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 involving the current (and one recently retired) MLC in the last four years.
2. Although there is a degree of independence in all Legislative Council voting (outside of party blocks), the Council continues to have a fairly clearly defined "left" side consisting of independents Rob Valentine, Meg Webb and Mike Gaffney
3. However, Labor (which currently has three MLCs pending a by-election) and independent Ruth Forrest no longer tend strongly to vote with the left grouping and in the last four years are on average best considered as only slightly left of centre.
4. During his brief period as a no-longer-caucusing Labor MLC, Bastian Seidel voted similarly to the left grouping.
5. The four Liberal MLCs and independents Rosemary Armitage and Tania Rattray form the "right" side of the cluster, though Armitage and Rattray only vote with the Liberals moderately often. Data so far is consistent with Dean Harriss being part of this group but with nowhere near enough evidence to be confident of that yet.
6. A possible left-to-right sort of the council is Valentine, Webb, Gaffney, (Seidel pre-retirement), Forrest, the three Labor MLCs in no particular order, Armitage, Rattray, and the four Liberal MLCs in no particular order. Harriss is not placed in this list yet pending further data.
7. The increased tendency of Labor to vote with the Liberal government in recent years has meant that the Government has suffered relatively few (and generally minor) defeats on the floor of the Council in the last year and a half.
