There Aint No Stability Clause

This article is part of my 2024 Tasmanian state election coverage; main page includes a link to effective voting guide and candidate guides and other articles.

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I feel somehow responsible, but it is probably coincidence. A few days ago I decided to put a bit of low-level Hung Parliament Club propaganda back in its box by explaining why I do not support four year fixed terms for Tasmania.  Among other things they infringe undesirably on the Premier's ability to seek a fresh mandate when the Parliament goes pearshaped.  I explained at the bottom why I do not consider New Zealand style party hopping laws to be an alternative solution.  Days later, along comes the government with a policy for ... New Zealand style party hopping laws.  What hell is this?  

For those who came in late, we are here in part because the former Gutwein Liberal Government preselected one Lara Alexander to run as a candidate for Bass in 2021.  She wasn't seen in the campaign except for her campaign manager complaining that she was being muzzled.  She got next to no votes but was later elected on a recount.  It has subsequently transpired that Alexander is a very odd politician - in particular her talent for inscrutable and apparently self-contradictory comments about confidence in government.  Had the Liberals allowed her to speak for herself before nominations closed this would probably have been obvious within minutes and they could have disendorsed her and picked somebody else.  But they didn't.  We are also here because - for some reason that has never been explained though I've wondered if it was anything to do with this - the Government later decided to make a former TV presenter Primary Industries minister instead of a career farmer, and the latter started or continued accumulating grudges.  

This is not the first time the Liberals have had unity problems - in the previous term Sue Hickey nabbed the Speakership against her party's nominee Rene Hidding and then voted against party policy on gender birth certificate reforms and mandatory sentencing.  However Hickey remained a Liberal until she was disendorsed, precipitating the 2021 election.

Ipswich West and Inala Live

Ipswich West (ALP 14.4% - resignation of Jim Madden (ALP)

   Labor loses seat with 2PP swing of around 18%

Inala (ALP 28.2% - resignation of Annastacia Palaszczuk (ALP)

   Labor retains with 2PP swing in low 20%s.

Comments scrolling to top - refresh every 15 mins or so during counting for new comments

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11:30 End of night wrap: Although the ABC haven't called this seat yet for some reason, I want to make it clear there is no coming back for Labor in Ipswich West and why I called it hours ago.  They are currently over 1300 behind on 2PP counted votes, but adding in primary votes yet to be added that jumps out to over 1500, and it will probably be more (or at least not substantially less) after preferences.  And then, apart from the pretty standard Yamanto booth that has not reported yet (assuming it will do so) there are only about 3000 postals to come and there would have to be a swing to Labor on them, which there will not be (though they may not swing nearly as badly as the booths).  There is nothing in the booth counts to suggest any errors either.   [UPDATE 12:00 Many postals have now been added and have been similar to the booth swing.]

I expected both of these to go over the historic swing averages (in the case of Inala as adjusted for a Premier retirement) but they have done so by close to 10%.  They are reminiscent of the famous Stafford and Redcliffe beltings suffered by the Newman government on the way to the enormous swing against it in 2015.  I am not expecting the Miles Labor government to suffer anything like so large a swing at this year's election but I have for a long time been expecting Labor to lose in October and to probably do so decisively (but it might yet be close).  This is simply what is to be expected given that it will be a nearly ten year old government that is the same party as the party in power federally.  

Aside from the LNP, tonight's other winner is Legalise Cannabis who have again done very well in a by-election, including beating One Nation in a seat where One Nation was finishing second at a general election as recently as 2017.    

Why I Don't Support Fixed Four Year Terms For Tasmania

This is part of my 2024 Tasmanian state election coverage (link to main page here including link to effective voting advice), but is also a standalone article.

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The last two Tasmanian Parliaments have ended early.  The 2018-2021 parliament ended ten months early after independent-minded Liberal Sue Hickey was disendorsed and quit the party, and then-Premier Peter Gutwein argued the loss of the Liberals' majority meant an election was desirable.  The 2021-2024 parliament has ended thirteen and a half months early following trouble for the Rockliff Government with two backbenchers who moved to the crossbench in May 2022.  Tasmania is the only state that has not moved to fixed-term elections, but there had not been a seriously early election before these two since 1998, and there is a widespread lack of understanding about the historic conventions under which the Governor considers requests for an early election.   (A note that Tasmania's upper house does have fixed terms, but with elections on a rotating basis.)

I covered many of the misconceptions about calling an early election in 2021, and 2024 has seen a lower-level repeat of many of the same incorrect claims.  A Premier who holds the confidence of the House based on votes that have been cast on the floor - whether or not that looks likely to remain the case - is well entitled by precedent to be granted an early election in order to seek a fresh mandate based on newly arising issues or policies, because the workability of the Parliament is in question or for many other reasons.  It is not even clear that a Premier who is well into their term needs much of a reason at all.  The spurious idea that the Premier should test their support on the Parliament's floor before seeking an election has also been doing the rounds again - this confuses what happens at the start of a Parliament to the end.  

uComms: Labor Just 23: How Much Stock Should We Put In This?

This article is part of my 2024 Tasmanian election coverage - link to main page including links to electorate guides and effective voting advice.

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uComms (Australia Institute) Liberal 37.1 Labor 23 Green 13.7 JLN 8.5 IND 12.8 others 5.0
Seat estimate if poll was accurate Lib 14 ALP 10 Green 4 JLN 2-3 IND 4-5
Poll should be treated with caution.

Today saw the the release of the third Tasmanian campaign poll by an established and identified pollster, this one being a uComms for the left-wing Australia Institute.

From the outset I should note some usual cautions.  uComms polls by automated phone polling (formerly all robopolling, lately a mix of SMS and voice robopolling).  The poll employs very primitive weighting (age, gender and location only, with no attempt to weight by any indicator of political engagement such as education).  At the 2021 election an Australia Institute uComms poll which I disputed at the time (What's This Then?  Commissioned Poll Claims Liberals In Trouble) was hopelessly inaccurate, underestimating the Liberals by over 7% and overestimating Labor by nearly 4 and independents by nearly 5.  There was never any attempt to explain why this poll got it so wrong.  

Redbridge Says It's A Multi-Party Mess As Voters Flee Liberals

This article is part of my 2024 Tasmanian election coverage - link to main page including links to electorate guides and effective voting advice

Redbridge Lib 33 ALP 29 Green 14 JLN 10 IND/Other 14
My estimate 13-14 Liberal 10-12 ALP 4-5 Green 2-3 JLN 2-6 IND

The second Tasmanian campaign poll by an established and known pollster is out, with Victorian-centred outfit Redbridge releasing its first ever public poll of Tasmanian voting intention.  The sample size is smallish (753 voters) and the sample is spread out over two weeks (Feb 14-28).  

They have also released these combined breakdowns: Bass/Braddon/Lyons Liberal 35 Labor 27 Green 11 JLN 14 Other 14, Clark/Franklin Liberal 30 Labor 31 Greens 18 JLN 4 (ie 8 in Franklin as not running in Clark) Other 17

There is more to come on this poll, including one of the most amusing crosstabs you will ever see, but for now just a quick note on the voting intention numbers.  The Redbridge numbers are significantly worse for the Liberals than both the EMRS public poll and the huge-sample mystery poll of unknown veracity and quality, and very similar to the YouGov poll from January, except that they have treated the Lambie and IND/others votes more normally.  (They've only listed parties in seats they are running in.)

Redbridge have released a seat estimate of 12 Liberal 11 Labor 6 Green 3 JLN 3 Independent based on modelling off mini-samples.  I would expect off these state primaries (based on testing them against my model of the recent EMRS breakdowns) that the Greens would not do quite so well; six seats off 14% would be very lucky.   I got estimates of 13-14 Liberal, 10-12 ALP, 4-5 Green, 2-3 JLN and 2-6 IND for these numbers.  

How To Best Use Your Vote In The 2024 Tasmanian Election

An updated edition is now up for 2025.

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This piece is part of my Tasmanian 2024 election coverage - link to main guide page including links to my electorate guides and other articles.  

This piece is written to explain to voters how to vote in the 2024 Tasmanian election so their vote will be most powerful.  It is not written for those who just want to do the bare minimum - if you just want to vote as quickly as possible and don't care how effective your vote is then this guide is not for you.  It is for those who care about voting as effectively as possible and are willing to put some time into understanding how to do so.  

Please feel free to share or forward this guide or use points from it to educate confused voters.  Just make sure you've understood those points first!  I may edit in more sections later.

Please do not ask me what is the most effective way to vote for a specific party or candidate as opposed to in general terms.

Oh, and one other thing.  Some people really agonise about their votes, spend many hours over them and get deeply worried about doing the wrong thing.  Voting well is worth effort, but it's not worth that.  The chance that your vote will actually change the outcome is low.  

Effective Voting Matters!

I'll give a recent example of why effective voting matters.  In 2021 the final seat in Clark finished with 10145 votes for Liberal Madeleine Ogilvie, 9970 votes for independent Kristie Johnston and 8716 votes for independent Sue Hickey.  As there were no more candidates to exclude at this point Hickey finished sixth while Ogilvie and Johnston took the last two seats.  Had the two independents had 1606 more votes in the right combination, Ogilvie would have lost instead, and the Liberals would not have won a majority.  But during the count, 2701 votes had been transferred from Labor and Green candidates to "exhaust".  All these were voters who did not number any of Ogilvie, Johnston and Hickey.  Many would have voted 1-5 for Labor and Green candidates (mostly Labor) and then stopped.  There were enough votes that left the system because voters stopped numbering that the outcome could have been different.

Making Seats "Marginal" At By-Elections Is Meaningless

Last night saw the Labor government get the good end of the stick in the Dunkley by-election, easily retaining a seat that was precariously above the long-term average swing for government vacancy by-elections.  It's no disaster for the Liberals who have got a modest swing with some mitigating factors but they (especially Jane Hume) were out in force last night spinning the outcome as a triumph.  Together with the usual nonsense about first-term governments not in recent decades losing seats and governments not losing by-elections caused by deaths (both based on trivially small sample sizes) I heard a lot about how they had turned Dunkley marginal and they were coming for the seat.

Marginal seat status where a seat is retained is determined by general election results not by-elections (so Dunkley is no more a marginal seat than it was before), but this made me wonder, does getting a seat inside the marginal range at a by-election predict anything at all?  I've found that such seats have historically almost always been retained by the government at the next election, although on average the election-to-election swing has been worse than the national average in such cases.  The idea that the Liberals have put Dunkley in serious danger next time with a swing that is not even bog-average for a government vacancy by-election has no basis.  

Dunkley By-Election Live

DUNKLEY (ALP, Vic 6.27%)

Jodie Belyea (ALP) vs Nathan Conroy (Lib) and others
By-election caused by death of Peta Murphy (ALP)

CALLED 8:42 pm Labor retain

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Updates appear here, scrolling to the top.  When counting is underway refresh every 10-15 mins for new comments.  

Thursday: Labor is now very close to winning the postal count and the 2PP is now 52.71; it is likely to finish between that number and 53.  The Australian published an incorrect article today referring to a 10% drop in turnout; the count does not finish until all postals that can be admitted are received 13 days after polling day.  The turnout is currently 83.5% and there should be about 1% or so to come; the turnout decline will be smaller than at least 16 of the last 20 by-elections, potentially 18.  Media should not publish turnout doomery articles without consulting with the AEC or someone who has a clue.  

Tuesday: With vote totals unlikely to change by even 1% from here it's worth noting an outstanding performance by the uComms seat poll.  I've been critical of poor results from this pollster recently (especially Tasmania 2021) but this one is remarkably good by seat poll standards especially. uComms' numbers with undecided redistributed are below with the actual current numbers in brackets:

ALP 40.1 (41.1)

Lib 39.3 (39.3)

Grn 8.2 (6.3)

LTN 1.6 (2.5)

Ind/Other 10.8 (10.8)

2PP 52 (52.6)

n=626.

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.