Huon: Dean Harriss leads Clare Glade-Wright narrowly on primaries but Glade-Wright appears strongly placed on preferences
Rosevears: Jo Palmer has very large primary vote lead and expected to win
NEPEAN (VIC): CALLED 8:30 pm Marsh (Lib) retain
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donations welcome!
If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site. Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or by PayID (details in sidebar) or email me via the address in my profile for my account details. Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Live comments (scrolls to top)
Refresh every 10 mins or so after 6:30 for latest updates
Late night wrap: What have we seen here in these Tasmanian contests? Well not a great night for any of the parties. For the Greens, a couple of par results. For Labor, what looks like a pretty good result in Rosevears depending on preferences, but a definitely bad one in Huon, a seat they won six years ago. For the Liberals, they'll be relieved to hold Rosevears, but it probably won't be a big win, and voters in Huon are still giving them a kicking over salmon. It's the left independent side of things that has had the best night with Glade-Wright in with a serious shot of winning though we'll have to wait a fair while to see where that ends up.
10:20 I've seen some scrutineering figures for Huon from one of the prepolls that are very positive for Glade-Wright, projecting her to over 52% 2CP. If she wins it will be the first case of an indie unseating another indie ("Independent Labor" types excluded) since Norma Jamieson beat Geoff Squibb in Mersey 2003.
8:49 ROSEVEARS FINAL FOR NIGHT Palmer 42.68 Mckinnon 24.73 McLennan 16.59 Monson 16.01. 74.81% of enrolment counted. Palmer needs 22.5% of preferences to win. Extremely difficult to see how that doesn't occur, plus Palmer's position should improve on postals. Actually I think I'll hold off on calling for now just because the votes are still subject to rechecking and I've seen zero sampling of Monson but it very much looks like Jo Palmer has retained.
HUON FINAL FOR NIGHT Harriss 30.60 Glade-Wright 27.83 McKibben 16.49 Gibson 15.08 Rowan 5.38 Petersen 4.61. Hard to see the Greens preferences not breaking at very least 70-30 to Glade-Wright, which puts Glade-Wright ahead and then Harriss would need a lot off McKibben. But while Labor's vote may still include some industry types, McKibben is also a candidate with some teal appeal, plus gender preferencing can be a factor, so I'm not sure the Labor votes will do much. Glade-Wright is definitely close enough to win this.
We await word on where the counts will go from here. Sometimes the TEC does provisional distributions to establish who will win. In the case of Rosevears, McLennan and Monson are too close to be sure yet who is last, so the TEC would currently need to do alternative throws as they did in Elwick recently. Huon has a somewhat similar issue with McKibben vs Gibson for third and fourth.
8:30 Second prepoll added - Palmer now leads 42.84-24.92 and needs only 22.2% of preferences to win. I'm warming up for you know what.
8:26 One Nation have got into second on primaries in Nepean but they can't stay there after preferences and it wouldn't help them if they did. A good win for the Victorian Liberals.
8:12 Legana is in and Palmer has 41.82% from Mckinnon 24.96%, meaning at present Palmer needs 24.6% of preferences to win. Postals and prepolls should improve her position somewhat. I've heard two reports of Greens flows at 18% and 25% (the former with more sample size detail), I've seen no reports of Monson flows. It's not easy to see why Monson's preferences should break that heavily so I believe Palmer wins, but it can be close.
8:06 And Glade-Wright wins Blackmans Bay South booth! There is still a second prepoll to be added, with that to come Harriss's lead is only 3.2%. In Rosevears there are two prepoll centres and Legana (which will be very strong for Palmer) to come.
7:57 Have heard indirectly that Palmer is doing better on Greens preferences than normal. If this is so she will be fine, Monson's preferences won't break strongly.
7:45 Two booths to go in Huon, Blackmans Bay South and Geeveston (the latter will be good for Harriss). At least some prepolls are in and Harriss's lead is only four points. There's a reason I'm not talking much about Labor here by the way, they haven't been in the mix at any stage and are currently fighting with the Greens for third.
7:41 60.3% of preferences to Marsh at Blairgowrie, a weak One Nation booth. I don't see how Marsh doesn't win Nepean.
7:36 Five booths in in Nepean now and little change to the previous picture, it is looking like a Liberal vs independent 2CP. We have a 2CP count from Waterfall Gully where the Liberals are getting 61% of preferences albeit with a higher than usual One Nation vote. This is looking super strong for Marsh at this stage and it could well be that this gets called tonight.
7:33 Glade-Wright closing the gap in the last few booths and still has Blackmans Bay to come. Green preferences will surely favour her substantially over Harriss. Let's see where the night finishes especially after prepolls but Harriss's position looks shaky at the moment. In Rosevears it now looks like Monson will finish fourth. Currently Palmer needs 26% of Green and Monson preferences. This number should go down with prepolls and postals. LegCo preference flows tend not to be that strong.
7:22 Labor now second in Rosevears with Monson still narrowly fourth. Palmer seems to be doing OK here as if she keeps her primary well into the 40s she shouldn't be caught.
7:20 More booths coming in in Huon. Harriss is about seven points ahead, my projection says that will go up to nine, but I doubt it will as most of the rest are in Kingborough. Barring high quality scrutineering we will probably not know the Huon result tonight.
7:14 A couple of booths in in Nepean and the Liberal candidate, Marsh, is at this stage in front. Probably if things stay as they are he would be able to beat either Hutchinson or One Nation on the other's preferences. At this stage One Nation are in third, noting they need to be well over Hutchinson to avoid being eliminated by Greens preferences. So seems a good start for Marsh but this does depend on what One Nation's preferences do.
7:10 Trevallyn Central does its thing and pushes Monson down to fourth. The Liberals will be hoping that she stays there.
7:07 Rosevears is weird. My projection says the primary vote totals should finish about where they are except the Greens should come up a bit. Palmer is probably going to need something close to a quarter of preferences against either Labor or Monson.
7:02 Huon: huge numbers for Harriss in the Ranelagh booth (one of the Huon Valley booths). I now project him around the low 30s to a lead of something like 10 points. Is that enough? Hard to say.
7:00 Prospective indies in Rosevears must be kicking themselves as they see Monson who was barely even findable at the start of the campaign move into second on primaries. Palmer is projecting to low 40s at this stage.
6:53 Strong Port Huon booth for Harriss sees him much closer to Glade-Wright now and I project him to improve. Nothing from Nepean yet by the way. By the way the booth I had as Margate was actually Middleton (not sure what happened there!) but Middleton is a booth that I would expect to be very good for Glade-Wright so the projections have shifted with that corrected. I am now projecting Harriss for a substantial lead.
6:49 One of the Legana booths is in and Palmer has gone above 40 in my projection (which would probably be enough) but an interesting thing here is that Monson is in third and threatening Labor for second. What will Greens preferences do between Labor and Monson should it stay like that?
6:46 Glade-Wright wins Middleton booth (not Margate as previously advertised, not sure what happened there!)
6:43 Rosevears is going too! In the first two booths, Palmer roughly matched the Liberal state tally in one and was well below it in another, meaning I have her tracking for about 39, at which point the preferences of obscure independent Monson (who is getting a high vote so far by being the only independent!) would be important.
6:31 And we're off! In Huon, Glade-Wright tops two Bruny booths (not surprising) and Harriss tops primaries in Southport but not by much. These are very small booths but look like a very good start for Glade-Wright who at this early stage projects competitively with Harriss for the primary vote lead (on average my very early, very unreliable projections put both of them around 31). However Harriss may lift later. Interesting start. That Southport booth looks less than wonderful for Labor given it is not far from McKibben's home town.
6:20 Have also noticed some Rosevears booths that weren't in action or were under other names in the 2025 state election: there are now two Legana and two "Trevallyn" booths. Trevallyn Central is the standard (and very green) Trevallyn booth, Trevallyn is the previous Riverside West (not green!), and Riverside North was not at the state election.
5:40pm: The usual "yes this thing is on" post. A few things of note. Firstly in Huon there is a third Bruny Island booth on North Bruny, which will be called North Bruny; probably it will behave like other Bruny booths (very green/left). TEC have told me it's a reinstatement of the former Barnes Bay booth. For Huon I'll be projecting Labor and the Greens off the 2025 election, Glade-Wright off the Peter George group total at the 2025 election (noting that I expect that to be unreliable to a degree) and Harriss off both his 2022 result and the Liberal 2025 result (I don't expect either to be great but the truth may be somewhere in between!)
As concerns Nepean there will be a very low day vote which may be highly unreliable and we don't have useful comparative data for One Nation's likely performance on prepolls and postals in an absents-free by-election, so things will be a bit rubbery. One Nation will also perform much better in lower socio-economic booths and Nepean is quite a mixed bag economically.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Intro (Saturday 2 pm)
We're here again, it's counting night for two more Tasmanian Legislative Council seats with first-term incumbent Dean Harris (IND) facing Labor, Green and tealish IND challengers and fellow first-term incumbent Jo Palmer (Liberal) up against Labor and the Greens. You can see my seat previews here:
and also my assessment of Legislative Council voting patterns
I've had less time to cover the LegCo election campaigns than normal as I was overseas for two weeks in April. During this time I had very little spare time anyway but my ability to update the site was further affected by my laptop charger expiring in smoke and my phone charger being unreliable. However all is back to normal now.
As I note, a Labor opposition that normally votes with the government (hmmm) means that the government isn't often troubled on the floor of the chamber, but its proposed greyhound racing ban is one where it may need all the numbers it can get and won't be wanting to see any wins for the red team tonight. Nor would it be keen to see independent Dean Harriss replaced by an independent to his left in Clare Glade-Wright. Tonight will be an interesting test of how everyone's travelling, noting that Labor tends to do badly in these contests in the north and would do well by historic standards to get anywhere near winning Rosevears.
Also tonight is an interesting by-election in Victoria where the Liberals are trying to fend off One Nation and a teal in the seat vacated by former deputy leader Sam Groth, who won the seat impressively in 2022 and has been a problem magnet ever since. I'm not really sure whether it's better to run separate threads or cover them on the same thread; I've decided to do the latter to reduce the risk of me getting confused between threads, noting that the LegCo is my primary focus until it settles down. The Nepean contest has been marked by more Victorian Liberal chaos though the One Nation campaign has also run into some problems; see William Bowe's rundown.
I would expect first LegCo figures from around 6:30. Note that in Huon the first booths that arrive are often on Bruny Island and these are very green/anti-salmon booths that are highly unrepresentative. When I consider there is no realistic doubt about the fate of the LegCo seats the magic word CALLED will appear in the header. Until then it will contain a brief summary of how the count is going in each seat, which may at times be out of date.
Early in the night I'll be projecting party totals in Rosevears off the 2025 state election until numbers settle down. I have a range of projection ideas for Huon and I'll announce which ones I've managed to implement in time once the count gets underway. Note that we will not get postals tonight for the LegCo seats as Tasmania does not count postals til midweek. We should however get plenty of prepolls.
are you getting the feed direct from TEC. I don't see Margate yet on TEC website but you say G-W has won it????
ReplyDeleteLooks like a stuffup on my part, it is now showing as Middleton not Margate.
Deletethe votes for Lab and Grn in Legana central and Prospect are identical. Wonder if that is an error?
ReplyDeleteMonson will fall away the further the booths get from Beauty Point. Her vote so far is the West Tamar factor Didn't do well in Trevallyn Central
ReplyDelete