Tas Liberal Senate Turnover As Duniam And Askew To Go

I had a piece in drafts almost ready to release for weeks about this, but perhaps just as well I didn't since further developments have rendered the draft somewhat out of date.   The last few weeks have seen major news in the leadup to the expected 2028 half-Senate election with the Tasmanian Liberal ticket to lose both its incumbents.  Incumbent since 2019 Wendy Askew was to retire at the end of the term but will now resign in coming weeks while incumbent since 2016 Jonno Duniam will quit by the end of this year.  Askew's successor will get something like 20 months and Duniam's successor about 17 in the Senate in the lead-up to the next election, assuming it is on schedule and not early. 

The preselection currently underway is for the next election but I would expect that the top two candidates will inherit the seats of Askew and Duniam unless there are twists regarding availability.  

While it may seem disastrous for the Liberals to be go in with no incumbents, in some ways it is an advantage to them compared to if just one incumbent departed now.  The party now has more flexibility in planning a 2028 ticket from scratch without, for instance, feeling pressured to choose a female candidate as the sole winner of the vacancy race as might have been the case had only Askew departed. 

So What's The Deal With Macnamara 2025?

I don't normally do articles about specific seats outside of my home state in federal leadups, but this one is a very special case.  The seat of Macnamara has seen excitement in the post-count at two of the last three federal elections.  First there was 2016, when Labor always looked most likely to retain but there was both a narrow margin to the Greens to make the final two and a narrow margin to the Liberals after doing so.  But that was just an entree to 2022 where the seat hung in the balance for over a week.  In this case the Liberals had no hope of victory but Labor needed to beat either the Liberals or the Greens at the three-candidate point to win the seat.  All three parties were astonishingly close at the tipping point and Labor's Josh Burns survived by just 594 votes.  The 2025 campaign for Macnamara again sees an unclear exclusion order which is leading to some strategic voting arguments.  One of them isn't very good.

The seat of Macnamara has become a commentariat obsession since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, soon followed by Israel's ongoing invasion of Gaza.  Attributing blame for and condemning these events is outside the scope of this article; if anyone must know my views, ask me somewhere else.  The resulting Gaza/antisemitism issues set is seen as extremely significant in Macnamara where 10% of residents describe their religion as Judaism.  Some others would be ethnically Jewish without self-describing as religious.  Given that there has been a rise in strong criticisms of Israel and also in antisemitic behaviour (the two are far from always the same thing) since October 2023 the line has been that Jewish voters will turn heavily away from the Greens for their pro-Gaza position.

Lambiemania: What Should We Make Of The Tasmanian YouGov Poll?

YouGov Tasmania (state) Liberal 31 Labor 27 JLN 20 Greens 15 IND 7
If recorded at an election (unlikely) would result in a hung parliament, probably leading to a Labor minority government
High JLN figure likely to represent a bubble, with response options contributing - but consistent with JLN being in the mix for seat wins

Populist minor party bubbles often happen in state elections.  In the late 2017 SA Newspoll, Nick Xenophon's SA-Best was polling 32%, ahead of both major parties, and Xenophon himself was 5% ahead of both major party leaders combined as Better Premier.  Was South Australia heading for Premier Xenophon?  Just a few months and one of the worst ads in political history later, the juggermaut had ground to a halt, with the party polling 14.2% on election day and winning zero lower house seats.   

And while One Nation did manage 22.7% in Queensland 1998, there have been plenty of other bursting bubbles: One Nation Queensland 2017, Palmer United Tasmania 2014 and Queensland 2015 and yes Jacqui Lambie Network Tasmania 2018 are other cases where minor parties that threatened to win several seats ended up with one seat or nothing.  (Another one is Territory Alliance in the NT 2020 but that is a weaker example since the only poll that pointed to success there was an internal poll.)  Campaigns often result in fourth parties being exposed as rabbles full of terrible candidates and contradictions.  They can be outspent by big parties or simply sidelined from media debate because they won't be governing.  

NSW Legislative Council 2023: Button Press Day

 Button press from 11 am Wednesday

Won off raw quotas: ALP 8 Coalition 6 Green 2* PHON 1 

* fractionally short but certain to cross on preferences

Strongly expected to win seats 18-20: Legalise Cannabis, Liberal Democrats, Shooters Fishers and Farmers

21st seat Rachel Merton (Liberal) vs Alison Waters (Animal Justice)

Merton leads narrowly on primaries but could be caught on preferences

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UPDATES WEDNESDAY (scrolls to top)

2:35 It wasn't close at all in the end with Animal Justice closing the gap slightly but not enough; it finished at just over 10,000 votes (.051 quotas) down from the primary gap of .069.  Animal Justice made the largest gain of the competing parties (.124 quotas compared to .106 for Coalition, .094 for Legalise Cannabis, .077 for Liberal Democrats and .068 for Shooters) but the great majority of preferences exhausted rather than reaching any of these parties.  

11:59 MERTON WINS.  Animal Justice couldn't make it three in a row, awaiting news on the margin.

11:55 Pointy end approaching!

11:05 The distribution has commenced; it takes about one hour.

EMRS: Voting Intention Pretty Stable In Tasmania

EMRS Tasmania (state) August: Liberal 49 Labor 26 (-2) Green 13 Others 12 (+2)
Results very similar to 2021 election (seat result 13 Liberal 9 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

A new EMRS poll of Tasmanian state voting intention is out and it shows very little change since the previous poll or for that matter the 2021 snap State Election result.  The only change in voting intention since the last poll is a shift of two points from Labor to Others.  In all the Liberals are up 0.3% compared to the state election, Labor down 2.2%, the Greens up 0.6% (though EMRS has form for overstating the Green vote) and Others up 1.3%.

The only close seat at party level this year was the final seat in Clark, in which Madeleine Ogilvie (Liberal, formerly ALP and then Independent) defeated Sue Hickey (Independent, formerly Liberal) by 2.2%.  A 1.1% swing from Liberals to Others would in theory elect a second Independent.  However in this poll the swing on primary votes is 0.5%, and the swing after preferences would be slightly smaller because of the swing against Labor.  The circumstances of the 2021 election with two fairly evenly matched high-profile independents running will probably not be repeated.  The two-point move to others might be seen as reflecting success for Johnston in making an impact since her election, but it could be random sample noise or anything, and EMRS has seen larger surges for Others in the past without anything coming from them,

At the time of the previous poll there had been a lot of chaos affecting Labor between the poll being taken and its release.  Had the departures of David O'Byrne and Bastian Seidel from the party hurt it?  This poll suggests either not by that much or if so it was temporary.  Nonetheless Labor's primary vote of 26% remains inadequate.  The party has only recorded four lower primary votes during what is now nearly eight years in opposition - two polls back in 2014-5 and two at the height of the government's pandemic bounce last year. 

It is a very long way til the next election and perhaps if the federal party manages to sort the state party out it will start to poll better.  In the meantime, members are free to keep freelancing and branches continue to rumble about it - as seen with preselection threats against Josh Willie over the recent poker machines bill.  Since there's nobody really in charge of the mess, whether these threats represent a handful of members or a more serious number, who can say. 

The poll's leadership ratings continue to show Peter Gutwein with a large lead over Rebecca White, up one point to 31 points (59-28) though such indicators skew to incumbents.  Something has changed since the days when White used to compete remarkably strongly with Will Hodgman and an early Gutwein on this measure, even when her party's primary vote was not that strong. However we don't have ratings for the leaders individually, so it's not clear if this is about White being less personally popular personally than she used to be (which was at one point very popular), or about Gutwein being personally very popular. I suspect that it's a lot of both.  Think that's all I have to say about this poll.

The Trolls That Got There First: Proposed New Party Registration Laws

 A raft of electoral reform legislation hit parliament this week.  Included in the collection of Bills introduced by Assistant Minister for Electoral Affairs Ben Morton are:

* The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 which, if passed, allows the AEC to commence sorting prepoll votes at 4 pm, sets the prepoll period before polling day at 12 days, increases the number of scrutineers allowed for Senate elections and makes various changes to postal vote procedures.

* The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Political Campaigners) Bill 2021 which, if passed, alters requirements for disclosure by political campaigners, bringing them more into line with those for parties.

* The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021 which, if passed, firstly allows for a voter to be required to cast a declaration vote in future if they are a suspected multiple voter.  Secondly it clarifies that offences against electoral liberty may include "Violence, obscene or discriminatory abuse, property damage and harassment or stalking" in connection with an election and increases the penalties for breaches, including up to three years' jail.

Could A Major Party Soon Take Control Of The Tasmanian Legislative Council?

The recent Tasmanian state election featured the holding of Legislative Council elections on the same day as the House of Assembly election for the first time ever.  This was controversial in fairness terms, and there were suggestions that parties might be breaching the Electoral Act, in particular by their candidates benefiting from generic party advertising that fell outside the strict Council spending requirements.  All has gone quiet on the challenge front following the election so far, but the Tasmanian Electoral Act allows a snoozy 90 days (!) for would-be challengers to get their act together, so it's too early to be certain that we've heard the last of it.  The strikingly different voting patterns in the overlapping booths could make it difficult to satisfy the court that Lower House generic advertising affected the upper house results, if that was something that the court considered relevant.  

One of the three seats contested saw a change in party status, with Liberal Nick Duigan picking up Windermere on the retirement of three-term conservative independent Ivan Dean.  This took the Liberals up to four seats out of 15, with Labor on five and six remaining independents.  

Tasmania 2021: What Was The Point Of This Election?

LIBERAL 13 LABOR 9 GREEN 2 IND 1 (Unchanged from before election)

This is another state election where I think a post-election washup post is in order, some of which will cover similar ground to the 2018 washup.  I started writing this a few days after the election but found it was hard to assess the result without knowing for sure who had won and lost.  I ended up rewriting this piece quite a few times and have stripped out a lot of commentary because the article was getting way too long.  

This election's been a crazy and fascinating ride.  The interest levels in it, especially Clark, have been extremely high on this site.  The post-election Adam Brooks news just adds more weirdness to the mix, and now we have a Labor leadership election as well (the first since Michael Field defeated Neil Batt in a party room ballot in 1988, and the first under new rules with voting by members and delegates).  

The Liberals Have 170 Secret Policies

(Note: this article currently appears out of order and with one paragraph missing because I mistakenly saved a draft over it. The on-the-day coverage thread is below)

Yesterday I gave Labor and the Greens a serve for trying to take the moral high ground on campaign donations when their "attempt" to reform them in the previous parliament had been a token, late, poorly considered politicised flop.  Today - which happens to be election day, ho ho - it's the Liberal Party's turn.

On one of the strangest final days of a campaign that I can recall, the Liberals were forced into damage control after it became known that they had a policy of relaxing various gun laws.  However, rather than release this policy for public discussion, it had been provided to a firearms consultations group on 9 February.  The letter surfaced only on the final day of the campaign, after being posted on a shooting website.

Tasmania 2018: More Internal Polling Games

The 2018 Tasmanian state election (see my guide) is three weeks away, but still we have had no neutral public polling in the state for over two months.  In contrast, by this stage in 2014 we had had a recent public EMRS, a recent public ReachTEL, and also a Liberal-commissioned ReachTEL of which detailed results were released.  All we've had this year is a dribble of internal polling snippets and one commissioned seat sample by the Australia Institute.

This makes it rather hard to tell what's going on.  The Hodgman Liberal Government, which appeared to be asleep or in a holding pattern for most of 2017, has been quick out of the blocks with a large number of policy announcements covering most (perhaps even almost all) of the many issues in play at this election.  Insiders claim what they're doing (especially claiming there could be a return to a Labor-Green government) is working.  Could it be a repeat of 2006, when a seemingly ailing government that was widely considered doomed to lose its majority in fact surged through the campaign and ended up winning very easily?  While there are some differences between 2006 and 2018 in polling terms (especially the severe volatility of the late 2005 polls) majority government is a major issue for some voters, and a party that can establish that only it can win in majority has an important advantage.

Pembroke By-Election: Live And/Or Post-Count

CALLED: Reliable scrutineering reports on Sunday that Siejka (ALP) will win easily with Walker narrowly beating Chipman for 2nd.

Sunday

Analysis: Still awaiting margins for the two scenarios. As Brad Stansfield has said on Twitter, it's a bit much to be saying first that the Liberals' attack on Chipman wouldn't work at all, then after the result that it worked too well. But if working means getting near winning, it was only a pyrrhic success. It seems that far from generate a sympathy vote for Chipman, the tactic actually worked in driving votes away from him and to Walker, but at the cost of driving Chipman preferences (in droves as predicted by Pete Lawler on Twitter last night) and possibly primaries to Siejka. The Liberals needed to make the final two to have any on-paper chance, but did they cause enough voters to switch their preference from Chipman ahead of Siejka to the other way around to the extent that they caused Siejka rather than Chipman to win ? 

Legislative Council 2017: Pembroke By-Election

This is my preview article for the by-election for the Legislative Council seat of Pembroke.  Incumbent Vanessa Goodwin resigned the seat today, Monday 2 October, and already we have two declared candidates, one possible candidate and at least one party likely to endorse a candidate.  The by-election will be held on Saturday November 4, with nominations closing on October 12 and announced the next day.  The winner will have the seat for just 18 months before they will need to defend it.  (I am unsure yet if I will have live coverage of this by-election on the night, as it clashes with a field trip.)

My most recent piece about the voting balance in the Legislative Council was here, but since that was written, Labor's Sarah Lovell unseated "independent liberal" Tony Mulder in Rumney.  As a result, three Labor MLCs and four left-wing independents now have a blocking majority in the Legislative Council.  Throw in a couple of relatively centrist MLCs who only vote with the government a shade more often than not, and the government is having great trouble getting its most contentious legislation through.  It's not all doom, gloom and obstruction for them though, with a bill to speed up the kunanyi/Mt Wellington cable car assessment process recently sailing through with only one vote against.  

Fishy Prospects In The Seat Of Lyons

ReachTEL Lyons: Lib 42 Labor 30.4 Green 12.4 Lambie Network 10 SF+F 2.7 Others 2.5
ReachTEL polls in Tasmania have in the past skewed against Labor and to the Greens
Seats that would be won based on this poll: Liberal 3 Labor 2 (status quo)

The Australia Institute has released a large-sample ReachTEL of the state seat of Lyons.  Lyons has long looked like the most crucial seat in determining whether the Hodgman Government can maintain a majority at the next state election, as on a more or less uniform swing to Labor, the third Lyons seat is the third to fall.  Polling has long appeared touch-and-go as to whether the party is likely to hold three seats there or lose one to the Greens or maybe someone else.

The commissioned ReachTEL also covers fish farms, which are seen as a significant environmental issue in the leadup to the next election.  I am satisfied that the poll has not been selectively released and also that ReachTEL have a good record in not letting commissioning sources tweak the primary vote polling design.  So while all commissioned polls are to be treated with some caution, and all seat polls always require special care, I'll have a look at what the data from this poll suggest.

As usual with ReachTEL the data require a lot of unpacking.  ReachTEL use a different format to most other polls, by initially giving voters a set of options that includes "undecided", and then allowing those who are "undecided" to say which party they are leaning to.  However the "undecided" in ReachTEL polls would be included in other polls' headline figures, while the truly undecided voters (those not even leaning to any party) are excluded, as they are by other pollsters.

Eric Abetz And The 2016 Tasmanian Liberal Result

Advance Summary

1. The Tasmanian Liberal result at the 2016 federal election was very poor.

2. Not only was the Liberal primary low, but in the Senate race the Liberals failed to obtain preferences even from "right-wing" parties.

3. Liberal ticket leader Eric Abetz has offered a number of reasons for the party's poor results, some of which are clearly false.

4. In fact the Liberal ticket would have had more chance of winning five seats had a below-the-line campaign for Richard Colbeck been more successful, not less.

5. Although Senator Abetz polarises opinion and was the candidate most frequently placed last on Senate ballots, no conclusions about his popularity can be drawn directly from this result.

6. Historically, there is evidence that the Liberal Party performs worse in Tasmania (relative to the nation) when Senator Abetz is on top of the Senate ballot, but the difference is not quite statistically significant and could be caused by other factors.

7. There is no evidence in historic results that having Abetz on top of the ticket is an asset to the party's fortunes.

8. Tasmania is a historically Labor-leaning state, but this does not alone explain the poor result at this election.

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A Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite Is An Even Worse Idea Now

Last year I wrote a piece called A Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite Is A Terrible Idea.  At the time I wrote it, Tony Abbott was still Prime Minister, albeit not for long, and the proposed plebiscite (or "non-binding referendum" if you prefer) was just a silly rumour being fanned by foolish Liberal-aligned op-eds.

I made the following basic points:

* The plebiscite would not generate new knowledge since it is already clear that Australian voters support same-sex marriage.
* The majority voice is irrelevant because the right of two consenting adults to marry each other should be recognised, since there is no reason to allow the majority to impugn it in a liberal democracy.
* Australia has resolved far more difficult issues without recourse to a referendum, and to subject same-sex marriage to such a vote opens the door for constant demands for unnecessary national votes on other subjects.
* The plebiscite would not be binding.
* A plebiscite, even if passed, stigmatises people in (or seeking) same-sex relationships by implying that their relationships were problematic enough to require the consent of society.
* At a time when Australia is in debt, a plebiscite is an unconscionable waste of public money unless a need for it can be demonstrated.

Colbeck Demoted To Fifth On Double-Dissolution Liberal Ticket

I am working on a belated roundup of federal polling but a quick post on today's Tasmanian Liberal Senate preselection decision is appropriate.  The state executive has confirmed a Senate preselection decision to order the Tasmanian Liberal Senate ticket in the event of a double dissolution as follows: 1. Senator Eric Abetz 2. Senator Stephen Parry 3. staffer Jonathan Duniam 4. Senator David Bushby 5. Senator Richard Colbeck 6. Break O'Day Councillor John Tucker.  There might yet be federal intervention, but in the absence of such, this article discusses what it may mean.  The Liberal preselection process does not include any member balloting or proportional representation and my understanding is it progresses by a series of votes on each position down the list.

This follows a previous preselection decision for a half-Senate election, which I did not cover here, in which Senator Abetz retained his position on top of the ticket very comfortably while Senator Parry apparently defeated Duniam for position two by one vote.  (Senators Colbeck and Bushby are mid-term so were not involved).

Aside from the state branch not preselecting even one woman to any of the six remotely winnable Tasmanian senate positions, the aspect attracting attention here is the effective demotion of Senator Richard Colbeck, who is currently Minister for Tourism and International Education, from top of the ticket in 2010 to below newcomer Duniam and Senator Bushby.  This has been widely and in my view probably rightly seen through the prism of conflict between hardliners and moderates, with the Tasmanian party being dominated by the former.  With Eric Abetz demoted from Senate leadership and all of the "three Amigos" in the Lower House being first-term backbenchers, Colbeck is now the most senior (though not the most longserving) Liberal in Canberra and topped the Coalition ticket for the 2013 election.

Turnbull Challenges Abbott

This post should have a very short shelf-life indeed, so I'll try to make it short!  Communications Minister and former party leader Malcolm Turnbull has today resigned and challenged Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the party leadership, and by implication his position as PM.  Many reports are suggesting the Turnbull camp believes they easily have the numbers although I have seen one contrary report that they are less confident than a few hours ago.  There may be a fair amount of foxing going on.  Julie Bishop is believed to be running with Turnbull, and Scott Morrison to be supporting Abbott and doing his numbers (but not running for deputy).

Canning By-Election: Prospects and Polls

Seat: Canning (WA, Lib, 11.8%)
By-Election 19 Sep 2015
2PP Contest: Andrew Hastie (Lib) vs Matt Keogh (ALP)
Current outlook (15 Sep): Liberal retain expected with modest swing against.

Note: Turnbull-era updates appear at the top of the article; the rest is archived below the break.

As of 19 Sep, Coverage has switched to Canning: The Anticlimax Live.

Turnbull PM: What Does This Mean For Canning?

Most of this article was written while Tony Abbott was still Prime Minister, and the surprise removal of Abbott prior to the by-election has made quite a mess of the analysis.  Abbott's Prime Ministership was the major risk factor to an expected Coalition victory because the bad polling endemic to it was likely to cause the swing to be larger than normal for a by-election caused by the death of a government MP.

A Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite Is A Terrible Idea

At its National Conference on the weekend, the Australian Labor Party appears to have resolved its internal differences over whether to have a conscience vote on same sex marriage.  The solution pleased nobody, but from a purely political standpoint it makes some sense.  The few reactionary MPs remaining in the ALP have a few years left to either get used to the party's decision or leave, and this should avert the disruption that might have been caused by a very small number of MPs crossing the floor had a binding vote been held now.

In my view that disruption was an overstated risk anyway (the number willing to be kicked out of the party for it would have been quite small) but Labor now has a position members should be able to unite behind and which promises that regressive opposition to a no-brainer reform will be phased out of the party.  It's craven that the party is putting up with the attitudes of Joe de Bruyn and co for four minutes let alone four years, but the unhappiness he demonstrated when the measure was passed said it all.  Time will soon be up for the ALP's dwindling anti-SSM brigade.

The Labor resolution also means that Labor can continue for a few years to tell the Coalition that it has a conscience vote and the Coalition should allow one too.  That aspect of the weekend's outcome has ramped up pressure on the Coalition to resolve the issue.  Unfortunately, it's been widely reported that there is pressure within the Coalition to "resolve" it by agreeing to hold a plebiscite within the next parliamentary term, and on this basis to avoid a vote in the Parliament.

Why Was A Press Release About Peter Slipper Deleted From The Liberal Party Website?

Advance Summary

1. This post examines claims that a 2012 press release about former Speaker Peter Slipper was deleted from the Liberal Party website "overnight" on the night of 17 July.

2. This post finds that all press releases from July 2010 to December 2012, not just those mentioning Peter Slipper, were recently deleted.

3. Google cache evidence suggests that while the mass deletion of press releases clearly occurred in the last 11 days, it probably predates the Bronwyn Bishop expenses scandal.

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A topic of discussion today on Twitter has been a claim that a press release about Peter Slipper was deleted.  This forms a minor part of the ongoing Bronwyn Bishop expenses scandal, which in recent days has significantly deprived the government of the friendly media cycle they enjoyed when news was dominated by Bill Shorten's TURC appearance and a leak of internal Labor carbon pricing discussions.

The topic appears to have first arisen in this tweet by a sparsely active but well-established (ie it didn't just spring up overnight, and appears genuine) Twitter account:

Click here for link to original tweet.