless abomination that is first past the post without bothering to understand the arguments in favour of preferences and the extent to which the result was caused by other things.  If they really care about parties getting vote shares that match their seat shares, they should support multi-member electorates.  

What I am going to do here is start from the assumption that Labor should have got about the same seat share as its party vote share and explain, factor by factor, why that didn't occur.  As I go I'll build up the share of the seat total Labor is expected to get based on each factor I add into the mix, and show that most of the gap can be explained without needing to consider Labor doing better on preferences.  This is a deliberately mathsy look at the nuts and bolts of why Labor won so many seats off such a modest primary vote and has been graded Wonk Factor 4/5.

There's Always Been A Gap

Before I start that, I should mention that while the gap between Labor's primary vote share and their seat share gap was unusually large in 2025, in recent decades there has always been a gap - the winner always gets a higher share of the seat tally than they have of the primary vote.  The last time this was close was for the Whitlam government in 1972 and 1974.  From 1972 to 2022 the average gap was 12%.  The second and third largest gaps were for the Coalition's  massive wins in 1975 and 1977, followed closely by Labor's win in 2022.  

1. Single Member Seats Disadvantage Non-Majors

At the 2025 federal election, candidates from outside the major parties polled a total primary vote of 33.62% (a record high) but won only 13/150 seats (8.67%).  This disadvantage is not caused by preferences, which in fact help non-major candidates to beat major party candidates way more often than the other way around (ie if we had first past the post and roughly similar vote shares, the non-majors would do even worse in seat terms, barring massive tactical stand-aside pacts)

It's caused by it being hard for a party with a small share of the overall vote to get enough votes in any particular seat to be able to get 50% after preferences in that seat.  In general a candidate needs at least a 20% primary vote (often much more) to have any chance of winning at all, and minor parties can poll several percent nationwide while hitting that range in very few if any seats.  As a result, while there have been 31 cases since 1972 of a minor non-Coalition party getting more than 4% of the primary vote, in only one such case (Greens 2022 winning four seats) has such a party won more than one seat, in six cases a single seat and in 24 cases nothing!   Non-majors together have always got a seat share that is only a very small portion of their vote share in the House of Reps, and prior to 1990 (the start point of the graph below) they often won no seats at all.

The picture is somewhat brighter for teal and similar independents than for minor parties as their primary vote support tends to be very concentrated in a small number of seats, meaning that they can get somewhere near to a proportional seat result (and they were hugely unlucky not to get more seats in 2025).  But still, the disadvantage for non-majors alone has become a bigger factor in recent years in major parties overperforming on seat share - as the non-major vote increases, the pool of votes that ends up with the majors after the elimination of non-majors is rising.  

Of the two major parties, Labor led by 2.74%. If we imagine preferences splitting completely evenly (and with no leakage on Coalition to Coalition transfers) that would have been a 51.37% 2PP, which as a proportion of the seats won by non-majors would have given Labor 46.92% of the seats (about 70 seats).  And that's already explained close to half the gap!

2. The Leading Major Tends To Overperform On Seats

Single-member-per-seat systems are not designed to be proportional, even between the two leading parties.  They're designed to elect local representatives, and it has happened over time that those local representatives have tended to organise themselves into parties or coalitions, with one side or the other nearly always getting a majority.  If every seat in a single member system voted the same way, the same party would win every single seat, unlike in proportional systems where the parties would win seats in close proportion to their support.  

As it happens there is a lot of variation in voter behaviour between seats in single-member systems, which is nearly always enough to see more than one party win a substantial number of seats, unless the vote share result is extremely lopsided .  But this variation generally doesn't result in the loser winning a proportional share of seats either.  In essentially two-party first past the post systems this pattern is often known as the "cube rule" - the ratio of the winners' seat share to the loser's is often something like the ratio of the winner's vote share to the loser's vote share, cubed.  So if party A beats party B 52-48 in a two-party contest (a ratio of 1.083), the cube rule predicts the seat ratio will be 1.083^3=1.271, meaning party A gets about 56% of the seats.   Various things can mess with this rule in parts of the world, including personal vote effects, campaign tactics, gerrymandering etc (some parts of the US use gerrymandering not to cheat but to try to stop heavy minorities from going unrepresented) but on the whole something like this is common.  

In Australia, something similar to the cube rule operates (the cube of the ratio of the 2PPs is a decent predictor of the ratio of major party seats won, with occasional hiccups such as 1998) but no need to graph the cube rule when a linear relationship has about the same predictive power.  

This graph predicts that if Labor won 51.37% of the 2PP, which it would have done had preferences done nothing, Labor would have won about 54.4% of the major party seats.  That puts Labor up to 49.68% of seats, or 74-75 seats, almost a majority.  

3. Labor's Vote Was Way Better Distributed

There's a big gap, however, between the 74-75 seats expected above and the number Labor actually led on primary votes in, which was a massive 86 seats (though that included two where a Labor candidate led two Coalition candidates individually but not combined).  This number 86 is the fundamental thing those complaining about preferences do not get.  Winning from behind on preferences added only a net eight seats (or if counting Bendigo and Bullwinkel ten) to the seats where Labor was leading on primaries already, and would have won even with an even preference split.  So Labor would have won a large majority on the votes cast even had preferences done nothing, or if we had first past the post and everyone voted the same.  It seems quite amazing that Labor candidates led on primaries in 86 seats (to Coalition 57 others 7) when the primary vote gap between the major parties was so small.  

The answer is that Labor's primary vote was much, much more favourably distributed than the Coalition's.  One measure of this is the median.  While the national total primary vote gap between the majors was 2.74%, the median gap was 5.22%.  Labor's median primary was a pretty healthy 36.84%.  A small part of this is that the mean primary vote gap per seat was actually 3.16%, as a result of Labor doing better in seats with smaller formal primary vote totals (such as the Tasmanian and NT seats and also Western Sydney seats with high informal rates).  The larger part of it is that Labor just didn't waste as many primary votes in seats it was uncompetitive in.  Labor had ten seats where its primary vote share was under 15%.  All of these were Coalition vs Independent seats, seven of which the independents won (though Labor even won the indicative 2PP in two of those).  The Coalition had only four such seats, two of them also won by independents.  

Comparing Labor's worst 50 seats on primary votes with the Coalition's, Labor averaged 0.36% worse on primaries in these than the Coalition did in its worst 50.  In Labor's best 50, Labor averaged 4.77% better than the Coalition's best 50.  In the middle 50, Labor averaged 5.06% better.  

The table below shows the two sides by primary vote bands (where the Coalition ran two candidates I have over-generously added them together).  

An especially striking comparison occurs at the 30-35% range.  Labor polled below 35% primary in just 67 seats, the Coalition in 92, meaning that Labor had an 83-58 lead in terms of how many seats there were where its primary vote was over 35%.  

The focus on Labor's modest primary vote and overall small primary vote lead ignores the fact that in the middle ground seats Labor was beating the Coalition convincingly on primary votes, even though it would have still won the election easily had it only broken even in them. Labor's national primary was probably deflated by approaching 2% by competition from teals and tealoids in seats Labor mostly wasn't winning anyway.  There is a myth that increased competition from right-wing minors also splintered the vote on the right causing the Coalition to lose the national primary vote, but in fact the right-wing minors had a primary vote swing against them too (albeit only about 0.5% depending on who you count), and had a lower combined primary vote than left-wing minors.

Factors playing into Labor's superior primary vote performance in the mid-pack seats would include personal vote effects (which seem to have been unusually strong this year).  In seats in which Labor first term incumbents defeated Coalition incumbents in 2022 especially, Labor would have gained a personal vote advantage.  But it's also about the Coalition's failed strategy in which its messaging was aimed too narrowly at outer suburbia, where it didn't do all that well anyway.  

Even after allowing the Coalition to count Bendigo and Bullwinkel as primary vote leads (based on two candidates against one), Labor's better distributed primary vote still put it in the outright lead before preferences in 84 seats (56% of seats).  So we've now got from 34.56% of the vote to 56% of the seats even assuming that preferences split evenly.  

4. Wins On Preferences That Would Have Been Wins Anyway

As often noted here before, it's clueless to assume that if Australia had had first past the post at any election then all the voters would have voted the same way.  In particular, if the Greens are not competitive in a given seat, then a lot of Greens voters under first past the post would be likely to vote tactically for Labor - an issue that suppresses the overall Greens vote in first past the post systems (though they do still win seats in some of them).  Not all would do so - but the proportion who would is probably higher than the same for One Nation voters, who are more likely to dislike both majors and hence to grab the opportunity to waste their vote by voting One Nation under FPTP.  If we had FPTP, Labor and the Greens might even make stand-aside deals to reduce the number of seats where they wasted votes by competing with each other.  

The only seat where Labor led on primaries but lost was Fowler, which I think they also would have lost under FPTP.  

There were eight seats where Labor trailed the lead Coalition candidate on primaries but won - Aston, Dickson, Petrie, Brisbane, Banks, Solomon, Deakin, Menzies.  They also trailed Adam Bandt (Greens) in Melbourne and won that.  Of these, in Aston and Dickson at the very least the Coalition's lead was small compared to the 2PP margin; I have no doubt Labor would have won these under FPTP.  I also think Banks and Petrie would be rather promising.  Solomon, Deakin and Menzies seem more difficult unless the Greens decided not to run.  In Brisbane the LNP were thumped on 2PP; the only way they would have won under FPTP is if both Labor and Greens voters refused to vote strategically and thereby split the vote, that said, this does sometimes happen in FPTP which is another reason why FPTP is garbage.   In Melbourne, the Greens had a large lead and were beaten on mainly Liberal preferences; the question under FPTP would be whether enough Liberal voters were willing to vote tactically to defeat Bandt, maybe not.   I'm assuming the Coalition parties would be cute enough for one to step aside in Bendigo; Bullwinkel is less certain with the Nationals not part of the Coalition in WA and thinking that they were in the mix.

I'd therefore put Labor on at very least 87 seats (58% of seats) under FPTP.   The maximum share of Labor's victory that I think can be put down to preferential voting is therefore 7 seats (4.67%), which is about a sixth of the gap between Labor's primary vote share and Labor's seat share.

Labor getting a seat share way higher than their vote share was therefore mostly not caused by preferential voting.  And we can see that the same thing happens in FPTP systems.  In the UK 2024 Labour (albeit with a much larger primary vote lead over their main rival) got 411/650 seats (63.2%) off 33.7% of the vote.  Leading parties winning a far higher vote share than their share of the primary vote is a general property of single-member seat systems.  It is silly to blame preferences for that, and it needs to stop.

Hare-Clark! Why Do We Have It? Are There Any Alternative Approaches?

It had to happen and was always going to happen sooner or later after the 2025 election; in fact I'm surprised it has taken so long.  The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or at least its chief executive Michael Bailey, has seen fit to call for the abolition or modification of Tasmania's Hare-Clark system.  I could just as easily see fit to bluntly suggest that they stay in their own lane.  I wouldn't expect to be taken seriously if I declared myself an expert in business regulation so I'm not sure why they expect to be so on this subject.

In the article in question, which is paywalled, the call is made to either replace Hare-Clark with single-member preferential voting or to switch from five seats of seven to seven seats of five.  

7x5, a zombie bad electoral take

Seven seats of five is an old chestnut that was roundly disposed of during the process of restoring the House from 25 to 35 members.  As the concept of restoring the House to 35 seats gained traction in the 2021-4 term there was some support for doing it by going to seven five-member electorates instead of going back to five seven-member electorates.  There was at the time only one Independent elected as such in the parliament, so the main motivation was to make things hard for the Greens.  Anyone who is remotely familiar with that debate would be aware of the TEC's discussion paper that showed significant problems with the 7x5 model.  One thing wrong with it is that it would require Tasmania to uncouple from the federal electoral boundaries and have its own state electoral boundaries process at an expense estimated at $2.5 million plus $300,000 per election.  Being almost as large as the federal divisions and overlapping with them extensively the state boundaries would then cause a lot of voter enrolment confusion; the TEC also suggests it would be difficult to avoid severely splitting up communities of interest by drawing a line through Hobart City.  (This said, it would get rid of the across-river divide in Franklin for state but not federal purposes, and drawing the boundaries of Clark in a completely sensible manner is getting more tricky anyway; more on this down the track).  

While still very proportional compared to single-member electorates, five-member electorates are a little bit more granular than seven and, all else being equal, tend to make minor parties and independents slightly less likely to be elected.  But only slightly.  As my ongoing 25 vs 35 seats comparison piece shows, the percentage of crossbenchers elected off the same vote shares under a 5x5 system and elected under a 5x7 system based on the same vote shares are actually very similar.  To consider current vote shares, in both 2024 and 2025 I estimate the 5x5 system would have elected 7/25 crossbenchers (28%); the actual elections elected 11/35 (31.4%).   It's a trivial difference and the nature of the parliaments formed would be much the same.  Whether that difference would even happen at all is debatable because in a 7x5 system there would be more scope than in 5x5 for an independent to win by having a high profile in a modestly sized area.  (I further discussed this in a 2022 submission here.)

The Australian paraphrases a particularly silly argument for 7x5: "He said currently some electorates were so socially and economically diverse, it was difficult for MPs to adequately represent everyone within their boundaries."  Um er what?  No MP has to represent everyone within an electorate as there are seven MPs in each electorate!  Indeed Tasmania has the lowest ratio of voters per lower house state MP of any state in the country, a ratio that is of course the same under 7x5 as it is under 5x7.  Since we went up to 35 seats we are now even slightly more represented per head of population than the ACT - and we have upper house MPs to represent us too!

I wish this to be the last that is ever heard of the 7x5 proposal in the history of debate about our system.  It has been debunked many times now but the same suspects keep supporting it.  Apart from a voting formality benefit that could (and urgently should) also be obtained through better savings provisions, the proposal is nothing but expensive and confusing system vandalism.   It's disappointing that the TCCI, having floated this nonsense and had it shot down in 2023 are still at it.  Do they bother to follow debates they are engaged in?  Are they receptive to the evidence presented in those debates at all?  

35x1, zzzzzz...

The TCCI's alternative proposal, and a pretty common one over the years, is to switch to single-member electorates (at present this would be 35), elected by some form of preferential voting (usually compulsory preferential is supported).  This appeals to those who think the natural state of a lower house government is to have a majority, as is normally the case in other states and territories and federally.  Simply changing the lower house to such a system without changing the upper house would be a particularly bad idea, since the electoral systems of the two houses would be too similar, which weakens the upper chamber's status as a house of second opinion, and means substantial minority groupings might have no MPs in either chamber.  However, supporters of this change will sometimes support changing the upper house to a single statewide proportional chamber or a Hare-Clark chamber, so that there is still a proportional aspect.  This would bring Tasmania into line broadly with the mainland states except Queensland, and with the federal system, and would end the history of Tasmania having an "upside down" system compared to most of the other states.

Given the number of chaotic and/or unpopular minority governments Tasmania has had in the last four decades, making Tasmania's lower house system more like other states and moving minority representation to the upper house may seem to have a lot of appeal.  Proportional representation is very democratic in representation terms but can have drawbacks beyond chaotic minority parliaments.  It can lead to disproportionate power for crossbench parties and can result in parties that would have clearly lost a two-party preferred vote becoming the government. However there are several specific problems with a single-seat system for Tasmania as compared to other states.  Those who think we could just transplant the lower house system in say Victoria into Tasmania with similar results are at least as misguided as those who think nationwide Hare-Clark would be a good idea.  

Firstly, the electorates would be tiny.  Each MP would represent about 11,800 voters; some seats would be little more than a few adjacent suburbs.  This would make each Assembly seat less populous than 13 current Tasmanian councils, which is really saying something given that Tasmania has 29 councils, which is widely considered too many.  Seat contests would be prone to intense localism and would tend to have a large crossover with local government areas and voting.  We have seen this in the Legislative Council where the overlap with local government is such that prominent members of local councils are often elected, usually as independents.  Particularly given the general decline of major party support, it is easy to believe that local independents would win in such a system.  Indeed, the Legislative Council, which is 15 single-member electorates, has been majority independent for its entire history but for a recent hiatus of a few years.  Voter support for having independents in the house of review rather than it being a party house plays into that heavily, but it is by no means the only reason.

I also don't think this system would be effective enough for the majoritarians' liking in getting rid of Greens and the more Green-adjacent independents.  It would surely reduce their numbers from the current eight but they would quite reliably win a few seats within the Hobart City part of what is now Clark, at least, and could well be competitive elsewhere (parts of Franklin, inner Launceston perhaps).  I think there would still be hung parliaments in this system - not as deeply into minority, but I doubt they would be rare.  Of course if we saw landslide vote share results on the scale of 1992, 2002, 2014 and 2021 then that would lead to big majority governments (and possibly with oppositions all but wiped off the map, in itself not ideal).  However a contributing factor to some of these results was Hare-Clark itself (some voters vote for the side that can win a majority and this produces vote share blowouts).   

The 35x1 system also has the same problem as 7x5 in that it would require Tasmania to have its own redistribution system instead of using the federal one for free.  The confusion might be less though if every federal electorate was carved up into seven.  

35x1 would be bad for ensuring all parts of the state have local major party representatives.  In even mediocre years for Labor they would not win many seats across the north - for instance in the current Braddon on 2025 vote shares they would probably win one seat around Upper Burnie and no more.  In a bad year for Labor they would win almost nothing as they would be squeezed out by Greens and independents in some of their strongest two-party areas.  In bad years for the Liberals they would be lucky nowadays to get any of the seats in Greater Hobart at all.  

What I especially dislike about 35x1 is that it it is BORING! It would throw away the rich within-party contests that rejuvenate the major parties even in elections where nothing happen, and replace them with pocket personal fiefdoms, turning our electoral system into a bad copy of the Northern Territory's, and meaning an MP's security was determined by their ability to get selected for a safe seat more than by how voters viewed them against their ticketmates.  No thanks; I think critics need to find a better alternative.  

Many others have been suggested down the years.  For instance the idea of a Senate-style system with ordered party lists was disposed of in the lead-up to the adoption of Robson rotation.

What is the problem here?

The problem with Hare-Clark is supposedly that the system "does make things very difficult and I’m not certain that Hare Clark has delivered in the last few decades the results that Tasmania wanted when they went to the polls."  But I think what business lobbies mean when they say Hare-Clark makes things difficult is that Hare-Clark makes majority government harder. Business lobbies like majority governments partly because business then knows exactly who it has to talk to in search of outcomes and partly because majority governments have less impetus to be transparent.

 Actually what Hare-Clark has done at the last few elections is reflect what voters wanted extremely proportionally, while single-seat elections become if anything more disproportionate.  What then results from that reflection is in the hands of the parliament.  What Tasmanians want is not at all a monolithic thing, and is probably as confused and diverse right now as it ever has been.  Broadly speaking over a quarter of voters these days have political views somewhere in the green/enviro/teal/left spectrum and are voting for the Greens or candidates like independents Peter George, Kristie Johnston and Craig Garland.  The rest run a gamut including conservatives, pro-development types, the remains of the labor movement, the alternative right and some voters who are very disengaged.

With the parliament now as complex as it is, the overall result of the elections is not currently being determined by the system itself or the votes cast.  It's the decisions and tactics of the people elected that determine who will even form government, what kind of government will be formed, whether it will last or otherwise.  If governments govern as if they are in majority when they are not, then they should expect a bumpy ride.  It shouldn't be too much to expect that governments learn within reason not to do that, and that oppositions also shouldn't aspire to the same condition.  This need not be about major policy concessions; it can also be about approach.  A major factor in the 2024-5 parliament's collapse was the government squandering the chance to work sensibly with the non-Green/left crossbenchers by treating the newbie Lambie MPs with distrust. The post-2025 election fallout happened because Labor took advantage of the Government leaving itself open to collapse (which caused the election), but then polled poorly and had no plan B they were willing to execute.  While Labor's "attempt" to form government after the election did often (though not entirely) merit the label of "farcical", there is nothing unusual in PR systems about a post-election phase of negotiating to see who will form government.  

The origins of Hare-Clark

There are a few myths about why we have Hare-Clark.  One that has popped up in the present debate is that we have it because of our smaller population. That isn't really a factor that caused us to have it from the start, but I do agree that Hare-Clark works better in a small jurisdiction with high candidate and electoral awareness.  I don't recommend exporting it to Western Sydney.  

Another I have seen is that Andrew Inglis Clark would not have anticipated such multi-party chaos as we have now when he promoted the system, which hadn't been implemented statewide until after his death.  (1909 was the first statewide Hare-Clark election).  However, there were trials of a forerunner of the modern Hare-Clark system in Hobart and Launceston at the 1897 and 1900 elections, and these elected a diverse group of candidates including from two parties and independents.  Hare-Clark was removed prior to the 1903 state election, but the creation of five single Tasmanian federal electorates presented an opportunity for Tasmania to save money by no longer drawing its own boundaries.  During much of the period leading up to Clark's death, the federal House of Representatives had a three-party system.

There is a widespread suggestion that the Evans Government's desire to enact Hare-Clark during the 1906-9 term was fuelled by a desire to stymie the growing Labour Party, which had gained seats in the 1906 election.  I am still investigating whether this was actually true and if so on what basis.  Perhaps if so the argument would have been that under first past the post (used in 1903 and 1906) Labor was benefiting from vote-splitting.  The suggestion that there was a partisan motive apparently comes from Wikipedia, which traces it to a 2003 Aynsley Kellow book chapter, which in turn sort-of traces it to Townsley's "Tasmania: From Colony to Statehood, 1803-1945" which I have yet to read, though Townsley and Reynolds' "A Century of Responsible Government in Tasmania 1856-1956" contains no mention of a partisan motive.  The Kellow chapter claims "The move failed, and at the 1909 election the Labor [sic] Party won twelve seats and John Earle was invited to form the first Labor administration, a minority government which lasted a week before being defeated in a vote of the Assembly".  

That isn't really what happened.  Forces described in various sources as either "Ministerialist" or "Anti-Socialist" and at least in theory supportive of the incumbent Premier John Evans won 17 of the 30 seats under Hare-Clark in 1909.  Labour won 40% of the seats, but that was off about 40% of the vote.  Evans resigned as Premier two months after the election, with poor health a factor.  He was replaced by Elliot Lewis who was in the process of fusing these forces into a more formalised Liberal League (not the same as the modern Liberal Party).  This however was unstable and over five months after the election an outbreak of that on the floor of the Parliament saw Labour's John Earle installed as Premier for a week before the anti-Labour forces found a way forward and Lewis could be reinstalled.  

Overall the reason why we have Hare-Clark seems to have more to do with the convenience of using the same boundaries for state and federal elections, plus the fact that it was there thanks to Andrew Inglis Clark's advocacy at a time when a solution was being sought.  After at least one in every two elections there is whinging, and yet, thus far, the system has survived.  At this stage I am not convinced anyone has found a better alternative.  

Update: Silly Op Ed Alert!

A remarkably silly op ed by Jody Fassina, former Labor adviser, was published in the dead tree edition of the thief paper on Sep 9.  This argues that we should both go to single member seats and reduce the size of the House, ignoring that the reason the House was re-expanded is that it wasn't working particularly well even when a party won a majority.  (And no amount of plausible reduction would solve the problem of single-member electorates being too small).  This op ed is premised on the idea that the Liberals will never win a majority again (though they only missed doing so by a few percent this year) and that Labor will never outpoll the Liberals again (which is basically code for Labor are too hopeless to even get a third of the vote even when the government is a shambles, even though they were polling ahead of the Liberals early this year),  The article also blames the expansion of parliament for the great increase in the size of the crossbench; in fact the latter was largely caused by the major parties losing 11.2% of the vote in 2024 between them and not recovering significantly in 2025, and would have happened with 25 seats as well.

The article also says the Greens are now the Liberals' partners in government (if one was to argue anyone is, it is in fact the whole crossbench not just the Greens) and most extraordinarily says that "Hare-Clark has served its purpose, but is now a handbrake on strong and effective government and just allowing one side or the other to 'just get on with the job'".  What nameless purpose has Hare-Clark served that was so temporary that it no longer exists?  Do we really want to go back to a guarantee of "strong and effective" majority governments that collapsed (1979-82), sent the state near broke (1986-9), were mired in scandal (2006-10), collapsed again (2018-21), and again (2021-4) etc?  (Admittedly small proportional majorities contributed to these collapses but the NT also provides plenty of examples of instability in a 25-seat single-member House.)  

Labor beat the Liberals or Coalition on primaries in the most recent elections federally and in NSW, Victoria, SA, WA and ACT, many of which have similar issues of the fracturing of the "left" vote, but Tasmanian Labor cannot do this?  And cannot work with others to form a minority government, so we need to change our system to one in which those others will (supposedly) be eliminated with Labor getting their preferences?  

EMRS: What Doesn't Kill Rockliff Just Makes Him Stronger

EMRS: Lib 38 ALP 24 Green 13 IND 19 others 6
As Tasmanian polling overstates Independents, poll suggests no change from election
Lowest ALP primary since Feb 2014

Jeremy Rockliff has been through a lot of drama as Premier in the last two and a half years.  In May 2023 two Liberals quit the party and moved to the crossbench, putting his government into minority.  In September 2023 the government went further into minority following Elise Archer's forced resignation from Cabinet and Rockliff threatened to call an election to ward off the risk of Archer sitting as an independent without providing confidence and supply.  In February 2024 Rockliff called an early election after the relationship with the two ex-Liberals deteriorated further.  There was a large swing against the Liberals but they managed to form a minority government with confidence and supply agreements from four crossbenchers.  In August 2024 the Lambie Network collapsed and in the fallout Rockliff no longer had reliable confidence and supply guarantees.  In October 2024 Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson resigned over the long-running Spirit of Tasmania saga to ward off a no-confidence motion.  In November 2024 a crossbench no-confidence motion in Rockliff failed after Labor voted against it when their attempt to remove the crossbench's preferred reasons for it failed.  In June 2025 Labor moved their own no-confidence motion, which passed, and in theory Labor could have taken over government mid-term but they did not seek to do so, and an election was held, with a looming deficit crisis now more evidence for critics of the government to run on.  The Government somehow got a 3.2% swing in its favour.  The newly elected parliament (with very similar numbers overall) still included 17 seats worth of previous no-confidence voters plus two new MPs who were highly critical of the government, and could in theory easily have backed Labor.  

Not-A-Poll: Australia's Worst Opposition!

I've started a new Not-A-Poll in the sidebar where readers can vote on who is Australia's worst Opposition.  The exasperating behaviour of Tasmanian Labor over the last few days (weeks, months, several years ...) has drawn comparisons to the Canberra Liberals and Victorian Liberals and suggestions they are now a forever opposition.  I was thinking about this as I struggled for words to explain to some rusties just how unready for government Tasmanian Labor have just shown themselves to be.  It suddenly occurred to me in a flash that we are living in a golden age of dreadful Oppositions.  Not all Australia's nine current Oppositions stick out as terrible but in any normal time most of these would go straight to the bottom of the pile, if not the sea.  

What we have at present is surely the worst average quality of oppositions that has been seen for decades, and this is bad for democracy as some of the governments they are up against (by no means all) are very mediocre.  So in round 1 of this Not-A-Poll, which will run for two months in the sidebar, voters can vote on which of the current Oppositions is the worst.  In round 2 we will vote on how many of them are actually going to win!  A reminder, if viewing on mobile you can scroll down and click "view web version" to see the sidebar and participate in Not-A-Polls.

In considering the dreadfulness of a state or territory Opposition, this poll is mainly about their performance in state and territory politics, but efforts of the local branch in screwing up federal and local performance can also be considered.  

Our contenders, sorted by time in opposition ...

Tasmania 2025: The Endgame Live

RESUMPTION OF PARLIAMENT FOLLOWING JULY 19 ELECTION

Labor has moved constructive no-confidence motion to transfer confidence of the House from Jeremy Rockliff to Dean Winter

Motion failed 10-24, attracting no crossbench support.

WEDNESDAY: Labor leadership now under consideration (UPDATE: Josh Willie replaces Dean Winter)

----

This is an updates thread for what should be, for now, the end of the 2025 Tasmanian election aftermath with the resumption of Parliament today.  The result is likely to be decided either by Labor moving a foreshadowed motion of no-confidence that fails to pass, or by Labor deciding not to move it.  In either of these cases the Rockliff government will have survived for now and won a fifth consecutive election.  However I am keeping an eye on things in case something unusually unusual happens.  (This is Tasmanian politics.  Normality is relative.)

Over the last few days David O'Byrne, the Greens and Kristie Johnston have all announced that they will not support Labor's proposed motion to express no confidence in Jeremy Rockliff and confidence in Dean Winter (see my confidence position tracker).  The Greens have also said that they will not abstain.  On this basis if the motion is put it will get at most 14 votes.  Labor would need three out of George Razay, Peter George, Craig Garland and Carlo Di Falco to demonstrate that the Greens' decision to back the Liberals had decided government, rather than the crossbench being so averse to Labor's attempt that the Greens could not have put Labor in government anyway.  This seems unlikely. [Update: George has just said no as well.]

Based on the order of business there will not be action on Labor's motion (if it goes ahead) until after 2 pm (I am not sure if the motion can go ahead between 2-3).  If the motion does go ahead there is potential for the debate to go for several hours and perhaps go into tomorrow though this will depend on how many MPs want to speak and for how long, and also whether the House chooses to adjourn around 6 pm or continue into the evening until it is finished.  

At this stage there is no sign of it being likely that anything will happen with Labor's motion (if it goes ahead) other than it being put, debated and lost - but there is always the scope for amendments and procedural motions.  There has been speculation on social media and talkback about the two parts of Labor's motion being uncoupled but I think we all know where that could end up.  (I also covered this idea in the introduction to my historic recap of the first day of Parliament in 1989).

Tasmania 2025: What Went Down When Gray Met The House In 1989

The State Of Play

It's been a rather slow lead-in to Tuesday's resumption of parliament following the as-yet not-firmly-resolved 2025 Tasmanian state election.  Although it has been known for eleven days now that parliament will be resuming on Tuesday, it took til today for any of the seven crossbench units (David O'Byrne for Rockliff) to clearly state support for one side or the other.  Three (the Greens re Labor, Craig Garland and Carlo di Falco re Liberals) have so far said at some stage that they weren't backing one side or the other unless something changes, but all have left the door open for the target of their disappointment to come good.  (See my confidence position tracker for a summary of who has said what.)

An apparently major issue for Labor's foreshadowed constructive no-confidence motion that would be designed to replace Jeremy Rockliff with Dean Winter is the position of the Greens, although it's not clearcut that the motion will pass even if the Greens support it.  There is an impass here in that the Greens are saying they cannot support Labor's motion without concessions on key policy areas but Labor is saying it won't provide any because it went to the election with a clear platform of doing no deals with the Greens.  I'd suggest that the two parties badly need a neutral mediator here except it's not clear these positions can be mediated, and presumably Labor would consider any outcome of a mediation to be a deal with the Greens.  (I have devised a magnificent scheme in which it would actually be a deal with the mediator, which the margin of this page is too small to contain etc ...)

Tasmania 2025: Confidence Position Tracker

Premier Rockliff recommissioned pending meeting the House on 19 Aug
Labor or an independent expected to move constructive no confidence motion 

If motion passes, Labor expected to form government

If motion fails, Liberals remain in office for time being

At this stage neither side has or seems likely (with current position) to get 18 votes in secured long-term confidence and supply agreements

Article current as of 19 August 5:30 pm

----

Provisional tally on constructive no-confidence vote

As of 19 Aug if no changes in declared positions, constructive motion will not pass in its intended form.  

Yes: Labor (10)

No: Liberals (14)

Confirmed (8): David O'Byrne, Greens (5), Kristie Johnston, Peter George

Stated on floor (3): George Razay, Carlo Di Falco, Craig Garland

Motion was defeated 10-24 (Liberal Speaker not voting)

Tasmania 2025: Just As Hung But More Polarised

TASMANIA 2025: LIB 14 (=) ALP 10 (=) GRN 5 (=) IND 5 (+2) SF+F 1 (+1)
(Changes from 2024 result.  JLN (3 seats 2024) did not run, their former MPs running as two Nationals and one independent, all defeated)

Counting is over for an election that finished up in much the same place as last year's ... but not quite, and this will be a rather different parliament despite the big three all coming out with what they went in with.  At present, Premier Jeremy Rockliff is intending to be recommissioned to meet the Parliament (see pathways to government article), but the storm clouds have been gathering since election night as to whether he has any prospect of surviving another no-confidence motion when Parliament resumes, let alone whether he can govern with any stability.  It didn't get any easier for him yesterday with Craig Garland ruling out supporting his party and expressing willingness to vote no-confidence again, and Peter George expressing serious reservations (while also making comments that might not make life easy for Labor either).  The writs will be returned on Tuesday, kickstarting the week in which the Governor must appoint somebody, presumably Rockliff, to meet the House, preferably sooner rather than later.

The past four minority governments elected as such in Tasmania lost the next election outright, some of them heavily.  This is the first to stop that rot since the Reece Government was re-elected with a majority in 1964, and that government had spent over two years in majority during its term after picking up a seat on a recount.  The Rockliff government has not only avoided net seat losses but had a 3.2% swing to it.  And for those saying that the days of majority government are gone forever, beware, they did not actually miss one by very much.  The Liberals finishing eighth in three divisions has enabled me to determine that on swings of 0.94%, 1.82% and 2.30% from the winners, they would have won the final seats in Franklin, Clark and Lyons respectively - the first two of which would have given them the numbers for a potential government with Carlo Di Falco and David O'Byrne (assuming those two were agreeable).  In Bass, the Liberals' elimination in tenth place makes it hard to be sure what swing would have won them the seventh seat, especially as keeping the Liberals in the final seat race requires eliminating someone who didn't actually get excluded.  But I think that about a 3% higher primary vote would have been enough, meaning the Liberals could have won a majority off about 43%.  Wherever it goes from here, this was a close election.

2025 Tasmanian Election: Pathways To Government

This article is part of my Tasmanian election 2025 postcount coverage.  

Link to tallyboard thread

Links to individual postcount pages: Bass Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.  

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

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 1 SFF

SEAT WINNERS: Jane Howlett (Lib), Guy Barnett (Lib), Mark Shelton (Lib), Jen Butler (ALP), Brian Mitchell (ALP), Tabatha Badger (Green), Carlo Di Falco (SFF)

SEAT LOST: Andrew Jenner (Nat)

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

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

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

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Clark

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

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), Madeleine Ogilvie (Lib)

(Ogilvie defeats Simon Behrakis (Lib) in close intra-party battle)

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

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), Anita Dow (ALP), Shane Broad (ALP), Craig Garland (IND)

SEAT LOST: Miriam Beswick (Nat)

Liberal gain from National

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

-----------

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 1 IND

SEAT PARTY CONTEST: George Razay defeated Labor

SEAT WINNERS: Bridget Archer (Lib), Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (GRN), George Razay (IND)

WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Jess Greene (ALP) defeated Geoff Lyons (ALP). 

SEAT LOST: Rebekah Pentland (IND), Simon Wood (Lib)

Final seat was a six way race - eliminated from contention in order: Pentland, Greens, Liberals, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, 3rd Labor.

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

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts

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.  

FINAL RESULT 14 LIB 10 ALP 5 GREEN 5 IND 1 SF+F

BASS 3 LIB 2 ALP 1 GREEN 1 SF+F

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 1 SF+F

Links to seat postcount pages:

BASS

BRADDON

CLARK

FRANKLIN

LYONS

Other articles:

Pathways To Government

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.  

Tasmania 2025: YouGov Has Majors Much Closer

 

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.

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.

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.  

Bradfield Court Of Disputed Returns Challenge

BRADFIELD (NSW, IND, 0.01)
Disputed Returns challenge to win by Nicolette Boele over Gisele Kapterian (Lib) by 26 votes

This is an ongoing thread to follow the challenge by Gisele Kapterian (Liberal) to Nicolette Boele's (IND) victory by 26 votes in the seat of Bradfield.  This is the first CDR challenge by a candidate to be based on the count, rather than eligibility or alleged misconduct issues, since Fran Bailey's (Liberal) win in McEwen 2007 was challenged by now MP for the seat Rob Mitchell (ALP).  On comments about the case available so far the case is likely to be very similar to McEwen in proceedings.

I previously covered the main part of the Bradfield postcount in a general teal seat postcount thread and the late postcount (distribution of preferences phase) and recount in a Bradfield specific thread.  I also covered the Goldstein partial recount and count history on a separate thread that may be useful for comparisons.  

Boele had been down for the count at times in the initial count but got back up again, mainly on a very strong batch of out of electorate prepolls followed by the very last batch of postals breaking strongly to her (not such an unusual thing).  She went into the distribution of preferences 40 votes ahead but dropped back through the distribution to finish it 8 votes behind.  This is not surprising because in the distribution the votes that get the most attention are votes for minor candidates, so the candidate more reliant on preferences is more likely to suffer if votes are found to be informal on further scrutiny.  The recount has the opposite dynamic - at this stage the primary votes of the leaders have been less checked than the preferences, and so this can hurt the primary vote leader.  Which it did.  Boele started very slowly in the recount and was still three votes behind and running out of booths when there was a big shift to her in the Turramurra PPVC, which was the last big prepoll to be recounted.  Boele also then made gains in other booths in the St Ives and Turramurra areas and finished 26 votes ahead.  

Unlike the Goldstein postcount which saw several large corrections and errors before the result was eventually established, the Bradfield postcount and recount was about as smooth to these outside eyes as these things get.  The corrections were generally small and on the scale of what is generally expected - changes of rulings on specific votes, very minor counting corrections and just one correction of slightly larger size (a 22 vote correction in Kapterian's favour).  The 15-vote swing to Kapterian in Turramurra PPVC was on formality rulings, not a counting error.

The Liberals floated a possible challenge on June 8 and I noted that none of the claimed grounds were convincing. Claimed reasons for concern were that the distribution of preferences and the recount had different winners (not surprising for the reasons stated above), that the number of informal votes increased (not surprising because sequence errors can easily be missed in the earlier counting stages) and that the number of total votes increased (not surprising because the AEC does not know for sure at the start of the count exactly how many ballot papers there are and some slight movement in this total is normal).  

There was not until now any public suggestion that the Liberals had issues with AEC interpretations of specific votes.  While there will always be some lineball votes that the losing side might object to, there has also not been any suggestion that there are systematic errors.  The Liberals will have to argue that there are a number of errors sufficient to overturn the margin so it will be interesting to see what those arguments are.  If there were persistent patterns of suspect rulings I would expect these to have come to notice by now and the lack of such seems unpromising for their chances of getting enough votes overturned.  

I have not yet seen the petition and will comment on it if/when available but the media reports so far indicate that is wholly about ballot paper interpretation; indeed Kapterian has stated that the petition does not seek a by-election (as could be the case if the Liberal Party was arguing voters were deprived of the ability to vote, or voted who should not have done.) The framing of the Liberal Party's decision to lodge the challenge is that this is about giving their candidate every chance by sending the reserved ballots to the "third umpire".  

The process

The 2008 McEwen case was referred by the High Court to the Federal Court and decided by a single judge; I expect this one will be so too, as it is a fact and evidence heavy matter involving the interpretation of electoral law, and not a constitutional matter.

Assuming that is so, the court will examine the reserved ballots (about 800 that were challenged and decided on by the Electoral Officer for NSW during the recount).  Following this the court can make the following decisions:

* The result stands.

* The result is reversed and Kapterian wins.  In this case Boele would lose her seat immediately and be replaced by Kapterian.

* The election is void.  In this case the seat is vacated and a by-election is held with a fresh nominations process; both Boele and Kapterian would presumably run again.  However, this would only occur if at the end of the process the court ruled the correct result was a tie, or perhaps so close to a tie that after taking multiple voting into account a winner could not be decided.  (The number of unexplained multiple markoffs in Bradfield is understood to be just two).

The court can also modify the margin.  This happened in the McEwen case twice with the court initially amending the margin from 12 to 27 votes then later giving a supplementary ruling that changed it to 31.

There may be procedural legal argument but I would expect that at some point the judge will end up examining all the reserved ballots and producing a table listing the results of the re-examination. 

The court is obliged to decide the case as quickly as it reasonably can.  In 2008 the Court took just over four months to dismiss the petition from its lodging.  This would take us to close to the end of the year.  It may be that this case can be faster if there is less preliminary argument than in 2008.

Mitchell v Bailey (2008 McEwen case)

The McEwen main judgement is well worth a read as background to this case for those interested; it is likely to be referred to frequently.  Many votes had been ruled informal where there was a reasonable interpretation that allowed them to be ruled formal.  For instance a ballot paper contains the numbers 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 and a figure that could plausibly in isolation be the letter S or the number 5.  Intuitively it is overwhelmingly likely the voter intended to write a 5 and happens to write their 5 in a way that could also look like an S.  Largely as a result of such issues the Court changed 141 ballots from informal to formal and only twelve from formal to informal.  The number of votes for Mitchell that were fished out of the informal pile easily exceeded the margin, but the judge did not only examine the votes Labor objected to but examined all the reserved votes and found that Bailey had been more disadvantaged by incorrect formality calls than Mitchell.

(It is not clear from the judgement text what became of the infamous "V8 Supercar" vote on which the voter according to Labor's petition had numbered all the boxes, crossed out the names of the candidates and replaced them with the names of motor racing drivers.)

The rulings made in the McEwen case are very well known and are reinforced in AEC practice so I would expect that the chance of blatant errors here is a lot lower and that the chance of a margin shift even of the size of that in McEwen isn't high.  But we will see.  

Updates will be added as the case proceeds and a link will remain in the sidebar in the Upcoming and Recent Elections section.  

Update 16 July

The ABC has reported some details of the petition, which I have not yet seen myself.  

"The petition claims the electoral officer wrongly rejected at least 56 ballots which favoured Ms Kapterian.

This includes 22 ballots where the officer concluded certain numbers were not distinguishable from other numbers, and 34 ballots where numbers were deemed illegible."

Distinguishability depends on whether the Electoral Officer can confidently conclude that of two similar numbers, for instance, one is a 1 and one is a 7 and not the other way round.  As concerns illegibility, for instance if a ballot is 1,2,(mysterious squiggle),4,5,6,7,8 it is not enough to assume that the mysterious squiggle is a 3 just for the sake of rendering the ballot formal.  The mysterious squiggle must reasonably resemble a 3.  Kapterian also claims 93 ballots favouring Boele were accepted that should have been rejected based on similar arguments (she alleges 49 with duplicate numbers and 44 cases with unclear numbering).  It's highly unlikely that the AEC would have both been too lax on one candidate and too harsh on another.  

"She argues a further two ballots favouring Ms Boele were admitted despite "having upon it a mark or writing … by which the voter could be identified.""

This depends on what the marks or writing are.  If they are initials (for instance where a voter crosses a number out, rewrites it and puts their initials to confirm the change) then the McEwen case has plenty of precedent regarding this.  The mere presence of initials does not identify the voter as there are likely to be many voters with any given combination.  Something like a name and address may be deemed to identify a voter.

17 July

Anne Twomey's video here is a good watch.  She mentions that in the McEwen case, although the candidates didn't object to all the reserved ballots between them in the case, the court nonetheless had to review all the ballots and invited submissions on six that neither side had objected to.  The reason for this was the court needs to determine whether the result could have been different after making necessary corrections.  Twomey also explains the term "illegal practices" that may be confusing in reading the McEwen case.

20 July

The petition is here.  (Link fixed now 31/7, somehow nobody complained)

31 July

Documents (pay per view) have started appearing in the High Court portal, including directions submissions.  

8 August

The petition - including the matter of what to do if the margin ends up being two votes or less (within the margin of possible double voting impacts) - has been kicked down to the Federal Court as expected.  A Federal Court docket has opened.

22 August

The Guardian reports and the court page confirms the Kapterian and Boele teams are being given 21 hours each to examine the 792 reserved ballots based on which they can make submissions.  There will be a further day to examine them in mid-September after submissions are known.  Further submissions will then be filed by 22 September, and then a document confirming agreements or otherwise between the parties will be filed by 25 Sep.  A hearing will occur on 2 October.  

DemosAU: More Friendly Fire Than Seat Swing?

DemosAU Lib 34.9 ALP 24.7 Green 15.6 Nat 2.7 SF+F 1.8 IND 20.3
Total of projected individual seat breakdowns for this poll Lib 13 ALP 10 Green 7 IND 4 Nat 1

(IND vote likely to be inflated because of format limitations)

(Green vote distribution appears unusual so real seat tally for this statewide vote share could be lower)

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage.  Link to main guide page including seat guides and effective voting advice.

---

One of the many remarkable elections in Tasmania was in 1986.  On the surface Robin Gray's first and only re-election sounds exremely dull; the Liberal Party won 19 seats just as it had in 1982, and Labor won 14, ditto.  Yet that election was a bloodbath with 15 incumbent MPs losing their seats, 13 in effect to their own party.  This sort of violence became less common in the 25-seat system, an especially tame case being 2006 when all 23 recontesting incumbents were returned.  (The only interesting thing about that was that nobody much thought it would occur).  Based on the recent Pulse Media DemosAU poll we could be heading for a milder case of this with at least six incumbents at serious risk of losing to their ticketmates but few clear signs of either major party gaining or losing more than the odd seat anywhere.

I have a copy of the full results of this poll [EDIT: which have now been posted publicly].  The full poll includes candidate breakdowns by electorate, which I have not seen since EMRS did it a few decades back.  While the writeup below is very detailed a reminder this is just one poll, and in the next few days I intend to produce my usual cross-poll aggregate.  

2025 Federal Post-Election Pendulum

As in 2022 I've decided to issue my own post-election pendulum for the 2025 federal election.  I've done this partly because post-election pendulums seem thinner on the ground than usual this year, but mainly for the same reason - pendulums like the Wikipedia version miss the point of what the pendulum is for by putting classic ALP vs Coalition marginal seats on the same axis as contests between the majors and the crossbench.  The seat of Wills is now very marginal on a two-candidate preferred basis between Labor and the Greens, but a swing against Labor in two-party polling (should one occur) will not predict whether that seat might fall. 

Also in doing 2PP pendulums one finds out things - such as that the Coalition is in even bigger trouble for the next election than the scale of the 2PP disaster makes obvious.  The inflated swings to Labor in marginal seats at this election have created a skewed pendulum where Labor could lose the 2PP and still win a majority.  

At this election claims of the demise of 2PP swing as a predictive tool were even harder to get away from than in 2022 ... and even less correct!  The overwhelming story of the election was the 13 classic seats that switched from the Coalition (ignoring defections) to Labor.  The six seats switching from a major party to a non-major candidate or vice versa were a sideshow, especially as for totals purposes two of them cancelled out.  There is a lot of hype about how "no seat is safe any more" but for all of that no safe seat held by a major party fell and the only 2CP-safe seat that fell at all was a Greens seat (Griffith) that was clearly marginal on a three-candidate basis.  And the odd 2CP-safe seat falling is nothing new.

What Can We Really Draw From The Liberal EMRS Poll?

EMRS JUNE 15-17/JUNE 29-JULY 1
FIRST WAVE LIB 32.3 ALP 28.7 GREEN 14 IND 19.2 NAT 1.8 OTHER 3.9
SECOND WAVE LIB 34.5 ALP 28.2 GREEN 13.9 IND 17.8 NAT 2.1 OTHER 3.5

The two waves are statistically more or less identical

Combined they suggest a roughly unchanged parliament 

Today's Mercury saw some numbers from a Liberal Party commissioned EMRS poll taken in two waves of 550 voters ahead of the 2025 election.  I don't include party-commissioned polls in my aggregates (it's bad enough to have to include polls commissioned by unknown forces within Tasmania's perennially bashful brown paper bag "industry groups").  In general parties will make strategic decisions on whether to release polls they have commissioned based on whether they like the results or not, and there is a lot of evidence (cf Freshwater Strategy at the federal election) that internal polls can show parties doing better than they are.  

The Liberal Party might not be delighted with the results of this EMRS polling, but it is much worse for Labor as it shows Labor making no progress towards even being the largest party.  A voter who accepts that will also most likely accept that Labor have sent us to an early election without any real prospect of forming a workable government themselves, and might well want to punish them for that.  But the Liberals are also using the figures to argue that they are in the hunt for four seats in Bass and Braddon and also that Labor might be squeezed to one in Franklin.  (Yep, 3-1-1-2.  It is a set of numbers, I suppose.)

2025 Federal Election Pollster Performance Review

Oh no, not again ...

On the day after the 2019 federal election I did the most media interviews I have ever done in one day, eleven.  Eight of those were entirely about the same thing: the polls being wrong.  That day and in the coming days journos from as far afield as Japan and from vague memory Switzerland wanted to know how Australia had gone into an election with Labor unanimously ahead about 51.5-48.5 and come out with the Coalition winning by the same amount. Was this part of a global pattern of polls being increasingly broken and underestimating the right?  (Answers: no and no - it was just a shocker by Australia's high standards).  

The day after the 2025 federal election it was obvious something had gone astray with polling again, and by something near the same amount, but the media reception was muted.  I think I did only one interview where the polling was even part of the report's initial focus.  The ABC did an article about the polling, but it was so quarter-arsed that it omitted four final polls, initially got the 2PPs of four others wrong, and even when "corrected" continues to this day to contain errors about what the final poll 2PPs were.  There were a few other articles that were better.

What Happens If An Ineligible Candidate Wins In A Tasmanian State Election?

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

--------------------------------------------------------------

Something bubbling away in the state election campaign which I have so far avoided writing a full article on is the alleged controversy (and I don't believe the claims really have any merit) about Franklin Labor candidate Jessica Munday's eligibility to be elected.  However the appearance in today's Mercury (and also now Pulse) of a claim that the entire election might have to be voided and rerun over this is something that I think I should comment about.  Advance summary: no.  I also thought this was a good opportunity for a general article about ineligibility in Hare-Clark elections and what can be done about it if it occurs.  

There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here: YouGov and DemosAU Tasmanian Polls

YouGov Liberal 31 Labor 34 Green 13 IND 18 other 4

DemosAU Liberal 34 Labor 26.3 Green 15.1 IND 19.3 other 5.3

IND vote likely overstated in both polls

Seat estimate if YouGov poll close to accurate 13-14-4-4 (Lib-ALP-Grn-IND)

Seat estimate for DemosAU 13-11-5-4, 2 unclear 

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage.  Link to main guide page containing link to other articles including electorate guides.  

At the 2024 Tasmanian election, voters elected a parliament where it wasn't easy to form a government at all, and the one that was formed didn't last for long.  Labor was unwilling to even try to form a government that would have involved the dreaded Greens, and the Liberals were only willing to form a government with what was left if it was basically a Liberal government with relatively minor concessions to others.  When that ceased to be a viable option upon the loss of the key vote of Andrew Jenner, the government was unable or unwilling to adjust to the fact that it was hanging by Craig Garland's fishing line, and here we are.

How To Best Use Your Vote In The 2025 Tasmanian Election

This piece is part of my Tasmanian 2025 election coverage - link to 2025 guide page including links to electorate guides and other articles.

This piece is written to explain to voters how to vote in the 2025 Tasmanian election so their vote will be most powerful.  It is not written for those who just want to do the bare minimum - if you just want to vote as quickly as possible and don't care how effective your vote is then this guide is not for you.  It is for those who care about voting as effectively as possible and are willing to put some time into understanding how to do so.  This is very near to being a carbon copy of my 2024 guide but I have put it out as a 2025 edition with some very minor changes tailored to this year's election.  

Please feel free to share or forward this guide or use points from it to educate confused voters.  If doing the latter, just make sure you've understood those points first!  I may edit in more sections later.

Please do not ask me what is the most effective way to vote for a specific party, candidate or set of goals as opposed to in general terms.

Oh, and one other thing.  Some people really agonise about their votes, spend many hours over them and get deeply worried about doing the wrong thing.  Voting well is worth some effort, but it's not worth that.  The chance that your vote will actually change the outcome is low.