The latest EMRS survey of Tasmanian state voting intention finds the tide continuing to go out on David Bartlett’s Labor government: after distribution of the undecided, it has the Liberals up three points to 44 per cent on the previous survey in August, and Labor down two to 33 per cent. The Greens are steady on 21 per cent. Liberal leader Will Hodgman has widened the lead as preferred premier he first achieved over Bartlett at the previous poll, which is up from 37-30 to a commanding 40-28. Greens leader Nick McKim is up four points to 19 per cent.
Based on the electorate breakdowns (notwithstanding that these are extremely small samples), the poll points to a result of 2-2-1 in every electorate except Braddon, which would go 3-2 in favour of Liberal, for a total result of Liberal 11, Labor 10 and Greens four.
Oh dear… not good. But I spose it really doesn’t matter, as there’s such a wide range of results that can occur that will end up the same anyway – Greens holding the balance of power. Let’s just hope the Greens aren’t stupid enough to side with the Liberals.
Interesting prospects for neither major party to have a majority in the assembly. These numbers would still point to a possible ALP/Greens Government, but given the ‘fun’ of the Robson rotation I suppose with such a ‘tight’ result it’d be up in the air.
bob, I’d argue no matter the result the Greens should demand a number of ministry positions, including Deputy Premier. 21% is a substantial proportion of the vote.
Note that I’ve added an extra sentence: “Based on the electorate breakdowns (notwithstanding that these are extremely small samples), the poll points to a result of 2-2-1 in every electorate except Braddon, which would go 3-2 in favour of Liberal, for a total result of Liberal 11, Labor 10 and Greens four.” This assumes Liberal preferences would favour Labor ahead of the Greens in Denison, which I’ve based on the preference distribution from Bass in 2006. Local observers better acquainted with the vagaries of Hare-Clark might have other ideas about that. However, a Liberal lead in Denison of 43-27 is a bit hard to believe.
Not a surprising poll outcome to me. Full analysis up on TT hopefully within a day or two.
This is opening up the possibility of a situation where the Libs are not far short of a majority and any Labor government would be a farce because there would be so few Labor MHAs. But it all depends on where the undecideds wash out come polling day. The only apparently real movement from August (not quite stat sig but I’m inclined to believe it) has been from undecided to Liberal – probably undecideds going soft Liberal and soft Liberal going hard Liberal.
The 21 for the Greens with undecideds removed is too high. Undecideds don’t vote Green and EMRS seems to overestimate the Green rate anyway. They are probably really on something like 17-18.
Bob1234, the Greens’ federal leadership were very keen that the ACT Greens should go into coalition with the Liberals after their election last October, but the locals felt otherwise.
There are precedents of The Greens forming coalition governments with conservatives overseas. The problem is that if you take up ministerial positions your future electoral fortunes tend to be tied to the performance of the major partner in the coalition. Witness how the Greens in Ireland have suffered whilst they have been shackled to Fianna Fail.
I think the ACT Greens have provided a decent and principled model to follow, although the translation to Tasmania may not be all that clean. There is a timely article on that relationship recently posted on Inside Story.
I don’t consider looking at the individual electorate samples to be useful for H-C distribution modelling purposes but this poll is similar enough to the previous lot that I will pool them with the previous lot, weight 60-40 or maybe 65-35 in this one’s favour and see where that comes out.
Worth noting with the last lots of Lib prefs in Bass last time that they were coming through David Fry who is a hardliner and former anti-gay activist. The general pattern is that Lib prefs do favour Labor over Green when the last Lib is excluded but the strength of that varies.
I think it most likely that the Tas Greens will follow the ACT example. The only reason they wont will be because Bob obviously has more pull in his home state.
Whether the Liberals will want the Greens as a Coalition partner is the real question.
Generally, but particularly over the past few years, the issues the Tas Greens have cared about and spent their time focussing on have been issues where there hasn’t been a discernible difference between Labor and Liberal. The most obvious example is forestry policy, but it goes further than that, in a number of social areas as well.
If this continues I could very well see The Greens teaming up with the highest bidder, Labor or Liberal.
Though I wouldn’t preclude a Labor/Liberal alliance before that.
[Bob1234, the Greens’ federal leadership were very keen that the ACT Greens should go into coalition with the Liberals after their election last October, but the locals felt otherwise.]
William, in the ACT Labor won more seats than the Liberals, Labor is more progressive there and thus ideologically closer to them (note the ACT Liberals have just voted against the same-sex bills but were in the minority), and I for one if I lived in the ACT would stop voting Green if they sided with the Libs… Labor would get my vote. The fact that 70-80% of Greens preference Labor before the Liberals, they should remember this before making any rash decisions.
I must admit I’ve only seen bits of Bartlett in parliament on APAC, and on the news and stuff, but I don’t know why he’s suffering such a large fall in ratings. Hodgman doesn’t seem particularly good from the very little i’ve seen of him either.
If the ALP and the Greens enter into a coalition and they get 10 and 4 seats respectivaly then the Greens should demand 4/14ths (or 29%) of the ministries and power. This should include deputy premier and something with a bit of bight like the environment/ forestry ministry.
I can’t think of a single better outcome for The Greens than that 🙂
Yeah a Labor/Liberal alliance would be great. At the election after that the results would be quite brilliant.
I did weighted electorate-by-electorate readings of the EMRS samples for Aug and Nov weighting 60:40 in favour of Nov as foreshadowed and got a most likely distribution of 10 Labor, 11 Lib, 4 Green (2-3-0 in Bass, rest 2-2-1) which seems to also be what everyone else with a clue is getting using the Nov samples alone. The interesting thing is that if the undecideds go for the Libs then they start to sniff around winning a few more, so while a Lib majority is still a very small chance the results from these polls don’t make it entirely out of the question.
Some of the media reporting is getting a bit carried away about the Libs being 11 points in front and declaring they will “win” (whatever they mean by that). 11 points isn’t generally enough for a majority especially not for the Liberals. And whether it really is 11 or whether the undecideds might still include a lot of soft Labor support still remains to be seen.
[Some of the media reporting is getting a bit carried away about the Libs being 11 points in front and declaring they will “win” (whatever they mean by that). 11 points isn’t generally enough for a majority especially not for the Liberals. And whether it really is 11 or whether the undecideds might still include a lot of soft Labor support still remains to be seen.]
Indeed. Getting a bit carried away here…
Title: Poll points to Liberal win
Opening sentence: The latest opinion polling points to victory for the Liberal Opposition at the March election.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2741054.htm
Uh-huh.
I’m wondering who the Braddon independent is that scored 6 points. I’m guessing that the Denison one is Andrew Wilkie, who would have an outside chance.
The AAP reports:
[An EMRS poll on Thursday showed Tasmania was headed for a hung
parliament with Labor or Liberal finishing with 10 or 11 seats –
less than 12 needed for a majority in the 25-member parliament.]
Am I missing something here? Why would 12 be a majority?
12 isn’t a majority, AAP is missing something there.
[ Some of the media reporting is getting a bit carried away about the Libs being 11 points in front and declaring they will “win” (whatever they mean by that). ]
If people think that only the Liberals can deliver majority government than voters keen on majority government (certainly not me!) will want to vote for the Liberals. This reporting will therefore be benificial to them. 🙁
#20
If nothing else, it completely blunts any attempt by Labor to run the majority government scare themselves, which was what greatly benefited them in 2006.
[I’m wondering who the Braddon independent is that scored 6 points. I’m guessing that the Denison one is Andrew Wilkie, who would have an outside chance.]
Bass not Braddon. The sample size being only 200, 6 points means a dozen or so voters. The only declared Independent for Bass I’m aware of is Peter Kaye who also ran in the Legislative Council election. Based on his showing there I doubt he’d be polling 6 points at state level.
My experience with EMRS polls is that spikes of support for “Independent” now and then happen in given seats for no readily apparent reason. Rather than representing support for a given Independent they more likely reflect a “none of the above” that lacks the courage to call itself a “don’t know”, or an in-principle willingness to vote for an Independent if a good Independent contests. Come election time it usually turns out to be nonsense.
Wilkie needs a primary of at least 8% to have any remotely realistic chance of election. I wouldn’t even assume the 3% for Denison is all or even mostly him at this stage.
I think the poll reflects how thoroughly disenchanted people are here with David Bartlett and the shambolic Labor party.
Will Hodgman presents a viable alternative, however he’s really no different from Bartlett.
The figure of 21 per cent support for The Greens suggests that perhaps people have had a guts full of both Labor and Liberal.
Labor, under Paul Lennon, previously ruled out forming a Govt with The Greens.
It was like a form of blackmail the last time they went to the election with that position – “vote for us or your risk a minority Govt”.
Shows you how low the public opinion is of them, as well as their own opinion of themselves if that’s all they’ve got to crow about.
so reb, how long since the Libs won majority govt in Tas?
Libs last won majority government in Tassie in 1992. Coming off the back of three years of Labor-Green turmoil Ray Groom led his party to a crushing win with 54.1% to Labor’s 28.9% and the Greens’ 13.2. The seat distribution was 19-11-5.
Despite this massive win, four years of mediocre, confrontational and perceived-as-greedy government squandered it to the point that in 1996 their primary crashed almost 13 points and they lost their majority after just one term.
[The figure of 21 per cent support for The Greens suggests that perhaps people have had a guts full of both Labor and Liberal.]
It is not an especially high figure for the Greens by EMRS standards, and while the Greens have often polled 20+ in EMRS polls, especially since late 2005, they never actually get it in a state election. EMRS distribute the “undecided” response proportionally, but it seems that not only do the genuine undecideds virtually never vote Green, but that the EMRS Green total (including those “leaning” to the party) is often about a point or two over the real level anyway. All I’d read from it is that Green support is at least fairly strong right now and they should be able to poll at least 17 next March if things stay that way.
Michael Hodgman QC MP to retire at next election.
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/11/19/110691_tasmania-news.html
This stops questions about his health and influence over his son being a distraction for the Liberals or a focus of negative campaigning, but leaves them going to the election with zero Denison incumbents to Labor’s three.