EMRS: 41-35 to Liberal in Tasmania

Hot on the heels of their Pembroke by-election win, the latest EMRS poll provides a further shot in the arm for the Tasmanian Liberals. The survey of 864 voters finds them ahead of Labor for the first time since David Bartlett replaced Paul Lennon as Premier in May 2008. The Liberals are up five points to 41 per cent, while Labor have crashed eight to 35 per cent. The Greens have also benefited from Labor’s collapse, up four points to 21 per cent. The news from the preferred premier ratings is even better for the Liberals: Will Hogdman is up six points to 37 per cent, taking the lead for the first time from Bartlett who is down nine to 30 per cent. Greens leader Nick McKim is up two to 15 per cent. Electorate breakdowns are also provided, for those willing to take such small sample sizes seriously. Much more from Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

153 comments on “EMRS: 41-35 to Liberal in Tasmania”

Comments Page 2 of 4
1 2 3 4
  1. Possum is right, but the real point of comparison is with the Labor Party’s woes in the late 1960s.

    In late 1969, Labor was out of government everywhere in Australia. It was being killed by demographics. All the research is still available in the Australian Election Study, written up beautifully by Don Aitkin in “Stability and Change in Australian Politics”.

    The findings were daming. Labor in 1970 had little appeal to young voters, to women and to migrants. Labor’s core support base was aging, over 65 voters who’d grown up before the war. They were predominantly male and working class. Labor lost the 1949 election to Menzies because Labor was still trapped to the politics of want from the 1930s, while Menzies recognised that politics was increasingly dominated by the polutics of relative affluence. That division continued for years.

    All through the 1950s and 1960s, first time voters were attracted to the Coaltion. Even in the Vietnam War election of 1966, the Coalition’s strongest age group was under 25s, mainly because of the massive gender gap. Labor was led by 70 year-old Arthur Calwell, who spent the 1966 Campaign reminding people of his battle against conscription in 1916. No wonder young people didn’t relate to him.

    And as for migrants, all the post-war Eastern European migrants were fervently anti-communist and had little attraction to Labor. Even the new arrivals from southern europe were politically split and brought with them the battles about communism from home.

    The age break down started to turn around in 1970 after Whitlam became leader. You can still see 1970 as a turning point if you dig back through any data. The Whitlam government also started to specifically address migration issues in that era, as any one who remembers Al Grassby will remember.

    The change for Labor came after the 1977 election defeat when a wholescale review of policy and campaigning was undertaken to address the party’s electoral weakensses. The gender gap was the most glaring, and ever since the party has always ensured it has a specific women’s policy. The 1980 election was the first where the Labor Party put the flag in the party logo, a deliberate step to change the party’s marketing and controversial in the party at the time. And in 1983, the party broke with tradition and dumped a leader to make sure it won an election. Another turning point was the ALP conference (in 1984?) that debated allowing foreign banks into the country, a point when you can say Labor finally ditched economic arguments that had hung around in Labor doctrine since the great depression.

    The Liberal Party will have to go through the same soul searching at some point. The first term in opposition has seen them sitting and waiting for Labor to stuff up. I think like Labor in 1977, it might take a second big defeat before the party has a good think about its future.

    It will have to address trying to appeal to young people, where currently its only appeal seems to have been about getting a job or buying a house. It will have to deal with identity politics, and with symbolic issues, in the same way Conservative Party leader David Cameron has been trying in the UK.

    The Liberal Party has a serious problem with younger voters, and has done now for three decades. The only modern Liberal leader who ever had real and made real attempt to appeal to younger voters was Jeff Kennett. However, his stuff up in 1999 caused a lot of the Liberal Party to ditch his attempts to broaden the Liberal appeal on social issues.

  2. Oh, and Labor made some very very tough decisions on stepping in and fixing disfunctional state branches. The intervention in Victoria in 1970, and Queensland in 1980, were very divisive at the time, but a decade later they produced rewards.

  3. William/Possum – why in this day and age are there still some by-elections such as Pembroke where the electoral commission feel they don’t need to distribute all preferences for a two candidate preferred result for statistical purposes?

  4. [Habit and limited resources would be my guess.]

    Yet the SAEC can determine both a 2pp and a 2cp result in a by-election…

  5. [The SAEC have to by law. The TEC don’t have to and don’t.]

    Ahhh interesting. Thanks.

    When did it become law anyway? Bannon’s reforms after 1989? Dunstan’s after 1975? Hall’s after 1968?

  6. [why in this day and age are there still some by-elections such as Pembroke where the electoral commission feel they don’t need to distribute all preferences for a two candidate preferred result for statistical purposes?]

    In these Legislative Council elections it is pretty common that one candidate absolutely thumps the field without getting a majority on primaries. Also the contests are rarely between two parties, so it’s not like there’s a swing figure that parties are hanging on for statistical purposes. If they figure the final 2CP figure in a one-sided Legislative Council seat is only really interesting to a handful of psepho tragics then I hate to say it, but they’re probably right. Shame, I’d be very interested to know how Goodwin’s share of Green prefs scrubs up compared to Allison Ritchie’s, but that we will never know.

    I have a piece up on the EMRS poll here: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/labor-rolls-back-down-the-mountain-linz-or-jimbo/ – covers a lot of similar territory to Peter’s and Antony’s articles.

  7. So what likely confederations are likely in a hung parliament? Will the ALP stay on with Greens backing but without a formal coalition like they have in the ACT? Or could the Greens enter a formal coalition with one of the others? Or could there be a grand coalition?

  8. I don’t think there would be a grand coalition. If it failed the Green vote would go through the roof and if it worked the senior partner would win government in their own right. Nothing in it for the junior partner either way.

  9. what if the numbers are tied at 10-10-5? Then there will be no senior partner. I suppose one of them has to get the premiership but this would be made up for with more ministries for the other party I’d imagine.

  10. 65

    Well if it is 10-10-5, the Greens are not negotiated with and the big two can`t agree then there is a way that the Governor could focus their minds very quickly.

  11. Tom, would that by any chance be to make the Greens the interim government? 😀
    I think they’d have a hard time with just five ministers.

  12. 67

    The smallness of the Tasmanian Parliament is the major stumbling block. The Tasmanian cabinet has 9 ministers I believe. That is 4 who would have to be MLCs. I think that they might have some trouble recruiting MLCs who were not retiring at their next election. If the House of Assemble was 35 and the result was 14-14-7 then only 2 MLCs (or MHA defectors) would be needed. If the House of Assembly was re-increased then the Legislative Council might be too. Could this cause there to be the possibility of a Green MLC?

  13. If during a grand-coalition the ALP and Libs get too worried about a voter backlash, could they introduce single-seat electorates? Many would dispise them for it and the pretence of democracy would be undermined but at least they’d get rid of the pesky Opposition Greens – or at least lower their representation and then they can return to their duopoly on power, taking turns to rule similar agendas – beautiful democracy.

    Actually, even if legal, I don’t think they’d dare. It’s a thought though.

  14. 70

    Yes

    The Legislative Council requires 3 preferences and the House of Assembly requires 5 (the number of seats to be filled).

  15. 69

    Such a change would probably be favourable to the ALP as they are the natural party of government in Tasmania. There have only been 5 terms of Liberal government in Tasmania and two of them were in minority and those were short because of that.

    Another bad change would be the introduction of 1919-49 Senate style preferential block voting which would likely lead to an ALP government most of the time.

  16. bob1234,

    We are talking Tasmania, here. Politics down there has a sectarian fury that larger States would have trouble matching…

  17. This is interesting stuff, its is a debate that will mature, let me make some points.
    History repeats, Menzies courted the DLP, he took them out for meals, he took them to the pictures, he took them to the local dance. He took them home and he slept with them,. He never abused the relationship, and whilst they never married. they both respected each other in the morning. Compare this to the ALP. Boys they are. They are in the local pub, they meet a young attractive thing, she is a bit Green but gowing quickly. The ALP (for example read State Sec in Vic Steve Newmann) instead of building a long term relationship, get pissed take the young thing home, have there way and then go straight back down the pub, brag to their mates about having had thier way etc. The Vic State Sec even goes public and Brags about how his strategy of attacking the Greens won some short term gain, not to mention the stupidity of the Feilding Affair. Anyway back to our young couple, the Greens give thier 10% right into the ALP TPP. they are confused, why does he treat me this way etc. Next week/election the ALP is still feeling pretty good about himself and offers to buy the young thing a drink, now she might be a bit young but shes not stupid. She takes the drink and throws it in his face. The moral of the story here is that the ALP are runing to the end of their relationship with the Greens. Rumours coming out of the Greens are things like ‘open tickets’ etc. In states such as Victoria they have nothing to lose. The ALP have never given them one thing.
    The fact that there is talk of ALP LIB coalitions highlight the great threat to the old parties and that is this, the Greens are the opposition on many issues, it takes a swift move, one coalition of the olds and its on. All those who are always against the government suddenly vote green. The G vote goes to 25% overnight and the olds never recover. Wishful thinking?? Its about time the ALP boys woke up to the fact that their dealings with the greens has been short sighted and detrimental to their own interests in the long run. Not just detrimental to their interests but are working in favour of the Libs. If they were so brilliant at strategy why haven’t they worked out why the Libs are giving preferences to the Greens in the inner city seats, the Libs lose nothing and they make it much easier fo rthe Greens to argue ‘open tickets’ and anti ALP preference strategy. If the Greens go open tickets, they can argue, “We are the opposition, vote Green and then make up your own mind as to where you put your second vote.” Classic Democrats line and hard to argue against. Also helps get Libs to vote Green and then preference back to the libs, again in the greens favour as the more of their primaries that go to the libs the better for them on many fronts.
    Just a few thoughts !

  18. 75

    There are two main reasons that the Liberals preference the Greens in inner-Melbourne.

    It diverts ALP campaign resources away from the seats where the ALP are fighting the Liberals at very little cost to the Liberals.

    Green MPs are more useful to the Liberals than ALP MPs at least while there are more ALP MPs than Green MPs. In a close election where the inner-Melbourne seats were the deciding seats on an ALP majority the Liberals don`t want to be the ones to give the ALP a majority.

    If the Greens went with all open tickets the ALP would go nuts with another untrue “Green-Liberal deal” campaign.

  19. [If the Greens went with all open tickets the ALP would go nuts with another untrue “Green-Liberal deal” campaign.]

    Except it would be true, because the Greens would then be assisting the Liberals, while the Liberals were assisting the Greens with their preferences. If that’s not a deal I need a new dictionary.

  20. 77

    No there would actually have to be benefit to the Libs and Green open tickets don`t automatically lead to higher Green vote. A deal also implies that the Liberal preferences would not be directed to the Greens if the Green preferences were all directed to the ALP and I don`t think that would be the case. I`m also pretty sure there was no meeting between the Green and Liberals on the subject of preferences.

  21. You want to know why these Tasmanian results are as they are? Try 2 discredited Deputy Premiers, the abysmal failure of Bartlett to manage the Education Department, the Tarkine Road, the hopelessly-run health system, the deep personal (it’s always personal down here) dislike of Michael Aird and Lara Giddings,, the RPDC, the constant spin and shifting “lines in the sand”, the failure to get rid of large numbers of spin doctors and senior public servants, while those at the other end are losing jobs, having their qualifications dropped as requirements for their positions, being moved off technical and professional streams into the clerical stream. There’s a lot of unhappiness down here and it’s going to blow up in Bartlett’s face.

    In the online comments of the Mercury (newspaper), there’s a large number of posters saying bring on minority government. This state needs a bloody good shakeup.

  22. Oh I see that the ALP Boys will be worried,
    “If the Greens went with all open tickets the ALP would go nuts with another untrue “Green-Liberal deal” campaign”.
    They have got to be seriously deluded if they think that an open ticket is going to be swallowed in this manner. Secondly what campaign are you talking about. I know and you know but go and ask a punter in inner Brunswick what was on page 5 of the “age” the wednesday before the last state election and they will not have a clue.
    To continue my analogy, its like the young ALP gun moving up to the young green bird at the Bar and after having had his way, bragging to his mate he then says, If you stay here and don’t come home with me I’ll say that as you were not with me you must have been with Big Ted over there and that you are a loose greeny. There is a credibility issue here, I think that the ALP can’t see what is obvious to everyone. They have no credibility on preferences. If the Greens came out early enough this whole thing would be fought out and the ALP would have lost way before the election.

  23. 81

    There is still no reason for the Greens to have a preference deal meeting with the Liberals because it would get no where. The Greens are not going to preference the Liberals and joint tickets are not that effective at getting Green voters to preference the Libs.

  24. [pardon my ignorance, but does tassie have preferential voting?]

    It has Hare-Clark, which is a variation on the Senate system. So it is preferential in the same way that the Senate system is, i.e. your vote gets passed on to your next preference in full if your candidate doesn’t get elected, or in part if they do.

  25. This is one poll. An EMRS poll with over 20% undecided response. The tendency has been from nearly everyone, the premier included, to mark this as almost irrefutable evidence that the next election will not return a majority.

    There is a fair bit of confirmation bias going on here. We all know that what polls giveth they can taketh away. Yes, there are other indicators that the government is faltering, including the recent Pembroke by-election, but even there the conclusions are ambiguous.

    To a large extent, all the pundits have been waiting for this poll. The view is that Labor has being defying poll gravity against the logic, and now we have what we were waiting for: proof that Labor is stuffed.

    Look, this is not a good poll for Labor but it is one piece in the jigsaw. What happens if the next poll shows a movement back? Tasmania is a Labor voting population – the highest in the country. That doesn’t mean people will keep on voting for a bad government, but it does mean the natural tendency is to vote Labor.

    The vast majority of the public are disengaged from politics in a major way. Don’t expect them to necessarily see things the same way as posters to this and other political forums. A minority result is a clear favourite, 70% probability will do, but Labor will not have given up on keeping their majority.

  26. 847 (on the next thread)

    They are saying we won`t deal with other parties because if they do then the party they do not do a deal with will take votes of them (the Libs would take a lot more voters than the Greens). They passed up minority government in 1996 for the same reason and have not failed to get a majority since.

  27. If there’s a 10-10-5 result and no inter-party accommodation on any terms can be reached, then a fresh election is virtually forced. No one of three parties could carry on in a House of Assembly with that composition unless with at least the tacit acquiescence of at least one of the other parties (or, conceivably, a group of defectors — that’s roughly what happened in Tasmania in 1923). The question then would be, where would the voters place the blame? Any party which knew it was going to be blamed would be under the strongest pressure to compromise and avoid a fresh election.

  28. 87

    What party would its own voters blame? The Greens voters are unlikely to blame the Greens for the other two not voting with them unless the Greens were really stubborn. Most of the ALP`s voters are not going to blame the ALP for refusing to do a deal with the Greens and the Libs unless they are really stubborn. Same idea with the Libs too. The really interesting scenario is if the ALP and Libs do a deal to keep the Greens out then make unpopular decisions.

  29. Why would you expect them to make unpopular decisions?

    If no party loses votes from its own supporters as a result of a failure to form a government, then a fresh election would presumably produce the same 10-10-5 result and resolve nothing. It seems to me that that would be likely to generate pressure for institutional change so that the State isn’t left hanging with only a caretaker government.

  30. 89

    The massive majority factor as well as the current economic crisis may cause unpopluar decisions.

    Two 10-10-5 elections in a row would cause a breakdown in the no deal policy.

  31. If an economic crisis calls for unpopular decisions, it will call for them no matter who is in government, and if they work, they will lose their unpopularity.

  32. I think most of the factors listed by Roxanna in #79 (and I have seen similar lists elsewhere) have relatively little impact and are mainly complained about by Greens voters. Labor was doing reasonably well and improving in the polls until this one. If Michael Aird is deeply personally disliked why did he get an outright majority (albeit a less resounding one than expected) in retaining his seat?

    Even the loss of two Deputy Premiers was something the electorate appeared to be getting over. I just wonder if we’ve reached the tipping point in terms of the electorate’s willingness to tolerate one mess after another.

  33. I have no clue about Aird, except that he wasn’t really challenged, Kevin. I think the tolerance level is indeed a factor – Kons, Green, Ritchie, Wreidt, Sturges etc. And Bartlett has lost his shine – I’ve even heard people saying they’d prefer Lennon back.

    My point of view is largely shaped by being in one of Bartlett”s departments, and that’s probably all I should say.

  34. The best outcome might be a prolonged crisis that persuades Tasmanians to get rid of their silly electoral system, which is a recipe for perpetual deadlock once you have three mutually hostile parties in the field, particularly in a house this small. They should have 35 single-member seats in the lower house and a 15-seat upper house elected by PR, then this situation wouldn’t arise. The Greens would usually hold the balance in the Council which would give them influence but not the power to obstruct the formation of a government.

  35. [The Greens would usually hold the balance in the Council which would give them influence but not the power to obstruct the formation of a government.]

    If the people of Tasmania don’t want The Greens to “obstruct” to formation of Government, they wouldn’t vote for them.

  36. The “people of Tasmania” don’t vote for them. 10% of the people do – the other 90% hate their guts. Unfortunately Tasmania’s electoral system gives that 10% the power to decide who, if anyone, can form a government. That should be ended. Minor parties have a right to be heard, but not to have disproportionate power.

  37. Proportion of seats and proportion of power are not the same thing. Five seats in a House where the other 20 are all held by the same party give little or no power, while five seats in the same House of 25 but with the other 20 seats evenly divided between two other parties give much more power, probably more than 20 percent.

  38. [Proportion of seats and proportion of power are not the same thing. Five seats in a House where the other 20 are all held by the same party give little or no power, while five seats in the same House of 25 but with the other 20 seats evenly divided between two other parties give much more power, probably more than 20 percent.]

    Your point is?

    If two parties are on 45% and get 45% of seats each, and one party gets 10% and 10% of seats, that’s completely fair, as is the 10% holding the BOP.

    If a left party holds 10 seats and a right party holds 10 seats, and a centrist party holds 5 seats, often they would hold the BOP and rightly so. How does what pursuasion they are, however, change that right?

Comments Page 2 of 4
1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *