EMRS: Thirty Or Turkey By Christmas?

EMRS Lib 26 (+1) ALP 23 (-1) ON 21 (+2) Grn 16 (+2) IND 14 (-2) others 1 (-1)

Seat estimate (new boundaries) Lib 10 ALP 9 ON 8 Green 5 IND 3

The latest EMRS poll is out as released on the Poll Position pod and the changes on state voting intentions are all within the in-theory margin of error from the previous edition.  There would be mild relief for the government that the dramatic slide in its numbers in the past few polls has stopped.  But political tragics could only have eyes for the ALP figure after leader Josh Willie was reported to have set a target of polling a 30% primary by Christmas.  (Something I somehow, in a feat tantamount to winning the Last Man contest for not knowing the Superbowl winner, managed to not find out about for a month!)  

This figure has led to predictable jibes from opponents that not only will Labor not attain this heroic goal (oh for the days when they were forever stuck around 30) but that Willie will instead be gone as leader by Christmas. Although Labor's primary has actually held up better to the One Nation surge than might have been expected, there seems to be an unusual level of Labor leadership chatter about.  It's hard to tell if it is serious or if a lot of people are just and quite rightly bored.  Some of it is connected to the issue that continues to dog (pun intended) the Opposition, with a Thick Of It style nadir when Willie was photographed defending Labor's unfashionable support for greyhound racing in front of a Dogs Prohibited sign. 

Tasmania Redistribution: Announcement Day Live Thread

Today could be a momentous day in the history of Tasmanian electoral boundaries!  Or it could be a nothing-ever-happens.  Around mid-morning today there will be a boundary announcement.  If the announcement is either the same as the draft boundaries or only slightly different then that's it and the new boundaries will be official for federal elections after 8 October.  It usually takes several months for them to then be adopted at state level via legislation, so an early state election before, say, mid-2027 would not necessarily be on the new boundaries.  

Alternatively the Augmented Electoral Commission could recommend substantively different boundaries, which would result in further rounds of consultation.  I have seen no variations from process that would suggest there is any intent to do this so far, but I am not sure if that should be taken as a sign that it's not happening.  

My previous articles are here:

Clark Must Expand But Where?

Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

The Reaction

Once the announcement is up I will be posting details of what has been decided.  I'm not Ben Raue or William Bowe so please do not expect new margin calculations from this source.  However I will have summaries and comments about the decision, whatever it is.  

Tasmania Redistribution: The Reaction

Yesterday the AEC released public feedback on the proposed radical redistribution as previously covered here (Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide).  Frankly I thought there might be more complaints than there were, but some of those that there are are pretty punchy.  Of the 90 distinct submissions received, exactly half by my count discussed the proposed boundaries at all, and of these I counted 14 as purely supporting the proposal (one or two noting some initial reluctance in doing so) and 31 objecting, nearly all of these proposing something substantially different if they proposed anything at all.

Predictably the most common objections concerned the condition of Lyons and especially the placement of Glenorchy in it.  Objectors raised Glenorchy's disconnection from the bulk of Lyons through the inclusion of Brighton in Franklin, argued that neo-Lyons was thematically incoherent, complained about the severing of Glenorchy from Greater Hobart and also objected to rural Tasmania being fragmented into majority urban seats.  Submission 34 by Mark James is a good representative of the objections:

"Under the proposed model, rural/regional voters will be outnumbered by city voters in all five electorates. There is no community of interest at all between Glenorchy, Sheffield, and St. Helens. - For a state with a famously decentralised population, in which the majority of the population live outside the capital city, voters in the capital city will form the bulk of three out of five electorates."

Tasmanian Redistribution: Clark Must Expand, But Where?

I don't usually get involved in redistribution speculation and lobbying (I don't even have the time and skill to draw nice maps) but this one is particularly interesting to me and local.  A federal redistribution for Tasmania has commenced, with the initial suggestions stage closing on 7 November.  

Tasmania currently uses the federal electorate boundaries for its Hare-Clark system state elections, and if this continues (and no one has convinced me that it shouldn't) then the changes will flow on to the next Tasmanian state election, which could well be held before the next federal poll.  The purpose of this article isn't to support any particular option, or to dive into the finer details of which lines to put exactly where (rather beyond my computing skills for the level of time I have right now); it's to raise awareness of what some of the broad options are and some advantages and disadvantages of them.  

Unlike in the other states that may be affected by planned redistributions (SA and Queensland), entitlement changes or possibly expansion, Tasmania's number of divisions clearly won't be changing in this term.  So this Tasmanian redistribution is for keeps.  

The issue is that as populations outside the inner cities of Tasmania have increased while the inner cities have stagnated, Clark has drifted to a lower population than the other four electorates.  Clark is projected to be 10.5% below quota by 2030, Lyons 9.98% above, Bass 4.42% below,  Franklin 3.20% above and Braddon 1.73% above.  At the least the first three need to be brought inside the 3.5% variation from quota (or at least "as far as practicable") and this means that Clark should gain at least 7%, Lyons should lose at least about 6.5%, Bass should gain 1%, and changes could occur in the others.  

Tasmanian House of Representatives Seat Guide 2025

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This article gives a detailed discussion of the five Tasmanian House of Representatives seats, which will be updated and edited as needed up til election day.  A Tasmania Senate guide will follow much closer to polling day and will be linked here when up and there will be many other federal pages coming.   I will be doing coverage for The Guardian on election night.

One seat (Lyons, held by Labor) is hotly in play at this election.  Two others (Liberal-held Bass and Braddon) are volatile historically and of some interest though challenging for Labor to win this time around.  Franklin (Labor) is attracting more attention than normal because of a couple of independent attempts.  Clark (Ind) is not considered in play.  

National polling as I start this article has been suggesting the sort of swing to the Coalition that if uniform should see them win Lyons, with Bass out of serious danger and Braddon out of the question for Labor.  However Tasmania has become detached from national patterns in recent years with national swing only predicting Tasmania's two-party seat result perfectly once in the last 33 years (and in recent years Labor tending to do worse in swing terms than the national swing).   Long Labor's strongest state on a 2PP basis, Tasmania ceased to be so in 2022 as demographic transition in low-education and older-voter areas has favoured the Liberal Party.  

Rebecca White and Anne Urquhart To Run For House Of Reps

Note added March 2025: Recount is being covered here.

I have four (!) articles I'm aiming to write for this site in the next week or so but the first cab off the rank should be the one where my local knowledge is most relevant, that being today's news that Rebecca White and Anne Urquhart will be running for Labor in the federal House of Reps seats in Lyons and Braddon respectively, resigning their State and Senate seats to do so.  The candidate to take on Bridget Archer in Bass, Tasmania's other competitive House of Reps seat, has still not been announced.

Rumours about White and Urquhart running have been around for some time and frequently canvassed on the Fontcast podcast and at times in mainstream media, the White one steadily gathering pace despite having been denied by the candidate in a debate for the March state election.  The Urquhart rumour, together with one that Shane Broad might quit state parliament to run for the federal Braddon seat, has been on and off but it is now clearly on, with the Prime Minister's social media announcing both Urquhart and White as candidates during his visit to the state today.

Tasmania Doesn't Swing With The Nation Like It Used To

Advance Summary

1. Tasmania is routinely omitted from national state-by-state federal polling breakdowns because of small sample size.

2. In theory Tasmanian seats could be projected by just assuming Tasmania would get the national swing, but in practice this isn't very accurate.

3. In elections in recent decades, Tasmanian two-party preferred federal swings have been less similar to the national swing than was the case before the 1970s.

4. One cause of this is that while national swings at federal elections have tended to be much lower in recent decades, 2PP swings in Tasmania are not much lower.

5. Another cause is the tendency of groups of Tasmanian seats to swing together.

6. As a result of this, the national swing that has actually occurred has only correctly predicted the Tasmanian seat result once at the past ten elections.

7. While the swing in current national polling (if accurate) implies the Coalition would not win any Tasmanian seats in an election "held now", a more accurate read based on the history of projected shutouts is that the Coalition would probably retain one Tasmanian seat at the moment.

Tasmanian House Of Representatives Seats Guide (2019)

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If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
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This article gives a fairly detailed discussion of the five Tasmanian House of Representatives seats, which will be updated and edited as needed up til election day.

Two seats (Clark and Franklin) are generally not considered to be in play at this election.  Three (Bass, Braddon and Lyons) are Labor marginals that the Liberals won from Labor in 2013 and Labor won back in 2016.  These could change back again if the Liberals can pick up swings of 1.5 to 5.3%.  Current national polling as I start this article (12 April) points to about a 3% swing to Labor.  If it stays like that, then it is likely few if any Labor seats will fall to the Coalition nationwide.  But should the campaign close up, then Tasmanian seats may come into play.  On the other hand, in 2010 there was a large 2PP swing to Labor in Tasmania even against the backdrop of a national swing against the party.

EMRS: Small Swing To Labor In Tasmanian Federal Poll

EMRS Tasmania (federal) ALP 40 (+2.1 since election) Lib 33 (-2.4) Green 11 (+0.8) Others 15 (-1.4)
Overall poll suggests a no-change seat result in Tasmania would be likely if election held now
Individual seat results must be treated with caution because of small sample size.

The Liberal Party suffered a major blow early on federal election night 2016, losing the three northern Tasmanian seats that it had captured from Labor in 2013.  In the leadup to the 2019 election, the Tasmanian federal seats have so far not attracted much attention.  This is consistent with a national feeling that with a substantial swing to Labor likely, only a few Labor seats are likely to be in play, and typically where so for unusual local reasons (Lindsay, Macnamara for examples).  The Coalition's strategy is likely to be focused on trying to save as many of its own seats as possible, and going hunting for gains in Tasmania (where PM Morrison has never been high-profile) doesn't seem like a high-payoff-chance strategy.  The northern Tasmanian seats are also protected by personal vote effects for new sitting members, making them harder to shift (not that this stopped them from flipping last time.)