Voting Patterns In The Tasmanian House Of Assembly (2014-2019)

Advance Summary

1. In the previous Tasmanian Lower House term, the most common voting pattern was Labor and the Greens voting together against the Liberal government. Cases of the Liberals and Greens voting together against Labor were very rare.

2. Between the last state election and September, the Government had significant defeats caused by renegade Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey sometimes voting against it, but Sue Hickey still voted with the Government more than 80% of the time.

3. Since ex-Labor Independent Madeleine Ogilvie rejoined the parliament, the government has not lost any votes, with Ogilvie almost always voting alongside it, and only voting against it so far on symbolic motions.

4. Since Ogilvie rejoined the parliament, Hickey's voting behaviour has become still more independent, to the point that she no longer strongly votes for or against any of the parties or Ogilvie.

5. Votes with the Liberals and Greens voting together against Labor have been significantly more common in this parliament than the previous two.  

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Expected Scott Bacon Recount

Resigning MP: Scott Bacon (ALP, Clark)

Recount from 2018 state election for remainder of 2018-22 term 

Contest between Madeleine Ogilvie and Tim Cox

Ogilvie likely, but not certain, to win [UPDATE: Ogilvie has narrowly won.]

Ogilvie may sit as independent and share effective balance of power with Sue Hickey, or may rejoin Labor. [UPDATE: Ogilvie has said she will sit as an independent.]

Recount updates will now be added at the top

Previous Party-Hopping Cases:

As noted below Ogilvie's (under unique circumstances for Tasmania) is the first case of a Lower House MP deserting their party mid-term and sitting with a different party status in 38 years.  However prior to that, this was a more common event.  Here is a not necessarily perfect list since World War II:

* Carrol Bramich (1956) Labor to Liberal (policy tensions and internal issues).  Re-elected as a Liberal.
* Reg Turnbull (1959) Labor to IND (kicked out after refusing to resign as Minister). Re-elected with massive support, later Senator.
* Bill Hodgman (1960) Liberal to IND. Defeated.
* Tim Jackson (1960) Liberal to IND (leadership change fallout). Defeated.
* Charley Aylett (1963) Labor to IND (quit after being disendorsed). Defeated.
* Kevin Lyons (1966) Liberal to IND (preselection issues). Later formed Centre Party and was re-elected.
* Nigel Abbott (1972) Liberal to IND (policy dispute). Defeated.
* Doug Lowe (1981) Labor to IND (leadership change fallout). Re-elected.
* Mary Willey (1981) Labor to IND (leadership change fallout).  Defeated.
* Madeleine Ogilvie (on recount 2019) Labor to IND (multiple factors)

All of the Bramich, Turnbull and Lowe/Willey cases precipitated state elections.

There is also the case of Gabriel Haros (Liberal) who lost preselection for the 1986 election and ran as an Independent, and probably other similar cases.

It is interesting to note the weak performance of some of these independents at elections.  In the 1964 election Bill Hodgman (Will's grandfather) managed only 475 votes and Charley Aylett only 102.  This didn't stop Bill Hodgman going on to become a two-term MLC for Queenborough (1971-83).

Adam Brooks' Resignation And Replacement

A very quick post to cover off on the mechanics of the countback to replace Adam Brooks, who has resigned as a Liberal Member for Braddon, effective tomorrow.  There has been speculation Brooks might resign soon for months, so I've already looked at the numbers for this in the past.

In Hare-Clark, casual vacancies are filled by what is confusingly called a recount (I often call it "countback") of the votes the sitting MP had when they were elected.  If the sitting MP had more than a quota at the time of their election, the last parcel of votes they received is modified in value to bring them down to a quota.  If they had less than a quota, the preferences of the last losing candidate(s) can be thrown to attempt to bring them to quota.

Whether an unsuccessful candidate got close to being elected the first time around or not is irrelevant to this process.  All that matters are the votes (including preferences) held by the resigning member.  Thus, for instance, if Rosalie Woodruff were to resign in Franklin, she would be replaced by another Green, and not by Nic Street who she very narrowly defeated for the final seat.

Adam Brooks was originally elected after polling 10004 primary votes (the quota was 10718) and receiving enough votes on Jeremy Rockliff's surplus to cross the line.  The 1 Rockliff 2 Brooks votes (2635 of them) will make up the remaining 714 votes for the recount.

The original scrutiny sheet tell us which unsuccessful candidate about 426 of those 714 votes will go to, if all unsuccessful candidates recontested.  Joan Rylah would get 61%, Felix Ellis would get 30% and no other candidate would get more than 2% by themselves.  (If no candidate gets 50% of the initial votes in a recount, then there is a distribution of preferences as in a single-seat election, but I'm not expecting that to be the case here).

The original scrutiny sheet doesn't contain any direct information on where the remaining 10292 votes go (these are mostly 1 Brooks with a few 1 Rockliff 2 Brooks 3 Jaensch, Dow or Broad).  Party scrutineers may have this information.  However we do know that not only did Rylah outperform Ellis by about two to one on the known 1 Rockliff 2 Brooks votes, but also that Rylah outperformed Ellis 3436-1842 on primaries, 1196-523 on Rockliff preferences, and 675-470 on the preferences of all remaining candidates.  Based on this it would be a massive surprise if Ellis outperformed Rylah on the preferences of Adam Brooks.  Rylah as a sitting MP was simply the much higher profile candidate.

Had Rylah not nominated for the recount but Ellis had, Ellis would have won.  Had neither recontested, he government would have had the never-used option of requesting a single-member by-election rather than allowing their seat to go to another party.  (I do hope I live to see one of those someday!)

This doesn't look like being an interesting recount but I just thought I should put the details of how it works out there anyway.  And one note of interest - if Rylah resumes her career, the Tasmanian parliament will have a majority of female MPs, with 14/25 in the House of Assembly and 7/15 in the Legislative Council, at least until May.  In May, one male MLC is retiring and two female MLCs are defending their seats.

Update Feb 25: The recount is on today.  I expect the winner to be known by the end of the day unless it is unexpectedly close between Rylah and Ellis.  Ellis had to resign his job with Senator Colbeck to contest the vacancy, but I expect this is a temporary Commonwealth requirement and he can be reappointed.

Update: Rylah wins with 53.6% to 37.2%.  We now have another recount coming following the shock resignation of Rene Hidding; this will be won by John Tucker assuming he contests.

EMRS: What Goes Up, Must Come Down

EMRS: Liberal 36 ALP 34 Greens 16 Other 14
Interpretation: Liberal 39 ALP 36 Greens 13 Other 12
Estimated seat breakdown if election "held now" - probable hung parliament with about 11-12 Lib, 11 ALP, 2 Green, 0-1 Ind/other

Six months ago the Tasmanian Liberal government of Premier Will Hodgman snapped a run of increasingly mediocre polling with the largest poll-to-poll gain in EMRS' history.  This came just before an election at which the government outperformed even that polling and was re-elected, and the returned government was travelling OK a few months later.  But now that's over, and the government is back to almost where it was last year after chalking up the pollster's largest ever poll to poll loss.  It's almost as if the election never happened.

Tasmania 2018: How Woodruff Won Franklin

It's been a hideous few weeks for the Greens - they lost votes and a seat in Tasmania, were thumped in the Batman by-election and were remarkably anonymous in South Australia.  The party is now facing serious internal recriminations over these poor results.

However there was one rather nifty save amid all this, and before I move on to the other house of the Tasmanian parliament (there are two Upper House seat contests coming up in May) I want to post the instructive Hare-Clark details of how Rosalie Woodruff (Green) managed to retain her seat in a very close contest with Nic Street (Liberal).  This article is naturally rather mathsy and has been rated Wonk Factor 4/5.

Tasmania 2018: But What Does It All Mean?

LIBERAL 13 LABOR 9 GREEN 1 UNDECIDED 2
Undecided: Franklin - Liberal vs Green - tossup
Undecided: Bass - Labor vs Green vs Liberal - Labor slightly favoured, Liberal chance remote

After the last Tasmanian election, I saw no need to unpack possible meanings of the result, as I thought it was all obvious to anyone who had followed the state's politics through that time.  This one, however, is different, though I certainly won't claim to have all the answers.  A government that seemed to be sleepwalking to a loss of majority has rebounded to the point of suffering just a trivial swing against it.  The Labor opposition did rebound to a degree, but mostly at the cost of the Greens.

Some facts and stats

A few facts about the election first.  For the first time since the 1970s, and the first time for a conservative party since 1912-3, the Liberal Party has topped 50% of the primary vote for a second election in a row.  The charge was led by Premier Hodgman, whose 38.3% is the highest candidate vote since Robin Gray in 1986.  (Hodgman will also break Doug Lowe's 1979 record for the largest number of votes recorded by a candidate, though this record is somewhat meaningless because of population growth. Lowe's record for the highest candidate percentage, 51.2%, may very well never be beaten - and I don't think the fact it was achieved before Robson Rotation really makes much of a difference.)

2018 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

Admin note: Comments received during the day on Sunday on any article will probably not be cleared or responded to until the evening.  
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Lyons: 3 Liberal 2 Labor
Re-elected: White (ALP), Barnett (Lib), Hidding (Lib), Shelton (Lib)
In doubt within party: Lambert vs Butler (ALP) for one seat - Butler now ahead and likely to win

And now, my last postcount thread for the day.

In Lyons, we have a clear status quo result.  The Liberals have packed their three quotas nicely with their three incumbents, which would have protected them from any threat from the Greens if there was any threat to be protected from.  Rebecca White has topped the poll with 1.43 quotas.  Labor has nearly two quotas, but its support candidates are a long way behind, with Janet Lambert on 1583 votes, Jen Butler on 1404 votes and Darren Clark on 1254.

2018 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

Franklin 2 Liberal, 2 Labor, 1 in doubt between Green and Liberal
Re-elected: Hodgman (Lib), presumably Petrusma (Lib)
Returns to parliament: D O'Byrne (Labor)
New MP: Standen (Labor)
Contest between parties: Woodruff (Green) vs Street (Lib) - Woodruff has won by 226 votes.

Welcome to another postcount thread that I will update through the next two weeks, this one for Franklin. And this one could be very close.

In Franklin, the Liberals' remarkable minimisation of the swing against them has kept them in the hunt for a three-seat result.  However, with Labor rebuilding to over two quotas, it has turned out to be the Greens' Rosalie Woodruff who is in danger of missing out.

2018 Tasmanian Postcount: Denison

Denison 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green
Re-elected: Bacon (ALP), Archer (Lib), O'Connor (Green)
New MP: Hickey (Lib)
Within party contest: Haddad (ALP) vs Ogilvie (ALP).  CALLED: Haddad will win.

There was much interest in the final week of the campaign in Denison.  The possibility sprang up that the seat might rip up the script by delivering three seats to Labor.  This has, in the end, fallen about a further 6% swing short of happening, so it really wasn't all that close.  The Liberal vote, bolstered by the preselection of Sue Hickey to replace Matthew Groom, has held up well clear of two quotas.

2018 Tasmania Postcount: Braddon

Braddon 3 Liberal 2 Labor
Re-elected: Rockliff (Lib), Brooks (Lib), Broad (ALP) 
New MP: Dow (ALP)
Within Party Contest: Jaensch (Lib) vs Rylah (Lib) - CALLED Jaensch will win 
(Update: Jaensch has won)

Welcome to my second postcount thread and this one will be very short, at least until the updates start!  In Braddon, there has been a 2.5% swing against the Liberals coming off their four-seat result in 2014.  The Liberals have 3.38 quotas, Labor have 1.64 quotas and the rest is scattered among the Lambie Network, the Greens, the Shooters and ungrouped, none of whom can win.  Among the allsorts a hugely impressive performance is the 1912 votes polled by independent fisherman Craig Garland.  Garland has almost single-handedly outpolled the Greens, who have polled a miserable 3.3%, with Scott Jordan a poor choice of lead candidate.  Another fizzer was former MP Brenton Best, who didn't seem to run any campaign to speak of and has recorded an embarrassing 568 votes so far.

2018 Tasmania Postcount: Bass

Bass 3 Liberal, 1 Labor, 1 undecided
Re-Elected: Gutwein (Lib), Ferguson (Lib), Courtney (Lib), M O'Byrne (Labor)
Contest Between Parties: Dawkins (Green) vs Houston (ALP)
Houston has won

Warning: The Bass contest is mathematically complex.  This article is rated at Wonk Factor 4/5.

Welcome to the first of my post-counting threads from the Tasmanian state election, which will follow the post-count in the seat of Bass. These articles will be edited and updated as the counts progress.

Bass is the (doubtless expensive) jewel in the crown of the Liberals' blowout win tonight - they are currently running at a 1.7% swing to them in Bass, an amazing result.  With 85.7% counted, the Liberals have 3.53 quotas, Labor have 1.59, the Greens have 0.54 and the Jacqui Lambie Network have 0.28.  There's also 550 votes (0.05 quotas) for anti-Green independent Brett Lucas.  Labor's notional lead on primaries over the Greens is 455 votes.

Election Night Link

I'm on The Mercury live at http://www.themercury.com.au/news/politics/tasmania-votes-state-election-blog-with-political-analyst-kevin-bonham/news-story/b905453626bd37b54b037962f31706ff . It's paywalled (unknown to me beforehand as I didn't ask, but I believe you can sign up for $1 for 28 days if you can't see it.)  Coverage will start sometime between now and 6:30.

I may make comments now and then on Twitter: @kevinbonham but my efforts will be mainly devoted to the Mercury site.  I am happy for people to pass on my comments from the site.

My condolences to the friends, family and political colleagues of Dr Vanessa Goodwin, who passed away today. I did not know Vanessa personally but had great respect for her.

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.

Election Day: Blue Skies With A Fair Chance Of A Poll Fail

Welcome to my on-the-day election coverage. (See my main guide page with links to electorate pages.) I may be adding comments now and then through the day on anything I feel like commenting on.  I expect this to continue up to the release of the Southern Cross exit poll around 6 pm.  I will be live blogging on the Mercury tonight with coverage expected to start around 6:30.  Once that goes live a link will be posted here at the top of the page. After I finish the coverage there will be comments posted here overnight - I am hoping this will include the rollout of postcount threads, but it may not. 

Note for media: I won't be available for any interviews other than the Mercury between 5:30 and 11; I may be available briefly after 11.  Also, tomorrow (because nobody paid me to stay at home) I will be on a field trip to Tooms Lake, will not be available for in-person interviews and may at times be out of mobile phone range.  

My advice to those still to vote is simple: number all of the boxes.  Even if you find you are getting into candidates you cannot stand or have never heard of, putting the lesser evils ahead of the greater evils will make your vote more powerful than if you stop.  Numbering all the boxes will never disadvantage the candidates you prefer or advantage those you most dislike, because your vote only flows on to your less preferred candidates once those you most prefer have all been elected or eliminated.

What Happened When The Previous Government Moved To Change Tasmania's Donation Laws

I have used the word "moved" instead of "tried" in the title of this piece. There is a reason for that.

Tasmania's lax political donation and disclosure laws have become a major controversy in the Tasmanian election campaign (see guide), with the Greens threatening to move a no-confidence motion against the Hodgman government unless it discloses the campaign donations funding what seems to be a very expensive campaign.  References have been made to failed attempts to reform campaign donations in the last days of the previous Labor-Green government, with Labor saying simply that the Liberals blocked them.  So I thought I'd refresh my memory, and then that of anyone reading, concerning what actually happened there.

Tasmania 2018: Commissioned Pokies ReachTEL

On 14 Feb 2018 the Australia Institute Tasmania conducted a ReachTEL poll for the 2018 state election (see guide), some questions from which have been on public display for some time.  Some results on company tax cuts and donations disclosure were published some time ago and a further tranche on poker machines was published a few days back.  As well as this I have obtained (with thanks to the reader who passed it on) the primary voting figures from the poll, which was taken on the night nominations for the election was announced.

Voting Intention

The voting intention figures are old rope now but may be of some interest in terms of discussions of how the campaign has unfolded. Voting intentions were Liberal 41.7 Labor 30.5 Green 11.0 JLN 4.6 Other 8.0 Undecided 4.2.  What would be a staggering 68% of undecided voters said they were leaning to the Liberals, except that the effective number of undecided voters after scaling would have been just 39, giving that 68% figure a margin of error of at least 15% (even more after scaling).  After redistributing the undecided the results were Liberal 44.6 Labor 31.1 Green 11.1 JLN 4.8 Ind/Other 8.4.

Tasmania 2018: EMRS Has It A Little Closer Than ReachTEL

EMRS: Liberal 46 Labor 34 Greens 12 JLN 4 Others 3
EMRS has historically skewed against Labor and to the Greens by a few points, but will not necessarily do so this time (given Green vote is so low and methods changes)
On this poll Liberals would probably win a majority (c. 13-10-2) but would depend on seat breakdown 
Aggregate of all polling 13-10-2
Current prediction 13-10-2

The second independent poll of the Tasmanian election campaign (now in its final week - see guide) is out and shows a 12-point lead to the Liberal Party over Labor, compared with the 15.8 point lead in the ReachTEL after redistributing "undecided" voters.  This is a 12-point gain to the Liberals compared to the December EMRS (which showed the parties tied) and I believe that this is the largest poll-to-poll gain by a party in EMRS history.  However, there are close similarities with the recovery of the Lennon Labor government from a seemingly majority-losing position in late 2005 to a winning one by the time of the March 2006 poll.

Tasmania 2018: ReachTEL Confirms Liberals Probably Winning

ReachTEL (after redistributing undecided) Liberal 48 Labor 32.2 Green 12.5 JLN 5.3 (4.0 excluding seats not contested) Others 2.1
ReachTEL has historically skewed against Labor and to the Greens in Tasmanian elections
Most likely breakdown if raw figures are correct 13-9-3 or 13-10-2 (close to 14-8-3 or 14-9-2)
Most likely breakdown based on figures corrected for past skew 13-10-2 (close to 13-11-1 or 12-11-2)
Aggregate of all polling 13-10-2
Current prediction 13-10-2

The first independent poll of the Tasmanian election (see my main guide page) has been released and it confirms growing suspicions over the past few weeks that the Liberals will probably retain an outright majority, although it may well be a majority of one.  Moreover given the historic tendency of ReachTEL to skew against Labor and to the Greens, the poll can be taken as suggesting that the Greens are in serious trouble and that none of their seats are safe.  I am a little sceptical of whether that past pattern will continue.

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.

Tasmania 2018: What Happens If No Party Wins A Majority?

UPDATE 28 Jan: Parts of this article relating to Labor are now out of date with ABC TV News tonight clearly showing Labor leader Rebecca White saying that Labor will not govern in minority.   See update at bottom of article.

UPDATE 31 Jan: And I missed it at the time but Will Hodgman also on the first day of the campaign said "We will govern in majority or not at all [..]"
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Advance Summary 

1. Despite widespread reports to the contrary, neither major party appears to have given an explicit commitment that they will not govern in minority should no party win a majority at this year's Tasmanian state election.

2.  The leaders have only given various, often ambiguous, commitments that they will only govern "alone" or that they will not govern via deals with, or with the support of, minor parties.

3. A widespread belief that if there is no agreement between parties the Liberals would be forced to keep governing appears to follow instead from a direction from Governor Underwood to Premier Bartlett to form a government in 2010.

4. In theory, a government in such a position could instead resign, but this seems unlikely in practice.

5. In the absence of at least a tacit arrangement between parties, the most likely outcome of a hung parliament would be the Liberal Party continuing in minority unless/until the government was defeated on the floor of the House.

6. For this reason, a parliament without any party holding a majority might (if all parties stuck to their pre-election commitments but no party gave any new ones) be unusually unstable.