uComms: Tas Labor Getting Run Out Of The Stadium

 uComms Tas (state) Lib 26.8 ALP 21.8 ON 18.4 Grn 15.9 IND 15.0 SFF 1.6 Nat 0.1 others 0.5
Seat estimate Lib 10 ALP 9 ON 8 Grn 4-5 IND 3-4

Today came the unexpected surprise of a new uComms poll of Tasmanian state voting intention commissioned by the anti-stadium group Our Place, trading for polling purposes as Macquarie Point Vision Limited.  The poll had a sample size of 1164 and was taken 26-27 August by robopoll and SMS.  Before we get too carried away with this poll I should point out that these are both methods I treat with a high degree of caution and that uComms' record in recent Tas state final polling has been erratic.  It underestimated the Liberals by 7 points in 2021 and underestimated Labor by 6 in 2024.  Nonetheless I'll unpack the voting intentions in this poll for those interested and then comment on the stadium questions.

uComms presents results in a somewhat challenging format with a headline question with undecided included as an option alongside several parties, and then a follow-up question that asks the voters who are initially undecided which option they are leaning to.  To convert the results into a format equivalent to other polls it is necessary to multiply the results of the follow-up question by the undecided rate and add them to the headline numbers.  In this case, the Nationals and Others options were not offered in the follow-up, which will have deflated them slightly and robbed the Nationals of their chance to reach the giddy heights of 0.2%.  

When converted, the numbers are overall very similar to the most recent EMRS poll.  A reading of 21.8 (the raw reading actually has a one in front of it) is another poll where Labor hasn't reached Josh Willie's milestone/millstone of 30% by Christmas; in fact it is their worst reading yet.  The numbers are just a little stronger for the Liberals and a little weaker for One Nation and this flows through on my seat model, for which I've just applied uniform swings to my model for the EMRS poll:

 On my model of this poll there is a small chance that the independent vote would be concentrated enough with George Razay to give him some hope of getting over One Nation if their ticket was leaky enough, but more likely One Nation would win two in Bass.  The interesting point is Braddon where the Labor vote is now low enough that it's possible the Liberals could win three seats, though it is much more likely Green preferences and leakage would save Labor's second.  Clark raises the same question about one or two independents as in the EMRS poll and the rest are straightforward.  The most likely result is the same: 10 Liberal, 9 Labor, 8 One Nation, 4-5 Greens and 3-4 Independents.  However it's not far off a bigger seat lead for the government.  

The poll includes a standard platform question of who a voter not supporting Labor or Liberal would preference higher, with 59.7% picking Labor, which would give Labor a 52.5% 2PP.  Except Hare-Clark doesn't work like that and many voters for other parties would preference neither.  In any case the most likely result, for the third poll in a row, would be a Liberal/One Nation majority of one seat.  The poll also has some interesting breakdowns, with the One Nation vote being concentrated among male voters (by a factor of nearly two to one) and peaking in my generation, voters aged 51-65.  I can only put on my best Kevin Rudd imitation voice and intone "On behalf of Generation X, I am sorry."  

Also deserving comment here is the 0.1% reading for the Tasmanian Nationals (I add that all the 0.1% were over 65).  This party ran a shambolic campaign at the state election, polling 1.6% after making contradictory candidate choices and being all over the map on what they would do if elected, failing to exploit anti-stadium sentiment and endorsing one of the state's most infamous anti-gay campaigners (who they then ghosted during the campaign).  It is surely time now for the following message to be sent to the federal Nationals office regarding these embarrassing attempts to make the Nationals a thing in Tasmania: Your attempts are futile here.  Go away and this time don't come back.

Stadium Questions

The main point of this poll was issue questions on the stadium, which I am not going to post vast detail of but which as usual with issue polls need to be examined critically.

The first question is "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The full cost of the proposed stadium in Tasmania should be disclosed to Parliament and the public?" This unsurprisingly gets an overwhelming 74.4-9.1 (16.4% neutral) thumbs up, after all how could this possibly be a bad thing?  But the thing here is that a great many voters have probably not been exposed to the debate about disclosing the current estimated cost, and hence would not be aware that there is a counter-argument.  The government has argued that disclosing an expected cost could weaken the state's position in the tender process.  Another issue with the question is it doesn't say when.  Another is that it doesn't canvass that the full cost can hardly be known at this time.  And so on.  

The second question is "If the proposed stadium costs more than $1.13 billion, who do you think should be responsible for the cost?"  The results are Tasmanian Taxpayers 5.7% The AFL 55.7% Both the taxpayers and the AFL 26.3% Someone else 5.9% Don't know 6.5%.  Some other options that might have been interesting to include here would be the Federal Government and AFL fans.  I like this question, irrespective of the fact that it is highly unlikely the cost excess would be borne by anyone other than the taxpayers.  (Not only that but if the state is too slow constructing the stadium, the state will be up for $4.5 million a year in penalties, an utterly ridiculous clause that should see the AFL reclassified as a terrorist organisation for even having had the gall to try it on, and the government required to crowdsource the penalties itself for signing it.)  Unsurprisingly Liberal voters are the least likely to say the AFL should pay, probably because stadium supporters tend to be pro-Liberal and are likely to see the proposal that the AFL should pay as a threat to the project.  

The third question is "If the proposed stadium costs more than $1.13 billion, how should the additional cost of borrowed money be funded?"  This is a forced choice between "Increased taxes" (36.4%) and "Reduction in government services and spending" (63.6%).  There are so many other options here - a levy on tickets to the stadium and increasing government debt (shudder) spring to mind; still the breakdowns are somewhat interesting.  Greens voters (59.8%) are most likely of the major options to support increasing taxes while One Nation voters (18.6%) are least likely (probably because they like the idea of reducing government spending anyway).  

The fourth question is "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?  "The Tasmanian Government has handled the proposed stadium well?" 30.7% agree (including 13.0% strongly) and 50.0% disagree (37.7% strongly).  This is broadly in line with the long-standing unpopularity of the stadium proposal but after three questions about the possibility of cost blowouts and the government's attitude to disclosing the cost the respondents are more likely to agree that the government has not done well.  There's quite a strong gender break on this one, as with several of the others (36.8% of male respondents vs 24.7% of female respondents agree).  There don't seem to be any party breakdowns for this question.