Why I Don't Support Fixed Four Year Terms For Tasmania

This is part of my 2024 Tasmanian state election coverage (link to main page here including link to effective voting advice), but is also a standalone article.

-----------------------------

The last two Tasmanian Parliaments have ended early.  The 2018-2021 parliament ended ten months early after independent-minded Liberal Sue Hickey was disendorsed and quit the party, and then-Premier Peter Gutwein argued the loss of the Liberals' majority meant an election was desirable.  The 2021-2024 parliament has ended thirteen and a half months early following trouble for the Rockliff Government with two backbenchers who moved to the crossbench in May 2022.  Tasmania is the only state that has not moved to fixed-term elections, but there had not been a seriously early election before these two since 1998, and there is a widespread lack of understanding about the historic conventions under which the Governor considers requests for an early election.   (A note that Tasmania's upper house does have fixed terms, but with elections on a rotating basis.)

I covered many of the misconceptions about calling an early election in 2021, and 2024 has seen a lower-level repeat of many of the same incorrect claims.  A Premier who holds the confidence of the House based on votes that have been cast on the floor - whether or not that looks likely to remain the case - is well entitled by precedent to be granted an early election in order to seek a fresh mandate based on newly arising issues or policies, because the workability of the Parliament is in question or for many other reasons.  It is not even clear that a Premier who is well into their term needs much of a reason at all.  The spurious idea that the Premier should test their support on the Parliament's floor before seeking an election has also been doing the rounds again - this confuses what happens at the start of a Parliament to the end.  

2024 Tasmanian State Election Guide Main Page

POSTCOUNT

No party has won a majority but the Liberals are the largest party.  

Seat postcount pages will be linked here when written.

Bass

Braddon

Clark

Franklin

Lyons

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the main page for my 2024 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 will very soon have 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.  This guide and all the others will evolve over coming weeks.  

I will be covering the election counting night for the Mercury from the tally room; all post-count coverage will occur on this website.  

Election Alert Time As Rockliff Demands Tighter Deal From Defectors

Updates scrolling to top

Tuesday 13/2 Updates

All going well here, Alexander has launched a massive spray at the government accusing it of being like an "abusive partner" and referring to the departures of other female MPs.  While the departures of Sarah Courtney, Jacquie Petrusma, Elise Archer and yes Alexander are all capable of being explained without reference to gender it's not helpful for the Liberals that they have ended up with only 1 woman out of 11 in the Lower House - small sample size is a hard concept to make fly in politics.

2:00 The Liberal Party meeting is still on but journalists are reporting that March 23 appears to be on.

Sunday 11/2 Updates

The Premier is now stating he is "actively considering requesting the Governor for an early election" on the grounds of the independents having not accepted his terms, and also citing "trust issues".  Monday is a public holiday (Regatta Day), on which an election call is possible but seems unlikely.  On Tuesday there is a Liberal party room meeting, the time of which I don't have yet.  If it is early in the day, a call on Tuesday afternoon would not be surprising, assuming the independents have not capitulated in the meantime (which seems unlikely).  

EMRS: Liberals Crash But Labor Doesn't Pick Up The Pieces

EMRS Lib 36 (-6) ALP 31 (+1) GRN 15 (+2) IND/OTHER 18 (+3)
Election held now would deliver a very hung parliament
Rebecca White retakes Better Premier lead, most probably as a result of disapproval of Jeremy Rockliff's performance

An eagerly awaited EMRS poll is up and as you would have been nuts to not expect, the Rockliff Liberal Government has been harshly whacked over its recent collapse into minority and its pursuit of a controversial AFL stadium.  After over a year in which basically nothing happened in this quarterly series the Government has slumped six points to 36%.  I have this as the Liberal Party's third-lowest primary since February 2011 (when it was also at 36), beating only a 35 and a 34 polled during 2017, a time when the poll had serious issues that it later addressed with overestimating the Green vote.

For a long time I have been wondering what it would take to lift the Labor Opposition above the low 30s and put it on to numbers where it could at least push for being the largest party in the parliament, if not for majority.  Surely this would be it?  According to this poll, no!  Remarkably the poll finds Labor up just one point to a feeble 31% with the slack being picked up by Greens (up two) and independents/others (up three).  So is the latter a boost in support for the recent defectors Lara Alexander and John Tucker?  The seat by seat breakdown is extremely granular because EMRS in its dashboard presents the numbers as a share of the overall state vote (and the sample size is tiny anyway) but the combined Ind/Other share hasn't moved upwards in either the Bass or the Lyons sample (a lot of the gain was in Clark).  

Tasmania Update: Stadium To Be Project Of State Significance

A brief update on today's developments following the announcement of a deal between the Rockliff Liberal Government and former members Lara Alexander and John Tucker, who quit the party just over a week ago and now sit as independents.

The essence of the deal is that in return for the independents' support on supply and confidence, the government has agreed to make the proposed Macquarie Point stadium a Project of State Significance rather than a Major Project.  This means both Houses of Parliament will need to approve the commencement of assessment. Both Houses will also need to approve any variation from the final decision of the assessment process.  Earlier I had thought that both Houses needed to give the project final approval but on reading the legislation this appears to be not the case if the government accepts the outcome of the POSS process without amendment.)

Tasmanian Government To Lose Majority (Or Something)

On what could be a fast-moving day, it's been announced that Liberal backbenchers Lara Alexander and John Tucker will quit the Liberal Party and move to the crossbenches, taking the Rockliff Liberal Government into minority.  The primary trigger point (see detailed statement) is the proposed Macquarie Point AFL stadium, with both claiming there has been inadequate transparency from Cabinet, but there are other things going on as well.  Alexander's camp was criticising the government during the 2021 campaign over her inability to speak out as a new candidate, and she later controversially hosted an event for opposition to gay conversion therapy bans.  Tucker says he has been in talks about leaving since March and has also cited dissatisfaction over Marinus Link and the Battery of the Nation.  Alexander has complained about the Premier supporting a yes vote on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

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.