South Australia Postcount 2026: Finniss

FINNISS (Lib vs ALP 6.7%, Lib vs IND 0.7%)

David Basham (Lib) vs Lou Nicholson (IND) 

Nicholson wins from fourth position on primaries.  Unprecedented in state and federal elections

(Link to tallyboard thread)

The Victor Harbour/Goolwa seat of Finniss sees a similarly messy count to Kavel with four candidates with currently very similar primary votes, as I start this thread with the prepoll not yet in and sadly only 33.1% of enrolment counted.  It may be very different after prepoll and it was very different in 2022.  On the night Lou Nicholson was on 54.7% 2CP vs Basham and the doubt seemed to be would she make the final two or not.  She ended up making the final two but very poor numbers on prepolls and absents resulted in Basham winning (just) 50.7-49.3.  Now, the rematch ...

As with Kavel this is another seat where nobody has a quarter of the primary vote.  Currently One Nation's Greg Powell (23.6%) leads Basham by six votes, with Nicholson on 20.5% and Phoebe Redington (ALP) on 17.6%.  The Greens have 7.2% and the top of the ballot paper, and have recommended preferences to Nicholson.  The others are Bron Lewis (a tealish sounding independent on 4.3%), Animal Justice 1.6%, Aus Family 1.2% Fair Go 0.4%.  

South Australia 2026: Final Polls Still Have Liberals Third

Average of final week polls ALP 37.1% Liberal 17.6 One Nation 23.3 Greens 11.2 others 10.8

If polls are accurate, Labor wins election easily making several seat gains, with Liberals and One Nation probably winning a few seats each.  Independents could win a few to several seats.

The 2026 SA election has been a weird one for polls.  There's been a very decent amount for a state election, but there were four polls tightly clustered around the start of the formal campaign, Morgan a little later, then nothing til the final days.  Also while the early polls had quite a range of figures, the last-week polls by Fox&Hedgehog, YouGov and DemosAU came out with almost identical primaries.  All have Labor on 37-38%, Liberals 17-19%, and One Nation 21-23%.  Newspoll stood out a bit more with a 40 for Labor and a miserable 16 for the Liberals.  

In my previous article I outlined a way of using the 2022 Legislative Council results to roughly look at where the Liberals and One Nation might make the final two if the polling is accurate, and assuming a swing that is two-thirds proportional and one-third uniform.  I have a few more observations on this model based on the vote share average at the head of this post.  

South Australia 2026: What Can The Right Still Win?

Polling for SA election is very lopsided with right very fragmented

Estimate if Newspoll is correct: approx 1 Liberal and 3 One Nation seats

Off YouGov: approx 4 Liberal and 1-2 One Nation seats

Polling may moderate by election day

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I've been hoping for enough material to start substantial coverage of the South Australian election and it's finally arrived with polls by Newspoll and YouGov.  Prior to that there had been a string of extremely lopsided polls last year, and a Fox&Hedgehog poll in a similar vein early last week.  The YouGov poll pretty much replicates Fox&Hedgehog's finding that the conservative side is split in two with the Liberals bleeding greatly to One Nation while Labor enjoys a massive lead.  The Newspoll is even worse for the Liberals and could (if it happened) even wipe them out completely.  My estimate is that on average for the Newspoll voting intentions the Liberals would win one seat and One Nation about three, and for the YouGov poll that the Liberals might manage three or four and One Nation just one or two; it's possible there will be about as many (or more) independents as right-party MPs.  However there is a lot still to unfold with where One Nation support goes during the campaign and whether the Liberals can improve.  

What is suggested by the polls so far really aint supposed to happen.  The Malinauskas government is only at the end of its first term, but it is federally dragged, and not even by a first term federal government at that.  John Bannon in 1985 was the last State Premier to get a seat share swing at all in that circumstance.  But these are incredible times in polling and Peter Malinauskas is very popular (with a +40 Newspoll netsat).  At the same time we have what looks like a severe disruption if not a realignment on the right nationally and the SA Libs are a disaster zone.   One has to roll one's eyes repeatedly at news that "Liberal strategists" are hoping for a sympathy vote they don't deserve and trying to argue that a viable opposition is needed.  That worked so well for the similarly hapless outfit that was reduced to two seats in WA 2021.  

The Low Impact Of Independent Preferences In Labor's 2025 Federal Win

At the 2025 federal election, more votes that were 1 One Nation or 1 Trumpet of Patriots (combined) finished up with Labor candidates as preferences than votes that were 1 Independent!

Among the various forms of whinging and nonsense I continue to see on social media about the election result, one of the commonest is that Labor were elected on "Greens and teal preference deals".  

Labor were, of course, ahead on primaries in 86 seats and would have won in any system (though well short of a majority without single-seat electorates) but the blaming of teals for the strength of their win reflects some limitations of looking at overall preference flows instead of examining the results seat by seat.

If one looks at the overall 2PP flow by party it appears that independents (particularly teals) were a huge contributor to the size of Labor's 2PP win and so must have had a lot to do with them winning so many seats.  After Labor's 5.35 million primaries and 1.67 million preferences from the Greens, independents (756K preferences) are easily the third biggest contributor, way ahead of the minority of preferences assigned to Labor from One Nation candidates (253K). 

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

FRANKLIN (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED): 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 2 IND

SEAT WINNERS: Eric Abetz (Lib), Jacquie Petrusma (Lib), Dean Winter (ALP), Peter George (Ind), David O'Byrne (Ind), Rosalie Woodruff (Grn), Meg Brown (ALP)

SEAT LOST: Nic Street (Liberal)

IND (Peter George) gain from Liberal

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Clark

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

CLARK (2024 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED) 2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND

SEAT WINNERS: Kristie Johnston (IND), Ella Haddad (ALP), Josh Willie (ALP), Vica Bayley (GRN), Helen Burnet (GRN), Marcus Vermey (Lib), Madeleine Ogilvie (Lib)

(Ogilvie defeats Simon Behrakis (Lib) in close intra-party battle)

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

Tasmania 2025: YouGov Has Majors Much Closer

 

Live coverage at this link on election night

This article is part of my Tasmanian 2025 election coverage.  Click here for link to main guide page including links to effective voting advice and seat guides.

YOUGOV Lib 31 ALP 30 Green 16 IND 20* Nat 2 SF+F 1

* could be overstated through poll design issues
Seat estimate for this poll Lib 13 ALP 11-12 Green 6 IND 4-5

Thankfully a final YouGov public poll has appeared for the fairly sparsely polled Tasmanian state election, albeit unfortunately without seat breakdowns, and if it is to be believed then Labor are doing better than the recent DemosAU and Liberal EMRS internals have suggested, and the Liberals are doing much worse than the latter.  I was hoping we would get a poll today and suspecting it might pull my aggregate in line with the widespread view that Labor has run a poor campaign and is at risk of losing vote share, but it's actually better for Labor than the polls since the last YouGov have been.  This would find the Liberals with a measly one-point lead which would give them no possible path to government assuming that Labor is willing to take it and the Greens to help Labor do so.  Indeed it's not impossible if this poll's true that Labor and the Greens could get a majority together (a Labor/IND combined majority would be unlikely).  It's always possible that YouGov's polling of the state has a house effect, but this could also be true of the DemosAU polls.  (There is some history of Labor often doing badly in robopolls for state elections, and DemosAU is primarily a robopoll, albeit one that weights for education, which should help).  

Anyway, we have two main final polls with a very different take on where Labor will land but it remains the case that no poll has given the Liberals more than a remote path to government if the forces that voted for the no-confidence motion work together.  And it would be pretty silly for Labor and the Greens at least not to - by working together here I just mean being willing to kick the Liberals out in another no confidence motion if needs be and then at least have some minimal arrangement to satisfy the Governor that Dean Winter can be Premier.   While there's no poll that gives the Liberals a clear path, the better polls for them wouldn't have to be too far wrong for them to get 15 seats with three they might work with (say Rebekah Pentland, David O'Byrne and John Tucker ... hmmm I'm not really sure Jeremy Rockliff and Tucker can work together ...)  But at this stage that would be fairly surprising.

DemosAU: More Friendly Fire Than Seat Swing?

DemosAU Lib 34.9 ALP 24.7 Green 15.6 Nat 2.7 SF+F 1.8 IND 20.3
Total of projected individual seat breakdowns for this poll Lib 13 ALP 10 Green 7 IND 4 Nat 1

(IND vote likely to be inflated because of format limitations)

(Green vote distribution appears unusual so real seat tally for this statewide vote share could be lower)

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage.  Link to main guide page including seat guides and effective voting advice.

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One of the many remarkable elections in Tasmania was in 1986.  On the surface Robin Gray's first and only re-election sounds exremely dull; the Liberal Party won 19 seats just as it had in 1982, and Labor won 14, ditto.  Yet that election was a bloodbath with 15 incumbent MPs losing their seats, 13 in effect to their own party.  This sort of violence became less common in the 25-seat system, an especially tame case being 2006 when all 23 recontesting incumbents were returned.  (The only interesting thing about that was that nobody much thought it would occur).  Based on the recent Pulse Media DemosAU poll we could be heading for a milder case of this with at least six incumbents at serious risk of losing to their ticketmates but few clear signs of either major party gaining or losing more than the odd seat anywhere.

I have a copy of the full results of this poll [EDIT: which have now been posted publicly].  The full poll includes candidate breakdowns by electorate, which I have not seen since EMRS did it a few decades back.  While the writeup below is very detailed a reminder this is just one poll, and in the next few days I intend to produce my usual cross-poll aggregate.  

EMRS: Government Trails Placebo Opposition

EMRS LIB 29 (-5) ALP 31 (+1) GRN 14 (+1) JLN 6 (-2) IND 17 (+5) Others 3
Independent is generic option - likely overstates support at actual election
Election "held now" would result in a very hung parliament

When Brad Stansfield tweeted the above spoiler yesterday it was easy to imagine what might have been coming.  At the recent federal election the Liberals were sent packing in northern Tasmania, losing Braddon and Bass with enormous swings and being thrashed in previously ultra-marginal Lyons.  There was a federal primary vote swing across the state of 9.3% to Labor and 8.4% against the Liberal Party.  Perhaps the federal election was a sign that the Liberal brand was more on the nose at state level than might have been expected and that Labor would be surging towards an election-winning position?  Or perhaps just the timing of the latest EMRS poll could see a degree of federal contamination such that state Labor picked up an afterglow from the federal triumph?  Well, no.  The poll is "wow!", unlike Peter van Onselen's infamous "Newspoll wow"s which were habitually followed by meaningless changes in the Newspoll.  But it is not the sort of "wow" that narrative would have expected.  

Instead, it's a tale that's been running for years - the ageing and stumbling Liberal government shedding and shedding more vote share and Labor still picking up little or nothing in this poll series.  Currently the government trails 29-31.  In August 2022 it led 41-31.   Tasmanians separate state and federal politics - strongly - and Labor is still not breaking out of the very low 30s.  The overall picture is that Labor is content to avoid rocking the boat, being as bipartisan as possible on wedge issues like the stadium and salmon farming, and wait for the government to fall over.  Presumably some point is eventually reached where the government is so on the nose that Labor support has to grow at least enough to make Labor the biggest party.  That said if we continue this trend indefinitely the crossbench will govern before they will.

2025 House of Reps Postcount: Monash

MONASH (Vic, Lib 2.9%, occupied by deselected ex-Lib IND)

Issue was whether Deb Leonard (IND) could make final two and whether she could win if so.  Leonard will not make final two.  Liberal retain.

Click here for link to Reps postcount hub and tallyboard page.  

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I like to do posts about postcount seats that are not necessarily the most competitve but the weirdest, and in this respect Monash well deserves a thread of its own, though Calwell is giving it a run for its money.  

In Monash the Liberals disendorsed 25-year veteran Russell Broadbent, who immediately moved to the crossbench and eventually ran as an independent.  Broadbent had attracted attention particularly as a prominent member of the anti-COVID-vaccines/mandates movement but another factor was simply the desire for renewal.  The campaign saw some tension over One Nation how to vote cards - I haven't got to the bottom of the story but have heard claims that the Liberals printed a card on One Nation's behalf that turned out not to reflect One Nation's preferencing decisions (because they continued to recommend preferences to Broadbent in this seat).  

Federal 2025: Classifying The Independents

In the list of declared candidates for the 2025 federal election, there was an unsurprising upswing in the number of independents.  There are a number of points of relevance arising from this and I'm putting up an article with a rough classification that I will edit as the campaign proceeds.  

I am interested in the nature of independents running at the election for a few reasons.  One of these is that polls that offer "independent" as a generic option everywhere often get the independent vote as high as 10-12%, but independents polled "just" 5.29% in 2022.  The reason for this is that voters who pick the independent option in these polls could find that there is no actual independent in their seat, or only one they've never heard of or don't like.  For this reason, some of the polls that use this "generic ballot" method stop doing so once they have the names of candidates, and doing so makes the polled estimate of the independent vote much more accurate.  

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2021-25

A strange thing happened in the LegCo on the 20th of November last year.  In debate about the Expungement of Historical Offences Amendment Bill 2024 the major parties differed in their approach to setting compensation for victims of Tasmania's infamous former anti-gay laws (which were repealed in 1997).  The Greens had successfully moved an amendment regarding compensation levels to the Government's Bill in the Assembly and the Goverment wanted to move a different amendment on that subject in the Council.  Ruth Forrest moved that the issue be referred to the Gender and Equity Committee but Labor disagreed, arguing that the Council should be able to deal with the issue itself.  In the end the referral motion passed 8-5 with Government support but three independents joining Labor.  

What is unusual about that?  Well, in the last year it was one of only two cases I could find where the ALP, the official "Opposition", had voted against the Rockliff Liberal Government in a division on the floor of the Council, the other being an attempt by the government to adjourn a debate on Development Assessment Panels (nobody but the government wanted to adjourn it).  A year in which the Government and Opposition voted together on 90% of recorded divisions in the Council highlighted an increasing trend towards "Laborial" politics in Tasmania, something I also picked up on last year and that has been growing since 2020.  There are signs of a similar dynamic downstairs though I haven't yet assessed the voting patterns there.  When independent Kristie Johnston declared recently for the second time that she had no confidence in the government, the charge to attack her for supposedly undermining business confidence with stunt motions was led not by the Liberal Party but by Labor's Josh Willie.  

Legislative Council Voting Patterns 2020-24

This article is part of my Tasmanian 2024 Legislative Council coverage.  Coverage of the lower house election continues with postcount articles accessible as follows:

Bass Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons Summary

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In the last four years, Tasmanian Labor has voted more often with the Liberal government than with any of the seven independents in the Legislative Council.  The Liberals have voted more often with Labor than with five of the seven.

I think those are important takeaways to put right at the top of this year's annual curtain-raiser for my Legislative Council coverage.  There are a couple of important aspects at stake at this year's election: not only the overall left-right balance of the chamber but also the balance of major parties vs independents (and where an endorsed Green would fit into that mix).  While such an assessment might fuel concern about the growing "Laborial" mood in our upper house, there are cases where the major parties in my view get it right while the independents don't.  OK, one case - a recent attempt to greatly reduce the scope of Section 196 of the Tasmanian Electoral Act.  

Tasmania Embraces Chaos: 2024 Election Tallyboard And Summary

TASMANIA 2024: Liberal Minority Government Expected (Subject to will of the parliament)

Labor appears to be not seeking to form government 

Rebecca White resigned leadership, Dean Winter to contest, Josh Willie and others may contest

FINAL RESULT  LIB 14 ALP 10 GRN 5 JLN 3 IND 3

Links to seat postcount pages Bass Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons

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Friday 5 April

Dean Winter has publicly announced that he is running for leader, with what he believes is the support of the Labor caucus. 

Informal Vote: Not Good Enough!

Ahead of the release of primary figures the TEC has advised that the informal vote increased from 5.13% in 2021 to 6.31%.  This suggests the informal vote rose with more counting as, eg, cases of duplicate numbers that had been missed on the night were spotted.  6.31% is a bad, though not catastrophic, result.  I warned that an increase in informal voting was likely because votes that were formal at the last election (1-5 with errors later) were informal at this election if the errors were at 6 and 7, but a full review will be needed to detect the specific causes of the increase - which might also be partly down to deliberate informal voting, an increased number of columns, etc.  Certainly I saw some informal votes that should have been saved under transitional savings provisions that I recommended.  In one case a voter had voted 1-6 within the Franklin Greens ticket, leaving a 7th Green blank, then numbered 8-31 in other columns.  The result of this is that their vote did not count at all, whereas in the ACT it would have been good for their first six candidates.  I can only hope that the increased informal rate does not change any outcomes (often it doesn't).   Incidentally, 2024 is the second highest informal vote ever, behind 1946 when for some reason 10.08% of votes were informal (possibly caused by confusing ballot instructions around the introduction of columns).  

The parliament - primarily the government - is to blame for not trying to fix this problem by at least allowing that a vote that was formal in 2021 would be formal in 2024.  However the TEC is also to blame because it has advised the government against measures that might increase exhaust and hence 

"reduce the effectiveness and accuracy of the Hare-Clark counting process".  This stance is addressed in my submission (Hare-Clark Is Not A Rolls-Royce System section) - what really reduces the effectiveness and accuracy of the system is excluding votes from it for no good reason. 

2024 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

FRANKLIN (2021 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green - At election 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)
Notional 2021 7-Seat Result 3 Liberal 3 Labor 1 Green

SEATS WON: 3  LIB 2 ALP 1 IND 1 GRN

CALLED WINNERS: Eric Abetz (Lib), Jacqui Petrusma (Lib), Dean Winter (ALP), Rosalie Woodruff (Grn), David O'Byrne (IND), Meg Brown (ALP), Nic Street (Lib)

SEAT LOST: Dean Young (Lib)

((Links to other seat postcount pages Bass Braddon Clark Lyons Summary)

Warning: The Franklin count involves some complicated weirdness and this page has been rated Wonk Factor 4/5

Franklin has reached a glorious 84.5% counted with no further counting to occur this weekend.  The Liberals have 2.73 quotas, Labor 2.20, the Greens 1.55, JLN 0.39, David O'Byrne 0.72, AJP 0.12 and the rest is minor indies and Local Network.  Rosalie Woodruff has topped the poll and is the only candidate with quota.  

There is no doubt now that David O'Byrne has won as he is an independent and cannot leak votes (unlike the Liberals and Greens), and I suspect he will draw leakage from the Labor ticket as well.   The remaining suspense at party level is whether there is any chance at all for the second Green to beat the Liberals and this appears to be highly unlikely.  On current numbers the Liberals have an effective 1500 vote lead, but are more exposed to leakage with about 6400 potentially leaking votes vs 3800 for the Greens.  I'd expect a higher share of the Greens' votes to leak than the Liberals, such that the differences in leakage rates between the two are probably only worth 200 votes.  Animal Justice preferences will knock another few hundred off the lead but it's extremely difficult to see the Greens winning unless there is a large counting error in their favour.  I am pretty much sure the result will be 3-2-1-1 but want to check it further when more awake.

Mystery Poll: Why Are We Still Playing This Game?

(This is part of my 2024 Tasmanian election coverage.  For main page with links to all other pages go here.)

Today's Mercury carried a front-page report of a "phone poll" of Tasmania with a massive sample size of 4000 voters.  Unfortunately the newspaper report did not state who the poll was done by or for, making it impossible to immediately assess how useful it was.  I have been told (officially unconfirmed) that it is for the Tasmanian Hospitality Association and do not yet know the pollster, though the large sample size is most often seen with automated polls like uComms.  (I should also add that Community Engagement was reported in the field by some people early in the campaign, but the issues questions I was told about were different.)

Anyway, at the risk of sounding like a broken record or even more like a polling analyst with severe frustration management issues, it should be required by law for all media reports of polling to state the pollster and the commissioning source.  (Or if not known, all details should be published as this often makes the poll easy to identify).  Media frequently express frustration with governments that are not being transparent.  They must lead the way by reporting basic polling details better and refusing to allow sources to supply polls on the condition that the pollster should not be named.   This is especially so when they run Your Right To Know campaigns.   As for sources who try to prevent media from publishing the details of polls they supply, those should be classified as "juvenile career criminals". 

For what it's worth, this looks like neutral polling by someone who actually wants to know the answer, and not a loaded poll released for political purposes.  That doesn't mean it's necessarily good in quality terms, but it's worth checking out especially if we get clearer details.

EMRS: Liberals Have Big Lead But Still Well Short Of 50

This article is part of my 2024 Tasmanian state election coverage - link to main article page

EMRS Liberal 39 Labor 26 (-3) Greens 12 JLN 9 IND 14 others 1 
Liberals would clearly be largest party

Seat estimate if poll is correct Lib 15-16 ALP 10 Grn 2-3  JLN 2-3 IND 3-5

Just one poll - there will be others!

Advance Comments

A quarterly poll by Tasmania's most experienced state pollster EMRS, which has a rather good track record, has just dropped.  It shows a complex scenario that is also, if correct, a sorry one for Labor.  This poll will have the Liberals happy in that it has them as the only party within reach of a majority while Labor are bleeding votes to independents and JLN.  It follows a YouGov poll that differed mainly in having the Liberals in the low 30s and a much higher Lambie vote.   The poll suggests that if there is a hung parliament, it will be one where Labor will only be able to govern deeply in minority with multiple partners, while the Liberals may have simpler paths to government if anyone will help them.  

2024 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Lyons

This is the Lyons electorate guide for the 2021 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2024 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 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND). 

(2021 Election Result 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

2024 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Franklin

This is the Franklin electorate guide for the 2024 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2024 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.  

Franklin (Currently 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

(Elected at last election 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green)

Eastern shore Hobart (Clarence City), much of Kingborough, Huon Valley, D'Entrecasteaux Channel

Urban/outer urban/treechange/rural

2024 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Clark

This is the Clark electorate guide for the 2024 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2024 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.  

Clark (Currently 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 Independent)

Western shore Hobart, primarily Hobart City and Glenorchy City

Inner and outer urban