EMRS: The Calm Before The Scandals (Which Are Probably More Calm)

EMRS: Liberal 42 Labor 30 (+1) Greens 13 (-1) IND 13 (-2) (likely to be inflated) Others 3 (+2)

Seat estimate if election "held now" Lib 16-17 ALP 11-2 Green 4-5 IND 2-4

An EMRS quarterly poll of Tasmanian state voting intention taken Feb 14-19 has just emerged, together with an update on the snazzy albeit slightly odd bells and whistles thingy (more on that later).  

This poll was taken before this week's resumption of Parliament in which the government has been attacked over two political class scandals.  The first involved conflict of interest accusations against the Speaker Mark Shelton concerning very large grants for the upgrade of the Bracknell Hall.  Speaker Shelton has used his casting vote to block a referral of the matter to the Privileges Committee, to block a no-confidence motion against him from being brought on, and to block two rather unusual motions that his vote on those motions be disallowed on the grounds of "pecuniary interest".  (I have been unable to find any precedent for pecuniary interest provisions being used in this way.)  In the second, after one of the parliament's longer exercises in dental extraction there was finally an admission that Racing Minister Madeleine Ogilvie had known the former TasRacing boss Paul Eriksson had been dismissed days before she first misleadingly claimed he had moved to Sydney for family reasons.   At times Labor and the Greens were almost tripping over each other trying to work out which scandal to target first.

EMRS: First Expanded House Poll Not Bad For Government

EMRS: Liberal 42 (+1) Labor 29 (-2) Greens 14 (+1) IND 15 (+1) (likely to be inflated) Others 1

Largest Liberal lead since lifting of state borders.

Estimated seat result: Liberal 16-17 Labor 11-12 Green 4-5 IND 1-3

The usual very quick post following the release of an EMRS poll for Tasmania.  The new poll taken November 8-15 shows the Liberals on 42%, Labor 29%, Greens 14%, Independents 15% and others 1.  The poll is not statistically different from the August poll but nonetheless the Liberals have their largest lead of the year at 13%.  There might be some recovery from the crash in support following the reopening of state borders last summer, but it is still too soon to be sure.  In any case, there are two familiar themes (i) the Liberal Party is substantially ahead (ii) Labor is, at this stage, not lifting off to anything much above what it got at the 2021 state election.  The swing is going more or less all to "independent".  The next election is two and a half years away if the parliament goes full term so there is still a lot of time for things to change.

Legislation to restore the House to 35 seats with five divisions of seven members has passed the Parliament so from now on I will be projecting these polls first and foremost for a 35 seat House (in which the magic majority target is 18 seats).  As noted in the August article the suspiciously high "Independent" vote remains an interpretation problem; this would be expected to crash once voting options were known but where those votes would go is another question. 

As only Clark and Braddon recently had significant independents I have assumed they would again attract significant independent votes, and that the independent votes likely to appear in the other seats would scatter and/or be peeled off by other parties.  On this basis I estimate this poll as pointing to 16-17 Liberals, 11-13 Labor, 4-5 Greens and 1-3 Independents if an election were "held now".  The Liberals would probably only win two seats in Clark (which might elect a second independent, or give Labor and the Greens four between them) and would be touch-and-go when it came to a fourth in Lyons.  Unless the Liberal vote is huge then the orthodox pathway to 18 seats would be four in the three northern seats and three in Clark and Franklin, however two in Clark and four in all the others is another in-theory possibility.  As the election gets closer it could be that high-profile independents emerge in other seats to try their luck under the restored system.  

The story would be fairly similar under the 25-seat system, where the Liberals would probably only get twelve on these numbers, with only one returned in Clark, although retaining the second Clark seat might be possible with a more focused campaign in that seat.  So on these numbers the recent switch back to 35 has probably made retaining a majority slightly harder.  

The only thing to see on the leadership front is that there isn't anything to see; Jeremy Rockliff has a rather modest lead over Rebecca White (46-34) on an indicator that generally favours incumbent leaders.  

Following the spate of resignations earlier this year and controversy over the tactical wisdom (or otherwise) of the proposed AFL stadium there has been speculation that the government is approaching the end of its shelf-life and is highly likely to at least lose its majority at the end of the term.  This poll however doesn't find the rot setting in in the minds of voters and for now it has the government competitive for a majority while Labor has work to do.  It will be interesting to see if anything changes in this regard during 2023.

EMRS: No Real Change In Second Rockliff Era Poll (plus comments re 35 seats)

EMRS (Tasmania): Liberal 41 (+2) Labor 31 (+1) Greens 13 (=) IND 14 (-1) others 1 (-2)

Poll suggests Liberals largest party with Greens and/or Independents holding balance of power if election "held now"

Independent vote is probably being overestimated

It seems like the last one wasn't long ago (and indeed the interval was shorter than normal) but an EMRS poll of Tasmanian voting intention taken from the 8th to the 11th of August has just been released.  After an uptick in the previous poll that could have been caused by federal election contamination, the collective "others" are down three points to 15% in this poll, the voting intentions for which are almost identical to the March poll, the last under Peter Gutwein's leadership.  

The news seems moderately good for the now Rockliff government.  They hold a 10% lead, Labor has still to break out of the very low 30s, and nobody except the government is within cooee of forming a majority.  The government's lead would almost certainly not result in a majority if the votes recorded in the poll were cast as such at an election, but history suggests that doesn't matter.  Governments with slender leads or even no lead at all at points through the term perked up as the election approached (or well before it with a big hand from pandemic management) and won majorities in 2006, 2018 and 2021.  It's necessary to go back to the pre-EMRS 1996 election for the last case where a government with any sort of real polling lead did not win a majority.  The bandwagons seen in 2006 and 2018 may reflect the tactics of voters who want to avoid minority government, but it can also be argued that they were caused by campaign factors in those two elections.   

Tasmanian Lower House: 25 or 35 Seats?

This article has been updated for elections from 2014 to 2025. Scroll down to the bottom for these updates.

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Advance summary (pre-2014 version):

1.  The possibility of restoring the old 35-seat system in the Tasmanian House of Assembly is currently being discussed ahead of a motion to be moved by the Greens.

2. Looking at past election results and current polling, the 35-seat system is slightly more proportionally accurate, while the 25-seat system is slightly more prone to "over-represent" the major parties in comparison to vote share.

3. However, precise proportional representation in the Tasmanian context can easily be argued to be overrated anyway.

4. Of the elections considered (and a 2014 projection based on current polling), only in the case of 1998 did the choice of systems determine the election result.

5. Majority government is slightly more likely on average with 25 seats than with 35 seats, but in many scenarios the number of seats makes no real difference to its chances.

6. Strategic considerations favour the Greens supporting an increase in the number of seats and the Liberals opposing it, while for the Labor Party there are arguments on both sides.

7. The view that the Greens could plausibly win more seats than Labor at the next election if the 25-seat system is retained is not consistent with current polling.

8. It is not correct to blame too many problems in Tasmanian politics on the 25-seat system since politics under the 35-seat system was also very turbulent and crisis-prone during its last two decades.