Held since the 2010 election by independent Andrew Wilkie, Denison encompasses Hobart along the western shore of the Derwent River and the hinterland beyond, with the eastern shore Hobart suburbs and southern outskirts township of Kingston accommodated by Franklin. Like all of Tasmania’s electorates, Denison has been little changed since Tasmania was divided into single-member electorates in 1903, with the state’s representation consistently set at the constitutional minimum of five electorates per state.
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| Grey and red numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for Andrew Wilkie and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Prior to 2010 the seat was presumed to be safe for Labor, notwithstanding the local strength of the Greens. Labor’s first win in Denison came with their first parliamentary majority at the 1910 election, but the seat was lost to the 1917 split when incumbent William Laird Smith joined Billy Hughes in the Nationalist Party. Over subsequent decades it was fiercely contested, changing hands in 1922, 1925, 1928, 1931, 1934, 1940 and 1943. It thereafter went with the winning party until 1983, changing hands in 1949, 1972 and 1975.
Denison was held through the Fraser years by former state MP Michael Hodgman, who joined his four Tasmanian Liberal colleagues in picking up a swing against the trend of the 1983 election due to local anger over the Franklin dam issue. However, Hodgman’s margin wore away over the next two elections, and he was defeated in 1987 by Labor’s Duncan Kerr. Hodgman returned as a state member for Denison in 1992 before eventually bowing out due to poor health in 2010 (he died in June 2013). His son, Will Hodgman, is the state’s current Liberal Opposition Leader.
The drift to Labor evident in 1984 and 1987 was maintained during Kerr’s tenure, giving him consistent double-digit margins starting from 1993. In this he was substantially assisted by preferences from the emerging Greens. The preselection which followed Kerr’s retirement in 2010 kept the endorsement in the Left faction with the nomination of Jonathan Jackson, a chartered accountant and the son of former state Attorney-General Judy Jackson.
What was presumed to be a safe passage to parliament for Jackson was instead thwarted by Andrew Wilkie, who had come to national attention in 2003 when he resigned as an intelligence officer with the Office of National Assessments officer in protest over the Iraq war. Wilkie ran against John Howard as the Greens candidate for Bennelong in 2004, and as the second candidate on the Greens’ Tasmanian Senate ticket in 2007. He then broke ranks with the party to run as an independent candidate for Denison at the state election in 2010, falling narrowly short of winning one of the five seats with 9.0% of the vote.
Wilkie acheived his win in 2010 with just 21.2% of the primary vote, crucially giving him a lead over the Greens candidate who polled 19.0%. The distribution of Greens preferences put Wilkie well clear of the Liberal candidate, who polled 22.6% of the primary vote, and Liberal preferences in turn favoured Wilkie over Labor by a factor of nearly four to one. Wilkie emerged at the final count 1.2% ahead of Labor, which had lost the personal vote of its long-term sitting member Duncan Kerr. This left Wilkie among a cross bench of five members in the first hung parliament since World War II.
Wilkie declared himself open to negotiation with both parties as they sought to piece together a majority, which the Liberals took seriously enough to offer $1 billion for the rebuilding of Royal Hobart Hospital. In becoming the first of the independents to declare his hand for Labor, Wilkie criticised the promise as “almost reckless”, prompting suggestions from the Liberals that his approach was insincere.
The deal Wilkie reached with Labor included $340 million for the hospital and what proved to be a politically troublesome promise to legislate for mandatory pre-commitment for poker machines. When the government’s numbers improved slightly after Peter Slipper took the Speaker’s chair, the government retreated from the commitment. Wilkie responded by withdrawing his formal support for the government, although it never appeared likely that he would use his vote to bring it down.
Wilkie was comfortably re-elected at the 2013 election with 38.1% of the primary vote, despite an aggressive Labor campaign that included putting him behind the Liberals on how-to-vote cards. Both Labor (down from 35.8% to 24.8%) and the Greens (down from 19.0% to 7.9%) recorded double-digit drops, and most of the northern suburbs booths which had stayed with Labor in 2010 were won by Wilkie. His final margin over Labor after preferences was up from 1.2% to 15.5%, while the Labor-versus-Liberal two-party preferred count recorded a 6.9% swing to the Liberals and a Labor margin of 8.9%.
Fwiw I always thought / assumed Peter was a bit of a lefty.
I see Borewar is back into full-on ‘bore’ mode. 🙁
[Perhaps mumbles should spend some time on what Abbott&Co are doing to, and/or about, the climate?
You know, mumbles could fill in all the bits that ‘The Australian’ avoids when talking about heat waves and warming trends.
Like the 9001 scientists story. Why is mumbles not challenging the Abbott Government on their climate lies?]
Because that is not what he does – he never has. He writes about electoral behavior and writes well.
bemused
you’ll have to ask MTBW. She’s the one who seems to think invitations are necessary.
Boerwar@497
Most likely the latter two have little or nothing to do with Shorten. As for the first, while Shorten does currently sit relatively high on the list of net satisfaction improvements for opposition leaders:
(i) this is well behind Rudd, Latham and Downer, two of whom were ultimately duds.
(ii) Shorten’s opening Newspoll was probably a dud sample. Its 2PP was much higher for the Coalition than other polls at the time. This would likely have deflated Shorten’s ratings.
I do not think the polling so far really says anything useful or interesting about Shorten or his eventual fate.
bemused
[You must be a terribly precious petal to react like that.]
Thanks for nothing.
davidwh:
[http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/stranger_in_the_lodge/
I found one for you Boerwar.]
Not really what Boerwar was talking about at all. No real criticism of Abbott and the Government’s appaling lies and backflips. More just a ‘polls look bad now but heaps of time to recover’ etc.
zoomster@554
Don’t go all coy on us.
That was a direct response to what you posted. Need I remind you?
zoomster@530
ST:
[Albo isn’t good looking enough to ever become Prime Minister, fraid to say.]
John Howard was hardly an Adonis.
Not that I care about looks when voting. I prefer shallower stuff, like policy and integrity.
lizzie@556
Always happy to please. 😉
But I did say more than that and I hope you took it in.
Oops appaling = appalling.
Oh and Happy New Year everyone 🙂
How hilarious is this. The Government is proposing to spend at least two parliamentary days to repeal 8000 laws that it says are redundant:
http://www.news.com.au/national/abbott-government-planning-repeal-day-to-cut-8000-laws/story-fncynjr2-1226800376990
The only thing is it couldn’t actually give ONE example of such a law that will be repealed! There’s a Sky News video story on that page and again, the reporter didn’t mention ONE law that is going to be repealed out of the list of 8000!
This is more than likely a waste of the parliament’s time.
zoomster
I agree with you about “repeal day” – but we can always be suspicious of something being hidden by the Coalition, can’t we.
Think Big as WWP said Mumbles doesn’t write so much about raw politics but writes about electoral behaviour. However he did acknowledge in that article government broken promises and Abbott’s personality issues. He didn’t try to hide from these or gloss over them.
If people want a full on rant about how lousy the government is then there are plenty of articles in the SMH at present.
bemused
my response was in response to MTBW telling me I hadn’t been invited to post.
It’s telling that you slate home all the blame to me, rather than one of your cronies.
You’re very predictable – there are posters here, whom you attack frequently, with the same kind of kneejerk reaction you show when someone mentions “Rudd’ in a negative context or “Gillard’ in a positive one.
In this case, because you rushed to have a dig at me, you failed to look at the exchange in context – which is MTBW trying to dictate who can and cannot post here.
(Look at the first sentence of my post to MTBW – it makes it clear I do NOT think people need to be invited to post).
[But I did say more than that and I hope you took it in.]
Oh, the LOLs! I come back after pointing out bemused’s lack of comprehension to find this…
It is a stunt if labor and greens block in senate they will be branded as lovers of red tape and worse green tape and haters of small business. There is certain to include lots of stuff that shouldn’t be repealed at all – along with stuff that should be repealed, the later will be cited with much mocking and abuse if labor and greens don’t pass the lot.
WWP
that’s an easy one to deal with – Labor and the Greens in the Senate should simply put up amendments to the Bill, to exclude matters they don’t want repealed.
If they do this sensibly, and outline clearly why these measures should stay in place, then the government will have to explain why they’re being removed.
The LNP peasant looking after “the banishing of the 8,000” during his RN interview specifically mentioned child care and tertiary education . “Not for profits” scored at least three mentions.
zoomster
From memory, it was Sinodinos (not Robb or Brandis?) who was charged with researching all these outdated laws, and some were obviously obsolete and old. But Sino made great play about Labor “hadn’t done anything about them”. If that’s all he spent his time on…
Much as I like Albo he’s not prime minister material. His performance as Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy was woeful. He very obviously hadn’t bothered to swot up on his new responsibilites and even worse, had no idea of what had been going on for the past few years. A leader has to be across all the detail of everything. Albo has shown he is just not capable of that.
My dream leadership team for Labor would be Mark Dreyfus and Tanya Plibersek, in any order.
davidwh
[ However he did acknowledge in that article government broken promises and Abbott’s personality issues. He didn’t try to hide from these or gloss over them. ]
Yet he still didn’t manage to include any direct criticism of Abbott’s character like he did with both Shorten and Rudd.
Re ShowsOn @562 – the 8,000 laws may include some horse & buggy era stuff that has outlived its usefulness, but I wonder what’s hidden among the 8,000 that the big end of town really wants to get rid of.
Why do we regulate business? For the same reason we regulate traffic. I don’t trust all of my fellow drivers to judge how fast they should drive or how much alcohol they can consume before they get behind the wheel. And I don’t trust corporations to do the right thing with respect to consumers, their employees or the environment, let alone pay their share of taxes, unless they are forced to by legislation.
KB
[I do not think the polling so far really says anything useful or interesting about Shorten or his eventual fate.]
If the polling were languishing at 46%-54%, and if Abbott’s polling had held up, and if Shorten’s numbers were declining, you would not, I dare say, be saying exactly the same thing about the irrelevance of the polling numbers. I suggest that the polling numbers have already had their impact – not on Shorten – but on Credlin/Abbott.
That said, I agree that it is far too early for the polling – or any other damn thing mumbles care to raise – to make a judgement on Shorten’s long term future.
Not that any of that actually stops mumbles from Labor leadershitting.
Boerwar
Your musings on mumbles latest crapola is 100% on the money.
Abbott is an empty vessel who is actually The PM of fhe country right now. There is so much mumble could write about, but of course the old Labor leadership chestnut is the topic de rigueur for our msm. Absolutely useless bunch that they are
Did you know that if you are in a car and are approaching a horse and rider while the latter are on a bridge you have to give way to them?
The Emu plume befeathered Light Horse Great Pretenders, and the Man From Snowy River Traditionalist Wannabe Brigade will be waving their .303s and their stockwhips about getting rid of that regulation, methinks!
Incidentally, Rundle has a very good piece on Sharon in today’s Crikey.
Boerwar
[Did you know that if you are in a car and are approaching a horse and rider while the latter are on a bridge you have to give way to them?]
And rightly so 😀
Think of all the one-way narrow bridges in Australia.
Boerwar@576
I think giving way to a horse and rider is good manners no matter where you see them.
We have them up here in the bush. Not everyone lives in an inner city suburb.
Think Big Mumbles referred to Abbott as angry, destructice, one-dimensial, distant and reticent which is much harsher than the mention of Shorten.
Unless I’m not reading the same articles.
lizzie
Yeah. But they do not have to be rude and arrogant about it.
And just think of the Sydney Harbour Bridge…
You can get aboard your old swayback, clip clop across, and you have right of way…
The point seems to be that horses are prone to taking fright at horseless carriages and jumping off bridges with their riders still attached.
don
It is all a matter of taste, I suppose.
Around 95% of us live in suburbs and reckon that horses should give way to cars as a matter of good manners, of course.
If you look closely on mumbles behind you will find the tatoo ‘property of rupert murdoch’ writ large.
Its been that way for quite a while IMO.
Zoomster @568 – that sounds like the way to go, especially when they attempt to repeal protections for consumers, employees and the environment. The Government has to make its case, otherwise it’s no deal. Bluster about businesses being ‘strangled’ by ‘Labor / green red tape’ won’t cut it.
In any case trying to deal with 8,000 items in one hit looks decidedly dodgy. If the intent was to genuinely tidy up regulation, the correct approach would be incremental, going for the low-hanging fruit first, making the case at each step to demonstrate how it would be to the national good. I do not trust this government and wonder what they are trying to bury in this lot to slip past the keeper. Whatever it is, it will be to the benefit of sectional interests rather than the national interest.
zoomster@565
oh dear, I had better get to work attacking myself as I said nice things about Julia (and Kev) yesterday. 😮
Steve I think Palmer has the most effective policy to get rid of legislation. He intends to pass one bill which simply repeals every piece of legislation passed by the Newman government since their election, assuming PUP replaces the LNP in 2016. It would be a doozy of a bill for the courts to rule on.
Davidwh @580: Think Big Mumbles referred to Abbott as angry, destructice, one-dimensial, distant and reticent…
He did, but then he seemed to be saying that Abbott has put that behind him on becoming PM. While Abbott has been trying to tone down the volume, this seems to be motivated by a desire to avoid the sort of scrutiny his predecessors were subject to. Tony Abbott hasn’t changed, however. He can hardly open his mouth without making some political point or criticising his predecessors. Abbott is a partisan warrior if the Right. He doesn’t do statesmanship.
zoomster
[It’s telling that you slate home all the blame to me, rather than one of your cronies.]
Who are bemused’s cronies?
davidwh@580
You don’t have the special PB ranters specs. 😛
Steve I am not sticking up for Abbott. I think he is a terrible PM. I was just trying to put some balance into Mumbles article.
leone
[My dream leadership team for Labor would be Mark Dreyfus and Tanya Plibersek, in any order.}
I wouldn’t mind that either. They both have class.
[Steve I think Palmer has the most effective policy to get rid of legislation. He intends to pass one bill which simply repeals every piece of legislation passed by the Newman government since their election, assuming PUP replaces the LNP in 2016. It would be a doozy of a bill for the courts to rule on]
Especially if the legislation Palmer repeals is repealing legislation.
ShowsOn, good to see you reappear.
Mrs Drown has a new alias, were you aware of that? She is now calling herself ‘Everything’.
Same old rubbish though.
david, that article reads like a whole bunch of excuses of Abbott (rejections of various reasons for his bad polling) concluding with the assertion we don’t know who he is. Presumably after rejecting all those other possibilities we’ve finally arrived at the real reason for the bad polling.
Mumbles
[Who is this guy, Prime Minister Tony Abbott? Neither commentators nor voters really seem to have a handle yet]
Bad polling because we’re still figuring him out? Total crap.
Ad.
As for that comment you specifically mention, it’s there to highlight positive changes in Abbott’s character, defend against accusations that they’re behaving like an opposition while providing contrast with Rudd who really is/was a better match for such criticism.
david @ 590, mumbles article reads like a textbook case of false balance.
Why does everyone pick on ML. She is actually very easy to understand. 😉
david, Mod deliberately sets herself up as a figure in opposition to and alienated from others on PB (see the regular refernences to “the people here” and the “PB consensus”). The result is unsurprising.
I think some are reading one mumble blog post with their own bias and expecting it to be something mumble doesn’t even try to be.
Very thin skin.
davidwh:
[Think Big Mumbles referred to Abbott as angry, destructice, one-dimensial, distant and reticent]
Not really David. He is telling us that Abbott is no longer angry and destructive as previously perceived and that being distant and reticent is a delberate strategy (so much more prime ministerial don’t ye know). This sure isn’t direct critcism – it’s qualified criticism in order to push a point.
WWP, Mumbles article is supposed to explain the bad polling and doesn’t. So what is its purpose, then?