2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Franklin

This is the Franklin 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.

Franklin (Currently 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green)

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

Urban/outer urban/treechange/rural

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Clark

This is the Clark 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.

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

(When election was called 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 2 Independent)

(2018 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green)

Western shore Hobart, primarily Hobart City and Glenorchy City

Inner and outer urban

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Braddon

 This is the Braddon 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.

Braddon (Currently 3 Liberal 2 Labor). 

North-west and western Tasmania including Devonport, Burnie and Ulverstone

Regional/rural/remote

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Bass

This is the Bass 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.

Bass (Currently 3 Liberal 2 Labor). 
North-east Tasmania including most of Launceston
Mixed urban/small-town/rural

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Main Page

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Header added 2 May: The election has been run and the Liberals are the largest party but it remains to be determined for sure whether they have a majority.  

Postcount threads are being unrolled:

Clark 

Windermere and Derwent

Bass

Braddon

Franklin (zzzzz)

Lyons

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Welcome to the main page for my 2021 Tasmanian state election coverage.  This page will carry links to all the other articles about the election that I write prior to the close of polling, and will contain general big-picture stuff and links to all the specialised articles (once these are written).  It will be updated very frequently.  Each electorate has its own guide page.  Note that these are my own guides and I reserve the right to inject flippant and subjective comments whenever I feel like it; if you do not like this, write your own.

Tasmanian Snap Election? Early Elections and Majority vs Minority

Following the resignation of Sue Hickey from the Liberal Party, placing the Gutwein Government into minority, there have been strong rumours since Wednesday afternoon of a May 1 snap election.  Whether or not the election is actually called for this date or soon, I thought it would be interesting to cover some of the history.

The resignation of Sue Hickey from the Liberal Party presents no clear threat to confidence in the government.  Hickey has promised continued confidence in the government in the absence of "corruption", but notwithstanding her definition of "corruption" or whether the government can trust her, they presently have another confidence vote if needed from Madeleine Ogilvie.  So I classify this as an unforced early election.

However, the spectacle of recent days and the constant goading that losing a majority brings would be unappealling for the Government.  It seems most likely that the Government brought on Hickey's departure having already decided to go to an election ASAP, perhaps inspired by the example of the McGowan government which has been massively re-elected and which has followed a similar COVID-19 storyline to Tasmania.  There is however one major difference between Tasmania and WA: federal drag.  In the absence of COVID-19, McGowan's government would have been expected to increase its majority anyway (though not by as much as it has), while Gutwein's would have been expected to go backwards.

Sue Hickey Disendorsed And Leaves The Liberal Party

I am still on remote fieldwork for another few days but the developments of the last two days deserve a quick post.  Yesterday Tasmanian House of Assembly Speaker Sue Hickey and Premier Peter Gutwein both announced that Gutwein had told Hickey that there was insufficient support for re-endorsing her as a Liberal candidate in the next Tasmanian state election.  While no formal endorsement announcements have been made, this effectively ensures that Hickey is disendorsed.  

What got us here?

For interstate and international audiences and any Tasmanians who have spent the last few years down a cave, Hickey is a former Hobart Lord Mayor, small businesswoman and long-time and long-suffering Liberal who was elected to state parliament in 2018, polling just under two-thirds of a quota in her own right.  Even before her election, Hickey had showed that she was about as left-wing as one can get in the Liberal Party without falling off the edge of the plane.  She was overlooked for an immediate ministry, but claimed she had been promised a ministry if she ran and was elected.  On the first day of the parliament, Hickey accepted a nomination from the opposition benches and was elected Speaker instead of the Government's nominee Rene Hidding.  It was a secret ballot but one can safely assume Hickey's thirteen votes were ten Labor, two Greens and herself.  

AsiNine: NSW Labor Not At Hundred-Year Low

With much attention on the Western Australian election and also a rather interesting Newspoll this weekend, unfortunately there was a third story that saw some of the most lamentable poll reporting that has been seen from a major network for a while.  I've put the other matters aside for an hour or two now, because what has happened here needs to be strongly condemned.

The first I saw of this poll was a news item tweeted by the Nine News Sydney account, concerning a disaster poll for NSW Labor, one supposedly finding that the party's primary vote was lower than at any election since 1904, and worse even than the 2011 debacle.  The Twitter video of the news report was three minutes and 18 seconds long.  I watched it three times in disbelief that a report of such a momentous poll did not even name the pollster involved, let alone state who had commissioned the poll.  Then I ranted about it on Twitter.  Then I watched it a fourth time just to make sure that I hadn't just made a real fool of myself.  But it was real - 198 seconds complete with interviews with ex-Premier Morris Iemma, but no mention of the pollster's name.  This alone was quite ridiculous.

(I've been told there is a longer version that does name the pollster, but haven't seen it, and don't know how widely versions with and without the pollster named were broadcast.)

WA 2021 Legislative Council Postcount

Note added 1 April: I have had no time to update this page because of the Tasmanian snap election.  Button press comments and final results comments are being added on a new thread.

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It seems a bit dubious to be calling what is going on in WA at the moment a "postcount" when on the Monday morning after the main count we are only at 43% counted in the lower house (about half the votes that will be included) and a similar level upstairs.  However, that's the convention so I'll stick with it, especially since I won't have time for anything I could flatter by calling it a live counting thread.

Anyway for now I have not started a lower house postcount thread for time reasons.  The lower house result currently looks like probably 53-2-4 or 52-3-4, with Liberal-held Churchlands most in doubt.  There is also some doubt about Liberal-held Carine and Nedlands (both of which Labor is leading), the Nationals' Warren-Blackwood (Nationals leading) and the ABC still has the Nationals' North-West Central (Labor leading) in doubt, possibly because the seat is so varied (Poll Bludger projects an easy Labor win).  I suggest keep an eye on PB for further developments in the Lower House; if a seat is still interesting once the percentage counted gets much closer to completion I may have more to say.

This thread will follow counting in the six Legislative Council threads, and I will gradually unroll them as my very limited time permits.  Just for starters I thought it was worthwhile putting up some general notes on the counts.