Elise Archer Resignation And Recount

Recounts (Nov 13)

I somehow didn't update at the time with the news that Simon Behrakis had comfortably won the Archer recount (defeating Coats 55.2-44.7).  Behrakis resigned his council seat immediately, which has been won by Coats in a very lopsided countback.  Coats polled nearly 30% of recount primaries to Briscoe's 12.6% and went on to win with an absolute majority against three remaining opponents; at this stage Coats led Briscoe by just over 500 votes.  

Archer Resigns (Oct 4)

As you were ... after the Premier issued a 9 am Monday deadline for Elise Archer to make a decision the news has come out that Archer is quitting after all - I expect this means at least a week of Parliament will be prorogued unless the government is past caring whether it falls.  A number of Labor predictions that the Parliament would not sit again appear to be false barring further twists.  

Update: The Government is indeed past caring, there's no prorogue! In theory the Opposition could now renege on the pair and cause chaos (this has been known to happen in such situations) but even if it did it would not be able to form a workable government on the floor, especially as the Speaker can always cause a deadlock by resigning.  So even if a no confidence motion was to be passed the Premier would simply advise the Governor either to call an election (where we could have been anyway) or to wait a week when confidence would be restored.    I am still a bit surprised by this because of the potential risks of an Opposition party floor majority on other votes, though this is somewhat limited by the two-thirds majority rule for suspending standing orders.  

The recount is expected to happen on Oct 23.  

Alexander Noises:  The Australian now reports that Lara Alexander both says that her promise of confidence and supply stands but also that she would "evaluate it and see" if a no-confidence motion was passed - thereby in effect saying both that she guarantees confidence and doesn't guarantee confidence.  

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.

EMRS: Old Poll Could Have Been Worse For Labor

EMRS Tasmania (state) August: Liberal 49 Labor 28 Green 13 Others 10

Results more or less identical to 2021 election (seat result 13 Liberal 9 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

A new EMRS poll has been released today, and it shows ... er no, strike that and start again.

For whatever reason Tasmanian pollster EMRS has just released a state voting intentions poll that came out of field 23 days ago.  EMRS has often not released polls close to the time they were taken in recent years, in some cases hanging on to results for 3-6 months before back-releasing them with other results.  I'm not a pollster but it seems to me that one of the advantages of polling for publicity for a company is releasing it at a time when it is topical and fresh rather than only unveiling it when it looks like something from the antique store.  In the meantime there have been significant developments with David O'Byrne leaving the Parliamentary Labor Party after leader Rebecca White said he should quit parliament, and Huon MLC Bastian Seidel announcing he would quit Caucus and would also resign his seat at the end of the year, citing disgust and demoralisation over Labor's ongoing infighting.

Tasmania 2021: Voters Who Voted In One House Instead Of Two

This year Tasmania controversially had Legislative Council elections on the same day as a House of Assembly election, for the first time ever.  With the election being called for May 1st on March 26 with no prior warning the Tasmanian Electoral Commission had very little time to adapt to the logistic challenges of some voters having to vote in both houses.  These voters were the voters in the eastern Launceston division of Windermere, which occurs entirely within the Assembly division of Bass, and voters in the large division of Derwent, which is mostly spatially in Lyons but includes many voters in the northern suburbs of Glenorchy within Clark. 

The initial controversy around the holding of the elections on the same day concerned potential unfairness to candidates.  Party candidates could benefit from generic party funding for the Assembly campaign while independent Legislative Council candidates were restrained by the Council's strict spending caps.  There were arguments about whether parties could even legally run generic campaigns without in the process incurring expenditure on behalf of their Legislative Council candidates, though so far in terms of post-election challenges this aspect has not come to anything.  As it happened voters voted quite differently in the two houses, so while the Lower House campaign may have distorted the Upper House outcomes, there isn't any clear sign that the latter are different to what would have been expected anyway.

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).  

Brooks (Braddon) Instant Recount 2021

RECOUNT: Ellis (Lib) vs Sheehan (Lib).

Recount will conclude Thursday morning.  Unofficial result: Ellis has won by about 749 votes.  

Warning: unusually wonky recount.  The Braddon recount has been upgraded to Wonk Factor 5/5.

2021 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

(Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

LYONS (2018 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor)

SEAT RESULT 3 Liberal 2 Labor (called)

CALLED ELECTED: Rebecca White (Labor), Guy Barnett (Liberal), Mark Shelton (Liberal), Jen Butler (Labor), John Tucker (Liberal)

Lyons is as dead as it gets as a party level contest with the Liberals on more or less exactly 3 quotas, Labor on more or less exactly 2 and the Greens on just over half, and the rest is mostly Shooters.

Rebecca White has topped the poll with 1.4 quotas.  Guy Barnett is also over quota and Mark Shelton is on .72 quotas and will win, though it will take a while.

2021 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

 (Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

FRANKLIN (2018 Result 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green)

ALL SEATS CALLED: 2-2-1, Jacquie Petrusma and Nic Street (Lib) re-elected, David O'Byrne (Labor) re-elected, Rosalie Woodruff (Greens) re-elected, Dean Winter (Labor) replaces Alison Standen (Labor)

There is no suspense about the count in Franklin: all the incumbents have won except that Alison Standen has lost heavily to Dean Winter and David O'Byrne in a within-party contest.  Winter's campaign was initially blocked by left unionist elements in the party and this was only overturned by federal intervention (at the behest of another union that took exception to the claim Winter wasn't Labor-y enough).  The result confirms the utter senselessness of leaving Winter off the Labor ticket for even five minutes and Labor should identify those irresponsible and ensure they don't get asked to pick the squad again.  

2021 Tasmanian Postcount: Braddon

(Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

BRADDON (2018 result 3 Liberal 2 Labor)

SEAT RESULT 3 Liberal 2 Labor 

CALLED ELECTED: Jeremy Rockliff (Lib), Anita Dow (ALP), Shane Broad (ALP)

WITHIN PARTY CONTEST (Liberal): Adam Brooks extremely likely to win, Roger Jaensch vs Felix Ellis for third Liberal seat.  Expecting formal confirmation soon that Brooks and Jaensch have won.   (UPDATE: confirmed)

In Braddon there is nearly 84% counted.  The Liberals have 3.42 quotas, Labor has 1.6, the Greens 0.32, the Shooters 0.23 and Craig Garland has 0.37 (6%) and has beaten the Greens again!  Jeremy Rockliff has topped the poll, of course, and currently has 1.74 quotas.  

2021 Legislative Council Postcounts: Windermere and Derwent

(Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

WINDERMERE Vacancy (retirement, Ivan Dean, conservative IND)

Nick Duigan (LIB) vs Geoff Lyons (ALP) or Will Smith (IND)

Duigan won after preferences of Smith.  

DERWENT called, Craig Farrell (ALP) has retained.

This is a very brief (initially) postcount thread for Windermere, which I am doing second behind Clark because the Legislative Council matters!  Labor's Craig Farrell has retained Derwent as he is leading Ben Shaw 48.7-41.2 and the Animal Justice preferences (10%) will favour Farrell.  Farrell might win 55-45 or slightly more.  

2021 Tasmanian Postcount: Clark

(Link to main 2021 page including link to other postcount threads)

CLARK (2018 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green, when election called 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 2 IND, when election held 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 IND.

CALLED WINNERS: Elise Archer (Lib), Cassy O'Connor (Green), Ella Haddad (Labor).

PARTY CONTEST: Liberal vs IND, Liberal well ahead, INDs will gain, both INDs need to overtake Liberals for them to lose.  Liberals strongly expected to win.

WITHIN-PARTY CONTEST: Behrakis (LIB) vs Ogilvie (LIB) for expected

 Liberal 2nd seat. Ogilvie will win.  

IND vs IND CONTEST: Johnston vs Hickey, Johnston ahead and expected to win.

UPDATE: Clark called as wins for Johnston and Ogilvie after exclusion of Davis.  

Tasmanian Election Day 2021

Yes the glorious day has arrived, we are finally there!  We are (checks watch), er, ten months early.  

Tonight I will be doing live coverage for The Mercury.  The link will be edited in to this article when available.  It may be paywalled but there is usually a cheap introductory subscription for non-subscribers.  My live blog for the Mercury will probably start somewhere in the 6-6:30 range and go until late night although I may have to stop it to file articles and do interviews eventually.  I will be based at the tally room.  I ask media outside of the Mercury not to contact me by phone or email between 5:30 and about 11 tonight; once I have finished the live coverage I should be available for other interviews (feel free to say hi in the tally room when I don't look too busy to arrange).   Scrutineers are very welcome to send me news and figures by phone or email.

2021 Tasmanian State Election Polling Drought

One of the regular services I've provided on this site and, before that, on Tasmanian Times, is polling-based forecasting of Tasmanian elections.  At all elections since 2006 there have been multiple public polls that have allowed me to do this, and some of these polls have had very good sample sizes indeed. However this year (link to my 2021 guide main page) we have had no public polling since February.  By public polling, I mean a poll either released by a polling company off its own bat, or commissioned by a media outlet that is always going to publish the results.  We have had a single commissioned poll with voting intentions data released (uComms commissioned by the left-wing Australia Institute), and some rumours about party polling.

I would like to be able to present a forecast and say that it should be as reliable as in previous years, but with such a low level of polling data I can't do that.  There might be more voting intentions polling to come, but I don't have any specific reason to expect any.  This especially follows the news that EMRS, who last polled in February, will not bring forwards their May omnibus to include a poll for this election.  

Before I get into some fine detail about the maths of such a lack of polls, I want to cover some general points: how did we get here and why does it matter?  The tail end of this article is more technical and gets up to around 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale.  

The Governor's Role In The 2021 Tasmanian Election

The 2021 Tasmanian election campaign (link to main guide) has seen various claims about the role of the Governor Kate Warner, both in calling the election and in resolving the aftermath should the election produce a hung parliament.  Not only are these claims incorrect, but some of them (concerning the calling of the election) are both unfair to the soon-to-retire Governor Warner and by implication anti-democratic.  

Calling the election

The first set of claims that have circulated concerns the Governor's role in calling the election.  The claims being made fall into two groups:

1. That the Governor may have made a mistake in accepting Premier Gutwein's advice to dissolve the Parliament and hold an election.

2. That the Governor made the correct decision, but that she must have relied on false or misleading advice from the Premier in so doing, and would otherwise have not called the election.

I first saw claims of type 1 in an April 2 op ed by Charles Wooley  (paywalled, and need to scroll down).  It's far from being the only thing I disagree with in that article:

What's This Then? Commissioned Poll Claims Liberals In Trouble

 Australia Institute uComms: Liberal 41.4 Labor 32.1 Greens 12.4 IND 11 Other 3.1

If accurate Government would probably lose majority (approx 12-10-2-1 or 12-9-3-1, perhaps more INDs)

Handle with caution - commissioned robopoll, IND figure looks exaggerated

Aggregate-based model of vaguely recent vaguely public polling: approx 13-8-3-1

A week out from the 2021 Tasmanian state election (link to guide main page) there remains no public polling that is less than two months old.  This is a parlous situation and I feel that relying on the media to commission useful polling at a useful time has failed and that for future state elections it will be necessary to look at crowdfunding reputable polling to fill the void a few weeks out.  If, that is, such a thing proves viable.  

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2017-21

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 retiring) MLCs 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 the five Labor Party MLCs, and independents Mike Gaffney, Ruth Forrest, Rob Valentine and Meg Webb. 

3. The three Liberal MLCs and retiring independent Ivan Dean form a "right" cluster and independents Rosemary Armitage and Tania Rattray now clearly more often vote with that cluster than with the left.

4. The votes recorded in the last year have also seen greater fracturing of the left cluster, more divisions with both major parties on one side and a higher proportion of divisions where the government wins.  

5. A possible left-to-right sort of the Council is Valentine, Webb, Gaffney tied with Forrest, the five Labor MLCs in no particular order, Rattray, Armitage, Dean, and the three Liberal MLCs in no particular order.

6. Going into the 2021 elections, the left holds an absolute majority in the Legislative Council, normally meaning that the government needs the support of Labor or at least two left independents to win votes.  The left will remain in majority, the question being the size of that majority.

7. The left-right split is only rarely reflected perfectly on the floor of the Council at the moment.

----

Legislative Council 2021: Derwent

This is the second of the Legislative Council guides that I am putting out quickly as I am keen to ensure that the LegCo elections do not get neglected (especially as they are currently expected to be on the same day as the state election).  My guide to Windermere is up, and links for all pages will be added to my general state election hub page.  An analysis of voting in the chamber in the last four years has also been posted.

I will be doing live coverage of the state election from 6 pm for The Mercury on their website and I expect this to include the Legislative Council elections too, assuming that they go ahead on May 1 as flagged.  Postcount threads will be posted for any seats that remain in doubt or of interest following counting night.

Derwent: Seat Profile

As its name suggests Derwent covers much of the middle and upper Derwent Valley.  It starts in the suburbs of Glenorchy and takes in 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.  It even takes in Great Lake which isn't very Derwent Valley at all.

Legislative Council 2021: Windermere

With a snap state election called I am scurrying to get my Legislative Council guides out as fast as possible too, as I am keen to ensure that the LegCo elections do not get neglected (especially as they are currently expected to be on the same day).  I've started with Windermere because it is the most interesting on paper; link to Derwent is here and both pages are linked off my general state election main page.   An analysis of voting in the chamber in recent years has also been posted.

I will be doing live coverage of the state election from 6 pm for The Mercury on their website and this will include the Legislative Council seats too.  Postcount threads will be posted for any seats that remain in doubt or of interest following counting night.

Seat Profile

Windermere covers the eastern side of the Tamar River including George Town and the northern and some eastern Launceston suburbs.  At the 2017 redistribution it was expanded, gaining the Lilydale area from the abolished division of Apsley (the nearest parts of which are now McIntyre).  Windermere is a diverse electorate, including the strongly Labor satellite suburbs of Ravenswood and Waverley, the pro-Liberal suburbs of Norwood and St Leonards, and some booths with fairly high Green votes along the river.

Holding The House Of Assembly And Legislative Council Elections On The Same Day

Having completed the initial runs of my Lower House guides it's now time to move onto the Legislative Council.  But before I do there is a general matter about the Legislative Council elections that I wish to cover in its own post.  For the first time in the state's history as a state (I am not sure about colonial elections) this year's Legislative Council elections are set to be held on May 1, the same day as the House of Assembly elections.  While there are advantages in holding the elections on the same day, I believe this is unfair to independent candidates because of the Council's strict spending restrictions, and that for this reason the Legislative Council elections should have been moved (perhaps to May 29) and should be moved if this is still possible.  

Historic cases of elections held close together

The following table shows cases where the House of Assembly and Legislative Council elections were held close together:

(Source: Parliament House website).  In the early days, Legislative Council elections seem to have been held on a range of days of the week, resulting in some cases of the elections falling four days apart.

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Lyons

This is the Lyons electorate guide for the 2021 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2021 election preview page, including links to other electorates.)  If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate in these difficult times if you can afford to do so.  Note: if using a mobile you may need to use the view web version option at the bottom of the page to see the sidebar.

Lyons (Currently 3 Liberal 2 Labor). 

Most of the state

Rural, outer suburban and forested.  

Lots of tiny dispersed towns that take many years for an MP to work