Tasmanian pollsters EMRS have produced a survey of state voting intention from 1002 respondents which provides all kinds of bad news for Premier Paul Lennon. Support for Labor is down to 33 per cent from 39 per cent at the previous survey in March (and from 49.6 per cent at the March 2006 election), while the Liberals are up to 42 per cent from 37 per cent (31.9 per cent at the election). The Greens are steady on 22 per cent (16.2 per cent at the election). Worse still, a question on preferred premier has Liberal leader Will Hodgman on 39 per cent against 17 per cent for Paul Lennon, who is barely ahead of Greens leader Peg Putt (14 per cent). The agency has gone against its usual practice in failing to break the results down by electorate. Apple isle pundit Peter Tucker has more.
UPDATE (26/5/08): Lennon quits.
A note re EMRS polls and electorate-by-electorate distributions – they stopped publishing those some time ago for state polls because the margin of error of a 200-vote sample is such that trying to determine a likely Hare-Clark outcome from it is more or less pointless; the figures can easily be out by half a quota so you’re very unlikely to reliably learn anything that you don’t already know. (It didn’t help that the published projections based on these very small samples were quite often wrong even if you assumed that the sample was accurate!)
I have had a lot of queries about the process for recounting Lennon’s seat, so for anyone curious: what happens is that only Lennon’s #1s are thrown again, as he was in on the first count with over a quota. Any votes obtained by candidates from other sources are irrelevant. Only Labor’s Butler and Hulme have any chance, and given that Butler got far more Lennon #2s than Hulme (and is also higher profile as indicated by more primaries) it is virtually certain that Butler will be elected if he contests.
The corruption around Lennon is palpable. He’s in the backpockets of the timber industry which even blind freddy can now see.
I would have loved to see him go down in flames much like Howard did, but it seems he was so gutless he bailed out early… and wouldn’t surprise me if he gets a “golden handshake” on the way out the door from the timber industry.
This is what happens when politicians get too close to business. Looks like Libs will probably pick up Tassie as their first state win in ages, as long as they can position themselves as being the anti-pulp mill party(federal Libs damaged this position for them somewhat)
I wonder who will be elected by countback to repace him if he Quits his seat.
The other two Labor candidates in 2006 were Ross Butler, a schoolteacher for 37 and former Principal of Cosgrove High in Glenorchy, and Daniel Hume, then 26 and a former Young Labor President.
The election is conducted by calling for nominations from the defeated candidates at the 2006 election. To determine who fills the vacancy, all the ballot papers that elected Lennon in 2006 are re-examined. As Lennon was elected with more than a quota in his own right, the count is simply a matter of taking the 16,666 ballot papers he received, and distributing them to their next preferences.
Butler received 1,066 primary votes, and Hume 620, but at this by-election, both would start with zero votes.
When Lennon’s surplus to quota preferences were distributed in 2006, 2830 went to Paula Wriedt, 2171 to Lara Giddings, 515 to Butler and 228 to Hume and 262 leaked out of the Labor ticket.
At a by-election, the only preferences that count are those for candidates that nominate. As elected MPs Wriedt and Giddings are out of the count, which means the next preferences on those ballot papaers are counted. Based on the primary votes and Lennon’s preferences, you would have to guess that Butler would poll 2-to-1 amongst the other preferences as well, meaning Butler should achieve a majority on the first count.
That is if both Butler and Daniels nominate. If only one of them nominates, then they would be even more easily elected.
Thankyou Antony.
I did not know that there were fresh nominations involved in countback.
Countback should be used in all multi-member electorates.
Does anyone know why it was not the proposal put up in 1977 for the Senate?
The 1977 changes weren’t about the mechanics of filling casual vacancies, they were about the engineering of casual vacancies and also ensuring that vacancies were filled by a Senator from the same party.
The origins were the Gair Affair and the Albert Field appointment. The Gair Affair was where Whitlam arranged Gair’s ambassadorial appointment in 1974 to create an extra vacancy in the Queensland half-Senate election. At the time, Senators only filled a seat until the next House or Senate election was held. In Gair’s case, he was a long-term Senator, so his resignation increased the vacant Senato positions in Queensland in 1974 from 5 to 6, improving Labor’s chance of winning 3 seats. In the end, the QLD government issued the writ before Gair resigned, but events were then overtaken by a double dissolution.
Just as a side-light, this also meant you occassionaly got a Senate election for a single Senator. There was no half Senate election when Whitlam was elected in 1972. However, Neville Bonnor had filled a casual vacancy, and so went to a single-seat Senate election in 1972.
The other point of the 1977 amendments was to ensure casual vacancies came from the same party as the departing Senator. It was to stop appointments like Pat Field in 1975. That made a countback pointless, as what would happen if the next person on the ticket had left the party?
The other point was size. the quota in NSW is 500,000. You might have ended up counting 1.5 million ballot papers just to elect the next person on the ticket. All a bit pointless really.
LaborVoter – If the Liberals changed their position on the pulp mill they would suffer another serious defeat. The pulp mill will not be a major issue at the 2010 election… there’s nothing further to be done with it. The major issue will probably be health again, centred around the Hobart and Mersey hospitals most likely. Wether Labor maintains a majority or not and if not wether Labor or the Liberals win more seats are what will be determined at the next election. The Libs will not win a majority. No way.
47 Tassy Devil, your comments are absurd! Tasmania is an important and intergral part of the Commonwealth of Australia. Statehood is not about population, it is about historical fact. Tasmania is not over represented, if you are referring to it’s 5 House of Representative Members and its 12 Senators. All the states that make up the Commonwealth of Australia have the same number of Senators. You dont have to be a Rhodes Scholar to work out why? Tasmania is not over-governed, it has been badly governed by people who want to make the quick buck now and not look to the future at the real ‘goldmine’, its intrinsic beauty and uniqueness. Tasmania is fortunate to have the Hare-Clark system which is the envy of so many voters in other states. Tasmania is one of the most fabulous places on the planet. I dont live there now but that is where I am headed as soon as I retire.
I know very little about Tasmanian politics and the Lennon Government’s achievements or lack of.
However, to me, every time i saw or heard Paul Lennon i felt i was looking at or listening to a man who had been got at.
Curiosity requires me to ask of Antony – who would have been elected to the Senate in 1975 if there had been a countback? I know Mal Couston was the ALP nominee for the vacancy but I wonder who would have been next in line from a countback?
I should add that the same system of countback is used in WA to determine casual vacancies in the Leg Council – but it does require people to be willing and/or able to stand for election, requiring their re-nomination. Of course, if you elect all your candidates from a ticket (or they have died or are otherwise ineligible) and then you have a casual vacnacy this could become quite interesting!
A 1975 countback would have been carried out on 1974 votes and would have elected Mal Colston who was 5th on the Labor ticket.
And the WA LC uses a completely different countback method to Tasmania. It starts the whole count process again after first distributing preferences of the primary votes of the departing candidate. But after that re-count, only a candidate that has nominated for the vacancy can win the re-count. If the re-count winner has not nominated, other procedures are followed to fill the vacancy.
In Tasmania, re-counts only examine the votes that elected the departing candidate. The WA system is much fairer, as Hare-Clark re-counts severaly disadvantage any candidate who was the next highest polling on the party ticket, but was not excluded at the end of the count.
As an example of the problem in Tasmania, at the 2006 election, Michael Hodgman was the only elected Liberal in Denison. He was elected on the preferences of three other Liberals, but at the end of the count, the 2nd most popular Liberal Fabian Dixon had not been excluded. If Michael Hodgamn were to retire, then when his votes were examined, the other three Liberals would receive their primary votes back at full value. Dixon, because he was not excluded, would not get his primary votes back.
Note that this doesn’t affect the Lennon re-count as Lennon was elected with more than a quota in his own right..
With countback they should count the the votes of the retiring candidate plus the votes that have not elected anyone thus eliminating the problem Antony mentioned.
I knew about the general historical background of the 1977 Casual vacancy changes but was wondering if there was an obscure reason that the messy change was made instead of countback.
Antony, does the WA system create the possibility that a candidate from a party opposed to the party of the retiring member might get in on the recount (if they extremely narrowly missed out in the original election)?
Another oddity with Hare-Clark recounts in Tasmania is that some voters can double-dip on vote-value. Those who voted Lennon-Wriedt or Lennon-Giddings now have their votes back on the table at full value for Lennon’s recount, although a part of their vote was actually used to elect (and in theory is still held by) Wriedt or Giddings.
The recount that elected Lennon was quite unusual in that the retiring candidate (Ken Wriedt) was originally elected partway through the cutup of Lennon (which never needed to be completed), meaning that Lennon got the Lennon-Ken Wriedt votes back at full value, but didn’t get a sniff of those that were (someone else)-Lennon-Ken Wriedt.
Kevin, yes, but as the act also specifies the person must be a member of the same party as the departing MP at the time they were originally elected, anyone from another party elected at a recount would be unable to take their seat.
The Tasmanian electoral was changed in the 1980s so that if there were no candidates of a party’s ticket eligible to nominate for a vacancy, a new member from the same party could appointed. So far that provision has never been invoked.
During the NSW use of Hare-Clark between 1920-27, by-elections were filled by nomination, not count-back. The NSW Legislative Council used countback between 1977 and 1991 to fill casual vacancies, but the person elected then had to be confirmed by a joint sitting, and there was also a provision that required the member to be of the same party.
Albert Field has lived on in electoral acts around the country.
Tom, they didn’t even consider countback. As nearly all votes go straight down the ticket in the Senate, even before group ticket voting, it was a lot of effort for little reward. Storing millions of ballot papers for up to six years just wasn’t worth the effort if all it would ever ending up doing is electing the next person on the ticket. While in 1977 they changed the way Senate casual vacancies were filled and the length of term, they retained the same mechanism of them being appointed, that is by a joint sitting of state parliament.
Kevin, I might be wrong on the WA LC point. The reference to party only occurs where a party has no candidate eligible to nominate for a vacancy, in which case a re-count does not occur and a real by-election can be held.
However, as WA uses ticket voting, elected candidates either lead their party’s ticket and have all the ticket votes, or are on a lower rung of the group and have only a tiny primary vote. So the chances of someone from another group being elected to a vacancy are extremely remote though possible.
They could record all of the preferences of all the votes at election time then do a count without the actual ballot papers. This is more feasable now computers are used for the actual count in the Senate.
Entirely true Tom, but that wasn’t the case in 1977. The Constitution has been changed now and can’t be altered without another referendum.
I know.
Socrates, thanks for some interesting comments and links. They’ve raised my level of suspicion about the business case, although I’m not wholly convinced yet – surely some financial people who get paid lots must think the idea makes sense (or made sense when they looked at it last). I concede that it is certainly an issue that has become code for other things (there’s fault to go around here) and it is the nature of such issues to be quite difficult for mildly interested outsiders like me to evaluate.
Stewart & Antony, I’d forgotten about Mal Colston’s earlier claim to fame. The irony!
Stewart, your analysis of the 1998 MP reduction is a common one (ie that it was done simply to drive out the Greens). There’s a bit more context to it than that and no-one comes out looking perfect, I would submit. From memory, when the Groom Government gave Tassie politicians a 40% payrise in the early 90s (a predictably popular move from a man who, as an electoral strategist, was a good footballer) there was some faux move to reduce the size of Parliament on over-government grounds at the same time, designed to be blocked by the LC (which it was). Groom sold the two as linked, creating some degree of genuine public pressure for a reduction.
When the issue was revisited and resolved later there were a range of proposals (and motivations) floating round. From memory again, Labor’s was initially for a single chamber with some sort of dual electoral system where, in effect, the Greens would get a say on legislation but government would be determined on a two-party preferred basis (like most other states you could say). Some of the commentary on the final changes also overlooks one basic fact – the LC, dominated by conservatives with their own agendas, had to pass the legislation. I stand to be corrected on this but my understanding was also that the reduction hasn’t actually changed a result yet (ie Bacon and Lennon would likely still have won their majorities under the old size if you assume the same vote shares) and that there is a reasonable psephological case for saying that it hasn’t disadvantaged the Greens in the long term (in terms of holding the balance of power) so long as they keep their base vote somewhere near where it is now.
It’s a pity the EMRS poll didn’t give a gender breakdown this time. Sample size wouldn’t seem to the issue because they still give age breakdowns and the cohorts there would be even smaller. The last one seemed to show that Hodgman’s support as preferred Premier was significantly stronger among women than among men.
Molesworth, sorry, but the Greens would have won four seats in 1998 and produced either a hung Parliament or a one-seat Labor majority. Labor would have won a majority anyway in both 2002 and 2006, but politics would have been very different had 1998 produced another hung parliament.
And your chronology on various proposals for reform is muddled, though I can’t quite remember the sequence myself. But the Groom government did get the Legislative Council reduction from 19 to 15 through, after which Labor’s single house proposal disappeared off the agenda. Between 1996 and 1998, Labor was putting up the 5×5 proposal, and Liberal Bob Cheek crossed the floor to support it. I think the Green proposal was for 4×7. The Greens had said from day one they would bring down the Rundle government if it supported Labor’s proposal. In mid-1998, Rundle decided the best chance of re-election was backing Labor’s bill and calling an early election. This they did and then came respectibly close to being re-elected with their ‘sell the hydro to save the state’ campaign.
Labor should re-visit it’s earlier one house proposal, as there are real problems with the lack of members in the current House of Assembly.
Antony, thanks for the corrections, everything you say sounds about right except the bit about Groom getting the LC reduction through at an earlier stage, but I’m not sure. You’re right that politics would have been very different if 1998 had produced another hung parliament. I don’t think there’s any guarantee we would still have the same electoral system today. The reduction might have been a blessing in disguise for the Greens, by taking the heat out of the issue when things could have turned very nasty for them.
I also suspect that some people thought the Greens’ long-term support was a bit lower than it actually turned out to be, when all this was under active consideration. If the Greens retain enough support to hold seats in Denison, Franklin and Lyons, which is not really an unreasonable assumption now they seem to have entrenched themselves, Labor can only ever win a majority if the Liberals perform absolutely disastrously. The last two elections though, the Liberals did. And even if the Greens only win a seat in Denison, that still gives them a very good shot at the balance of power in a close election if the Liberals win three seats in Bass and Braddon (where they have traditionally been strongest, since at least Gray’s time). I don’t think the Greens have too much to complain about re biases in the current system, really. If the Liberals do recover, the Greens are in a very good position, and will be for the foreseeable future.
I agree re the single, larger house proposal – a government backbench would be good for accountability and for other reasons. Trouble is, will the turkeys ever vote for Christmas? (Using that term for the LC only because it’s in the phrase, of course.) And if they won’t vote to end their political careers, will any government be able to sell an increase in the lower house’s size (even if the LC let them do it)? Hard to see any of these things happening the way things are. But maybe the LC will change over time. Maybe the major parties might one day have a majority between them, which would make things interesting.
Actually, here’s a brief background on the 1998 changes (in neutral language):
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/InfoSheets/reform_1998.htm
I was stuck yesterday trying to remember what the Groom government did to change the Legislative Council. After checking last night, it all came back. They got a redistribution through that finally did away with the old electorates and their huge inequalities in enrolment. It broke the powerbase of some of the more obstructionist Independents and was important for getting later changes through.
The ANZ will not fund the pulp mill. They have not provided a reason. Interesting. This does not, of course, sink the project.
Re the effect of 25 seats vs 35 seats on the 1998 result I discussed this in moderate depth in an old piece at http://www.tasmaniantimes.com/jurassic/bonhamlester.html and reached the conclusion that Labor would very probably not have won a majority on the same vote levels in a 35 seat house. The most likely result would have been 16 or 17 Labor, 14 Liberal, 4 or 5 Green. Labor won a majority in the 25-seat house in 1998 because they got a majority of seats (3-2) in four electorates (Denison the exception), but under the 35-seat system at least two of those and probably three (as well as Denison) would have split 3-3-1.
Another example where it may have made a difference was 1989; it’s possible under the 25-seat system that Gray’s Liberals would have just stayed in majority had the House been 25 seats at the time (as it was, they missed majority government by a seat).
When the Green vote is low, then the 25-seat system generally increases the chance of majority government compared to the 35-seat system. When it is high it is likely to make no difference but could work either way depending on how the votes are split up.
Blackbird
ANZ’s funding decision does sink the project (hurray!). Gunns, despite their sincerity in claiming the project is a winner, are not putting up all their own cash (curious…). The only other option is govenment funding; Tasmania doesn’t have that sort of $ spare and no mainland government would dare put federal cash in – electoral suicide.
Don’t cry for the pulp mill. As I said before, Dr Peter Brain is a very reputable economist on employment impacts (he did the last employment forcasts for major transport studies in Brisbane). If someone of his calibre says the impacts may be negative, he’s probably right. Gunns might have made some money, but the losses to other industries would have exceeded it. Jobs wise, its a no-brainer not to do it; timber is not a very labor intensive industry as it has become increasingly mechanised. By constrast the threatened industries in the valley (wine and fishing) are labor intensive. I know more reasons about this that I can’t discuss but, suffice to say, the mill was a turkey.
I am not debating the merits of the mill. Simply saying regardless – it will go ahead. The mill will be funded by international financiers, apparently Gunns has been in talks with foreign banks for some time and are very confident of reaching a deal.
Wow bring on the next election the Libs may just win one for once!
80 Hubris
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hubris
Thanks Kevin.
On the mill, has there been any talk that ANZ might have been worried about sovereign risk (meaning a hung parliament)?
The mill is gone. They can spin it all they like but this is a big setback, and by the early noises coming out of the new leadership in Tas the total free ride from the government there may be coming to an end. It will be surprising if they can drum up that sort of cash from “international banks” in the current financial crisis, and the ANZ experience suggests that consumer backlash is a real concern for any bank getting involved in the project.
Tasmania should do something intelligent like taking advantage of its remaining pristine wilderness to position itself as one of the few places on earth which is in a first world democracy but also contains beautiful old growth forests and wide open spaces (and isn’t a desert). Rather than, say, cutting it all down and replacing it with pollution and a large factory.
steve i said ‘may’ that’s not declaring that we’re going to win which would be hubris.
Glen I am sure you will be disappointed by the behaviour of Gunns in not being able to create a state of the art mill too. Some companies just cut corners as a matter of course, are not visionary and progressive and end up putting forward proposals that damage everybody associated with them. The damage does seem to be spreading. Keep your head down and hard hat on in case we learn that your mob was associated with Gunns.
Ross Butler elected to Franklin with a majority on first count, as Antony predicted above. Actually slightly closer than I thought it would be; Butler got 54.5% on the recount, Hulme 36.7%, Goodwin (Lib) 3.1% and the other six candidates the remaining slops. 72 votes exhausted; I am guessing most of these voted for all five sitting members across party lines.