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 Postcount: Bass

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

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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

Announced/Expected Candidates For The 2025 Tasmanian State Election

Introduction

This article is a list of endorsed, self-declared or expected candidates running in the 2025 Tasmanian state election (Link to main guide page).   I've written it mainly to keep tabs on the mushrooming tally of candidate announcements before I have time to get my candidate guides in order.  Incumbents, marked with a *, are assumed to be running again unless they announce retirement or are deselected.  Rumours are noted for interest but are by nature unreliable and will be noted as debunked once that is so.  Media-reported candidates for preselection who have not yet been announced as party candidates are noted as "intending".

I am aware of some people who have made Facebook posts saying they are running without saying which electorate.  It is not entirely clear if they are serious.  I am disregarding these for now pending further information.

Declared Candidate Tally

I expect the Greens to run 35 candidates.  Numbers who ran in 2024 shown in brackets.  This tally includes candidates seeking preselection.

Liberal 35 (35)

Labor 35 (35)

Greens 35 (35)

Independents 44 (29) (record high, excluding "Green Independents" in 1992)

Shooters Fishers and Farmers 3 (11)

Nationals 9 (not then registered)

Animal Justice Party apparently not running (5)

Jacqui Lambie Network not running (12)

Local Network deregistered (5)

Total 161 (167)

Tasmanian House of Representatives Seat Guide 2025

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This article gives a detailed discussion of the five Tasmanian House of Representatives seats, which will be updated and edited as needed up til election day.  A Tasmania Senate guide will follow much closer to polling day and will be linked here when up and there will be many other federal pages coming.   I will be doing coverage for The Guardian on election night.

One seat (Lyons, held by Labor) is hotly in play at this election.  Two others (Liberal-held Bass and Braddon) are volatile historically and of some interest though challenging for Labor to win this time around.  Franklin (Labor) is attracting more attention than normal because of a couple of independent attempts.  Clark (Ind) is not considered in play.  

National polling as I start this article has been suggesting the sort of swing to the Coalition that if uniform should see them win Lyons, with Bass out of serious danger and Braddon out of the question for Labor.  However Tasmania has become detached from national patterns in recent years with national swing only predicting Tasmania's two-party seat result perfectly once in the last 33 years (and in recent years Labor tending to do worse in swing terms than the national swing).   Long Labor's strongest state on a 2PP basis, Tasmania ceased to be so in 2022 as demographic transition in low-education and older-voter areas has favoured the Liberal Party.  

2024 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass

BASS (2021 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor - when election called 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND)

Notional 2021 7-Seat Result 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN 

CALLED WINNERS: Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Michelle O'Byrne (ALP), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (Green), Rebekah Pentland (JLN), Simon Wood (Lib)

SEAT LOST: Lara Alexander (IND)

(Links to other seat postcount pages  Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons Summary)

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This year I will do my postcount threads in alphabetical order but some may get more effort at the start than others!   A late-night update in Bass sees the Liberals with 3.04 quotas, Labor 2.40, Greens 0.95, JLN 0.65, Shooters 0.18, Animal Justice 0.12.  The independents are collectively on 0.66 quotas but none of them has any vote to speak of and Greg (Tubby) Quinn is the only one who can hold his head up high, outpolling much more fancied indies who have flopped (though Lara Alexander has just overtaken him).  The count is at 81.9% (it will finish somewhere around 90 probably) and George Town and Scottsdale prepolls are not added yet.

The Liberal vote in Bass has been trashed by an enormous swing currently running at over 20%, but when you start from a base of 60, how bad can it be?    Michael Ferguson has topped the poll with 1.44 quotas in his own right.  Rob Fairs has a little less than half of that.  Ferguson will be the only candidate elected with quota and his surplus will provide boosts to the remaining Liberal candidates.  From then on it will be a long series of exclusions from the bottom up, with occasional surpluses.  Michelle O'Byrne and Janie Finlay will be over quota pretty quickly in that process, and Rob Fairs and Cecily Rosol later.  This leaves two battles.  The first is between JLN and Labor for the last seat at party level and the second is a battle for the third Liberal position.

Liberal Agrees Tasmanians Are Ostriches

(This is a special article for my Tasmania 2024 election coverage; click here for link to main page with links to other articles)

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It's been widely expected that when Tasmania's supposed AFL team name is unveiled days out from the election (hmmm) the name will be the Devils, Warner Bros' outrageous trademark nonsense based on their cartoons about our animal notwithstanding. Just in case "Devils" isn't available, I've been scratching my head for an alternative, and I've found one.  We can follow the lead of Liberal Bass candidate Julie Sladden and we can call our team the Tassie Ostriches! Here is a jumper mockup.

2024 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Bass

This is the Bass electorate guide for the 2024 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2024 election preview page, including links to other electorates.) If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate in these difficult times if you can afford to do so.  Note: if using a mobile you may need to use the view web version option at the bottom of the page to see the sidebar.  

Bass (2021 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor, as at election 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND)

North-east Tasmania including most of Launceston

Mixed urban/small-town/rural

Announced Candidates For The Next Tasmanian State Election

NOTE 14/2: Guide main page has been launched.  Seat pages are up and linked from the headings below, I will try to keep updating this article too but as a lower priority.

Updates on the current "ultimatum" situation were posted on the previous article.  

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Introduction

This article is a list of endorsed or self-declared candidates who are running for the next Tasmanian state election; some unconfirmed or rumoured candidates are also mentioned in italics.  The election isn't "due" til May 2025 but could happen soon as a result of ongoing tensions between the Rockliff minority Liberal government and two MPs who defected to the crossbench.  I have written this article with two main possibilities in mind.  The first one is that the election is still at least a few months away or even next year, in which case the article will serve as a useful resource piece in the meantime and will help highlight the major early build-up of candidates for the benefit of history, with 83 known candidates at the time I started the article on 6 Feb 2024, some of whom have been running for many months.  The second is that the election is close and writing this piece now will be something of a waste of time, but in that case we will have an election!   So it's a win-win.   

2022 House of Reps Summary Page And Vanilla Postcounts

 ALP WINS WITH MAJORITY (FLOOR MAJORITY UNCONFIRMED)

SEATS APPARENTLY WON LABOR 77 COALITION 58 IND 10 GRN 4 KAP 1 CA 1 

Seats apparently changing (not all completely confirmed):

COALTION TO LABOR: Reid, Robertson, Chisholm, Higgins, Boothby, Pearce, Swan, Hasluck, Tangney, Bennelong
COALITION TO GREENS: Ryan, Brisbane

COALITION TO INDEPENDENTS: Wentworth, Mackellar, North Sydney, Curtin, Goldstein, Kooyong
LABOR TO GREENS: Griffith
LABOR TO INDEPENDENT: Fowler

Tasmanian House of Representatives Seats Guide (2022)

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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 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.
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This article gives a fairly detailed discussion of the five Tasmanian House of Representatives seats, which will be updated and edited as needed up til election day.

Two seats (Clark and Franklin) are not considered to be in play at this election.  Two (Bass and Braddon) are Liberal marginals with a long history of going back and forth and are in play more or less irrespective of the outcome.  One (Lyons) is fairly comfortable for Labor on paper but Labor's baseline margin is exaggerated so it may be in play if the election is fairly close overall.

National polling as I start this article has been suggesting the sort of swing to Labor that would see Labor easily recover Bass and probably Braddon as well.  However Tasmania has become somewhat detached from national patterns in recent years with national swing only predicting Tasmania's two-party seat result perfectly once in the last 30 years.   Tasmanian federal swings still have some relationship with the national swing but it is a loose one.

Poll Roundup: Lukewarm Budget Reception As Coalition Remains Way Behind

FIVE POLL AVERAGE 54.6 TO LABOR
Little evidence of "budget bounce"
Labor would comfortably win election "held now" 

Leads in polling at this stage tend to contract

Herewith a roundup of polling following the Budget.  It's been a long time since I had time for the last federal polling roundup here, so I just want to set the polling scene before moving on, time (what is that?) permitting, to Tasmanian House of Reps seat guides, a Tasmanian Senate guide [EDIT: that will come after nominations are released] and hopefully a general assessment of the prospects for the Senate.  In short, the government's current polling is rather bad, but it is not all over yet.  To take things pollster by pollster, with the three who are Australian Polling Council members at the top and the laggards and backsliders at the bottom:

Peter Gutwein Resignation And Recount

Retiring MP: Peter Gutwein (Liberal, Bass)

Recount from 2021 election for remainder of 2021-25 term

Recount for seat between Liberals Simon Wood and Greg Kieser 

Simon Wood won recount easily as expected

Jeremy Rockliff elected Premier unopposed. 

Recount updates 26 April

Recount updates will be posted here today as news arrives.  The number of ballot papers to be counted is very large but an outright majority for Wood on the first count (pretty likely I think) would speed things up.  Not sure if the result will be today, but if so I'd think late today.  

Tuesday night: the update late tonight shows Wood with nearly two-thirds of the vote with nearly two-thirds counted, confirming he will win tomorrow.

Wednesday: Wood wins on primaries as expected and by lots, 61%-28.9%.  

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In breaking news Premier Peter Gutwein has announced he is resigning as Premier and from Parliament later this week.  Gutwein was Premier for just two years and three months but in that time led his party to the retention of its majority (a very unusual feat for a seven year old government while the same party held office federally) and vied with Mark McGowan for the highest opinion poll ratings recorded in Australian polling history.  Gutwein's leadership of the state during the early days of the pandemic was acclaimed, though in the last few months opinion of the state's reopening has been divided and his ratings were starting to return to earth.  Gutwein has stated he is resigning for more family time.  His devotion to a massive workload saw him hospitalised with exhaustion and he has had some difficult challenges recently including isolation after a family member tested positive, and also revealing that he was a survivor of an attempted sexual assault as a teenager.  

This is very fresh and this article will be updated as the Premiership story develops.  I will start with the known unknown - the battle to replace him, and other parts as I can.

Sarah Courtney Resignation And Recount

Bass recount for seat of Sarah Courtney (resigned)

Seat will be won by a Liberal - most likely Lara Alexander or Simon Wood

Alexander had an advantage in votes for which the recount outcome is already known

Alexander has a lead in primaries in the recount and is likely to win. (Update: And has.)

UPDATES FEB 25: The recount has started and I have seen a media report that, unofficially, on primaries Lara Alexander had 44%, Simon Wood 37.6%, Greg Kieser 12.6%, leaving 5.8% for other candidates.  The exclusion process will be relatively fast and Wood will need over 67% of preferences from Kieser and the other candidates, which is unlikely.  Alexander has basically held her lead on known primary votes across the unknown primaries.  

6:20 It's over; Alexander wins by 620 votes (52.9-47.1).  The expected outcome and an unsurprising margin.  Interestingly this is only the second case of a female for female replacement on a recount (after Cassy O'Connor replacing Peg Putt (both Greens.)) The reason turns out to be that only 24 previous female MHAs have completed their careers and of these only four did so by resigning, so there have been very few chances for this to occur.

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Bass

This is the Bass electorate guide for the 2021 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2021 election preview page, including links to other electorates.) If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate in these difficult times if you can afford to do so.  Note: if using a mobile you may need to use the view web version option at the bottom of the page to see the sidebar.

Bass (Currently 3 Liberal 2 Labor). 
North-east Tasmania including most of Launceston
Mixed urban/small-town/rural

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Main Page

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Header added 2 May: The election has been run and the Liberals are the largest party but it remains to be determined for sure whether they have a majority.  

Postcount threads are being unrolled:

Clark 

Windermere and Derwent

Bass

Braddon

Franklin (zzzzz)

Lyons

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Welcome to the main page for my 2021 Tasmanian state election coverage.  This page will carry links to all the other articles about the election that I write prior to the close of polling, and will contain general big-picture stuff and links to all the specialised articles (once these are written).  It will be updated very frequently.  Each electorate has its own guide page.  Note that these are my own guides and I reserve the right to inject flippant and subjective comments whenever I feel like it; if you do not like this, write your own.

Braddon And Bass 2019: Another Rec Fishers Preferences Beatup

One of the eternal tropes of Australian media electoral reporting is the breathless expose of how the preferencing behaviour of some obscure party or candidate could swing or did swing an important contest or in cases an entire election.  And, on a day when there was quite enough going on for election buffs to look at in the Chisholm and Kooyong signs challenge (see my updated coverage of that on the link) it has unfortunately broken out again with the sensational headline "CFMMEU-funded independents helped Liberals steal two key seats".  (CFMMEU = Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union).  The article goes on:

"The CFMMEU helped the Coalition win two key seats back from Labor at the May election by funding the campaigns of two independents who sent 1757 votes between them to the Liberal Party."  It then refers to independent recreational fishers Todd Lambert (Bass) and Brett Smith (Braddon).

The piece has been widely criticised on the Twitter psephosphere, but not everyone uses Twitter, and especially as the seats in question are Tasmanian I think it's worth posting a detailed explanation here of why this piece is incorrect.  I note that no psephologist was interviewed for the article.

2019 House of Reps Figures Finalised

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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 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.
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The 2019 House of Representatives results have been finalised, a joyous event that tends to arrive unheralded two to three months after every federal election.  Although all the preference throws had been completed and uploaded some time ago, the final figures importantly include the two-party preference flows by party.  Normally I say that this is very useful for assessing the performance of polls.  At this election the polls failed dismally, mainly because of failures on the Coalition and Labor primaries (except for Ipsos which failed on the Greens primary instead of Labor); nonetheless there will be a final review of them here fairly soon.  This article is a general roundup of other matters regarding the House of Reps figures.

Preference Shifting

The final 2PP result is 51.53% to the Coalition and 48.47% to Labor, a 1.16% swing to the Coalition.

There was a very large shift in the preferences of Pauline Hanson's One Nation.  One Nation preferences flowed only 50.47% to Coalition in 2016 but 65.22% to Coalition in 2019 (even more than the 60-40 split believed to have been assumed by Newspoll after considering state election results).  Overall, preferences from parties other than the Greens and One Nation also flowed more strongly to the Coalition by a few points (53.93% compared to 50.79%) but this was caused by the United Australia Party flowing 65.14% to the Coalition.  Excluding the Greens, One Nation and UAP, Others preferences (50.7% to ALP) were 1.5 points stronger for Labor than in 2016.  It is also interesting that Katters Australian Party preferences flowed 14 points more strongly to the Coalition, very similar to the shift for One Nation.

Gladstone Rises Up: An Error In The 2013 Tasmanian Senate Count

There's apparently not all that much going on in the 2019 election postcount, where the only major dramas left at present appear to be which (probably) left party loses in the Queensland Senate and whether anyone can possibly avoid a recount in Macquarie.  When I compare it to 2016, I'm quite surprised at how busy I'm not.

This means I have time to post something curious I've been meaning to post for some time.  As is well known, the 2013 Senate count was not the Australian Electoral Commission's finest hour.  In Western Australia, the original count had a tipping point between two candidates, neither of whom could win, but the resolution of which determined the final two seats. The loss of 1370 ballot papers meant that it could not be determined who had won, and as a result the entire 2013 WA Senate election had to be voided and rerun in 2014.  This resulted in the resignations of the Electoral Commissioner and the Electoral Officer for Western Australia and major changes to the way ballot papers are handled.  The farce also contributed to the death of Group Ticket Voting at federal level. Under the system we have now the tipping point would have been irrelevant and the lost ballots may well not have affected the outcome.  Many other issues with the AEC's culture were identified in a review and many positive changes have been made.

2019 House of Reps Postcount

Coalition has won the election, almost certainly with a small majority

Apparently won Coalition 77 Labor 68 Green 1 CA 1 KAP 1 IND 3. 

Seats Assumed Won By Coalition From Labor: Longman, Herbert, Bass, Braddon, Lindsay
Seats Assumed Won By Labor From Coalition: Gilmore, Corangamite, Dunkley
Seat Assumed Won By IND From Coalition: Warringah
Seat Assumed Won By Coalition From IND: Wentworth 

Seats that were being covered but now assumed won: Boothby and Chisholm (Coalition retains), Lilley, Cowan  (Labor retains), Bass (Liberal gain), Macquarie (ALP retain)

This is the main thread for the 2019 House of Reps postcount.  A few days ago I expected I would be unrolling separate threads to unravel three-cornered contests in Melbourne, a complete mess in Mallee and so on, but at this stage none of that has happened.  I have done a quick thread for Mallee though as there's some interest in it.  There is a weird situation in Hunter, where One Nation are currently two points short of beating the Nationals into second, but I don't see any reason to think they can get into second, let alone win if they do.  Indeed the Nationals' margin in second should increase.

Rolling Poll Roundup And Seat Betting Watch: The Final Days

2PP Aggregate 51.5 to Labor (by last-election preferences) (-0.3 since last week)
51.1 with One Nation adjustment
Current seat projection approx Labor 79 Coalition 66 others 6 assuming polls accurate.

The end, it seems, is nigh.  If the (ludicrously herded) national polls are right, the Morrison government would need a huge amount of luck to survive a swing of somewhere around 1.3-2.3%, at an election at which it can afford perhaps two net seat losses.  If the polls on the whole are just modestly wrong in one direction, the Government's chances of survival improve greatly, but the other direction leads to a decisive loss.  The most likely path to survival is a Donald Trump style path - a combination of a modest national polling error and a fair amount of luck with the local breakdowns, but if it happens in this case, after everything, it will be very surreal.