Legislative Council 2015: Windermere, Mersey and Derwent Live And Post-Count

Derwent: CALLED (6:45 pm): Craig Farrell (ALP) re-elected

Mersey: CALLED (6:47 pm): Mike Gaffney (IND) re-elected

Windermere: CALLED (9 pm): Ivan Dean (IND) re-elected on preferences

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Tuesday night: There was quite a lot of silly spinning on election night from various political staffers and so on on Twitter, but not much has made it into wider circulation.  One example that has is this Greens' on-the-night press release, which really has me scratching my head as I try to find a single claim in it that's true.

The first problem with it is the sheer number of errors in the claimed swings, which are actually meant to be from the 2014 state election, although in one place it says 2010.  The press release claims gains in 15 booths and swings against in 1 (I make it actually 11 gains and 5 losses).

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2011-2015

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 increasingly Rosemary Armitage, the remaining MLCs can be considered to lean to the right to varying degrees.

4. In the past year several Legislative Councillors have displayed more polarised voting patterns.  Especially, Tony Mulder has more often voted with the endorsed Liberals than before, though this may well be a reflection of a changing mix of voting issues.

5.Despite this, there remains a diversity of positions on the "right" side of the Council and a lack of strong clustering in voting patterns there.

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

7. While the Liberals have had greater success on the floor of the Council since coming to office in the Lower House, they have still been defeated on several divisions.

Legislative Council 2015: Derwent and Mersey

This is my second candidate guide for this year's Tasmanian Legislative Council contests.  See Legislative Council 2015: Windermere for the most exciting of the three seats up for grabs at this election.  My current review of Legislative Council voting patterns may also be of interest.

Live coverage of these elections from 6 pm polling day here.

Derwent: Seat Profile

As its name suggests Derwent covers much of the middle and upper Derwent Valley.  It starts in the outer suburbs of Glenorchy and takes in Old Beach, Bridgewater/Gagebrook, Brighton, the major town of New Norfolk, and a scattering of small farming, fishing and timber towns up to Lake St Clair and out into the south-west.

Derwent is the sole remaining Labor seat in the Legislative Council and has been held by the ALP continuously since 1979.  Charles Batt and then former Treasurer Michael Aird were long-term occupants of Derwent, and on Aird's retirement in 2011 it was won by Craig Farrell.  Labor has won the seat eight times in a row, Farrell's win being the only one of these in which it has been taken to preferences.

This is not surprising given that the seat is strong Labor territory in state elections.  In spite of the general hiding that saw Labor poll only 27.7% in Lyons (which includes most of Derwent), the ALP was only just behind the Liberals in the Derwent booths overall.  In these booths, Labor polled 40.8% compared to 41.4% for the Liberals, a feeble 7% for the Greens, 4.8% for PUP and 4.4% for independent Paul Belcher.  The Labor result in the area was largely down to their strength in the Glenorchy area and Bridgewater/Gagebrook booths and there were massive swings against the party in smaller booths.