2024 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

LYONS (2021 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor - At election 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND)
Notional 2021 7-Seat Result 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

SEATS WON: 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN

CALLED WINNERS: Rebecca White (ALP), Guy Barnett (Lib), Jane Howlett (Lib), Mark Shelton (Lib), Tabatha Badger (GRN), Jen Butler (ALP), Andrew Jenner (JLN)

SEAT LOST: John Tucker (IND)

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

As I start this piece Lyons is 79.1% counted with the Latrobe polling place still to add on Sunday [EDIT: Latrobe is of course in Braddon so it appears this was an out of division booth that was intended to be counted separately but will now not be.  The reason Lyons is lagging is that it has a much higher out-of-division vote than other seats.]. The Liberals are on 3.01 quotas, Labor have surged late in the night to 2.64, the Greens have 0.83, JLN 0.67, Shooters 0.38, John Tucker 0.26, Animal Justice 0.13 and why did the rest bother.  I expected Lyons to be the hardest seat to follow on the night and it has been but not in the way I expected.  

Tasmanian Senate Major Party Preselections

Tasmanian major party (Labor and Liberal) Senate preselections are expected to be announced on Saturday 8 September.  I will be posting the results when I know them, and discussion of such voting details as emerge, but I will be out on a field trip for some of Saturday, and I don't yet know at what time the news will be revealed.  For starters then, this post looks at what different Senate placements for some of the candidates would mean.  It will be expanded to cover all relevant aspects of the preselections that emerge.

Before I get any further, I would like to say this: media should not denote any spot on the Tasmanian Senate ballot as "unwinnable".  Unwinnable, obviously, means it is impossible to win.  Lisa Singh was dumped to a so-called "unwinnable" spot in 2016, and won, as a result of below the line votes.  Clearly then her spot was not unwinnable!   It's embarrasing to hear intelligent journalists say stuff like "Lisa Singh was elected from an unwinnable position".   An acceptable alternative to "unwinnable position" is "position winnable only through below the line voting".  This description applies to all positions below 3 for either major party.

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.

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 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.

State Election Post-Count Thread: Braddon

This is the last of my state election post-counting threads.  There is now one for each electorate and they will be updated frequently.  During the cutup (which starts in the middle of the week after next) I will be on remote fieldwork and will update nightly, but hope to take a day off at the peak counting time.

SEAT OUTCOME:  4-1-0 (Count finished) 
WINNERS: Brooks (Lib), Rockliff (Lib), Green (ALP), Jaensch (Lib), Rylah (Lib)

Braddon is the most fascinating of the five preference distributions unfolding before us, with a real chance something quite unusual could occur.  The Liberals have racked up a whopping 3.53 quotas (nearly 59%), Labor is on 1.40, PUP have 0.43, the Greens have 0.40, the Nationals 0.13 (headed up by their rogue candidate Ken Dorsey!) and the rest a trickle.  

Adam Brooks and Jeremy Rockliff are both way over quota, with 0.91 quotas surplus between them.  Bryan Green is far enough ahead of the rest of the Labor ticket that he will be elected, though it will take him a very long time to do so.  

The Liberals will obviously get at least one of Roger Jaensch and Joan Rylah over the line and the question is whether they can get two.  Their rivals for this feat are Brenton Best (ALP), Kevin Morgan (PUP) and Paul O'Halloran (Green).

State Election Post-Count: Franklin

This is the second of my state election post-counting threads.  There will be one for each electorate and they will be updated frequently.  During the cutup (which starts in the middle of the week after next) I will be on remote fieldwork and will update nightly, but hope to take a day off during the cutup.  

SEAT OUTCOME: 3 LIB 1 ALP 1 GREEN (Count Finished)
WINNERS: Hodgman (Lib), Giddings (ALP), McKim (Green), Petrusma (Lib), Harriss (Lib)

This thread concerns the post-count and preference cut-up in the seat of Franklin (results here).

In Franklin, the Liberals are currently on 2.99 quotas, Labor on 1.74 quotas, the Greens on 1.00 quotas, PUP on 0.22 quotas, and the Tasmanian Nationals have disgraced themselves by losing to the Socialist Alliance for last place.  

Will Hodgman has been elected with 2.10 quotas in his own right, a slight increase on the 1.90 quotas he polled in 2010.  Lara Giddings and Nick McKim have been re-elected.  The only remaining interest in the count is whether David O'Byrne can pull back enough of the Liberal lead to beat either Paul Harriss or Jacquie Petrusma as the Liberal total declines after leakage from Will Hodgman's massive surplus.

Libs' ReachTEL: Not Completely Over The Line

Liberal-Commissioned ReachTEL: Lib 48.8 ALP 25.8 Green 15.3 PUP 4.8 Nat 0.7 Other 4.6
Outcome based on this poll if election held now: Probable Liberal Majority Win (13-14 seats)

(Note added 15 Feb: While this poll was interesting at the time in apparently showing the Liberals in a not clearly winning position (adjusted for apparent house effects) I now have reason to doubt the adjustments and to suspect that this poll should in fact be taken on face value or nearly so.)

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The first thing to bear in mind when considering the Liberal Party commissioned ReachTEL that was released in the Mercury today is that it is a party-commissioned poll, and all party-commissioned polls should be treated with some caution, since parties only release them when it suits their purposes to do so.  You can bet your proverbial bottom dollar that if this poll had shown the Liberals on 37%, Labor on 35 and PUP and the Greens on 14% each, it would have been rapidly buried under a bush somewhere.  Likewise a poll showing the Liberals on, say, 57%, would have been a risky thing to release, because it might have caused voters who were wary of the Liberals but wanted majority government to believe the latter was in the bag and therefore there was no need to vote Liberal.  Robopolls are less expensive than operator dialling and this has led to a flood of internal polling in elections since they became commonplace.