Legislative Council 2016: Apsley and Elwick Live and Post-Count

Apsley: CALLED (c. 7 pm) - Rattray (IND) has retained

Elwick: CALLED (c. 8 pm) - Willie (ALP) has defeated incumbent Taylor (IND). 

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Sunday 8:11 pm: We have a preference throw in Elwick with preferences splitting 53.3:46.7 to Willie, which makes the current result almost the same (53.16% to Willie).  It will change by fractions of a point but there are not nearly enough votes left for Taylor to have any mathematical chance.  In Apsley Rattray is 20 votes short of an absolute majority.  A provisional preference throw shows her gaining 36.8% of Green preferences (wow) to Clark's 35.9% and Hall's 27.3%.  Then with Hall excluded, his votes go 68.9% to Rattray giving her a 67.3% 2PP over Labor if we ignore the few undistributed votes. 

Legislative Council 2016: Apsley and Elwick

Added May 7: For live results and postcount comments go here.

This is my candidate guide and preview for the two Tasmanian Legislative Council seats that are up for elections this year.  Nominations closed on April 15, and the elections are on Saturday May 7th; I expect to post live comments on the counts as per normal.  However I will be busy in the week leading up to the election so updates may be briefer or less frequent than usual.

These elections are important for the future legislative program of the Hodgman Liberal Government. At present it usually but not always has the numbers upstairs (see voting patterns).  If both seats fall to Labor, then the left will have a blocking majority on major contentious issues.  Even one Labor win would be quite significant for the balance of the chamber.

Despite the implications of Legislative Council elections for state politics, many LegCo elections are decided in a similar way to local council voting, based on personal profile, community connections and "parish pump" type campaigning.  Attempts to attack incumbents both right (Wilkinson, Dean) and left (Finch, Gaffney) over their voting records have failed spectacularly in recent years - but at least state political issues are now being discussed at all in these campaigns.

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2012-6

Advance Summary

1. This article presents a revised analysis of voting patterns in the Legislative Council (the upper house of Tasmanian Parliament) based on contested divisions in the last four years.

2. Although there is a degree of independence in all Legislative Council voting, the Council continues to have a clearly defined "left wing" consisting of Craig Farrell (Labor), and independents Mike Gaffney, Ruth Forrest, Kerry Finch and Rob Valentine.

3. Excepting Adriana Taylor and Rosemary Armitage, the remaining MLCs have leaned significantly to the right to varying degrees over the past four years.  However, Tania Rattray displayed a centrist voting pattern in the last year specifically.

4. Voting in the Legislative Council in 2015-6 was much less polarised than in previous years, probably because of a low proportion of high-profile partisan political issues.

5. The revised analysis again shows most of the conservative MLCs to be between Liberal and Labor positions, albeit closer to the Liberals.

6. The Liberal Government lost very few divisions in the 2015-6 Council, however this will change should Labor win the two seats being elected this year.

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