Seat of the week: Denison

With a state election looming on the horizon, Seat of the Week turns its gaze to Tasmania.

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.

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%.

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.

775 comments on “Seat of the week: Denison”

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  1. v

    Siddiq has been more bellicose than most Indonesian public figures for quite a while. Other than grandstanding (and perhaps shifting Indonesian public opinion through his populist posturings), it is not clear that he actually has a lot of ability to change what is actually done operationally.

  5. BW, thank you. It was an anxious few hours but things have seemed to be somewhere close to under control since yesterday evening. The wind’s picking up again though, and the temperature, whilst nowhere near yesterday’s, is not cool. It’s worth noting that, up here above the Darling Scarp, our maximum temperatures are more akin to those of Northam than they are to what’s happening down on the coastal plain. As such, we tend to get it significantly hotter than a glance at the TV weather might imply.

    As for houses on bush blocks, I have no problem with people living amongst the trees as long as they build, insure, plan and react appropriately. Those who don’t, given that fire is a historic and known hazard in country (and not so country) Australia, lose any right to whine about the consequences.

    Those who can’t afford to build, insure and plan sensibly, like, for example, the Bogan family, tend to be sensible and have houses which stand in the centre of a barren wasteland. It’s not as picturesque, I admit, but given a few thousand litres of water storage and a Chinese diesel pump, I’m fairly confident I can defend it against most likely fires.

  7. theintellectualbogan

    Ages ago I remember some fire chief explaining how many houses are set alight by ember attack and how relatively simple design changes would largely prevent such loses. I wonder if any changes to building regs took heed his advice ?

  8. Boerwar

    This is in the Jakarta Post

    Indonesians have been uniformly scratching their heads. The closer the end of this government, it seems, the greater the disarray. One inept debacle after another.

    From the up-down hike of LPG canisters, to Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Moeldoko’s pitch for the President to be awarded honorary five-star general status —adorned only to Soeharto and former Armed Forces commander Gen. AH Nasution — confusion is the only constant of this government in 2014.

    http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/01/13/moeldoko-s-boatpeople-clinker-recalcitrant-nescient-or-a-ploy.html

  9. 651

    If he is sifting public opinion, in an election year no less, then he may well be shifting what presidential candidates with executive power consider necessary for their political careers.

  10. Waiting for someone to report it but no-one has.

    There was a magnitude 3.7 earth tremor in Melbourne today at approx 3:59pm. Epicentre was 10km deep under Croydon.

  11. david – You get it from both sides.

    Daughter complaining about water coming in off the London balcony (wind direction unusual) meanwhile the “unit” togging up for a walk along the river.

    The younger generation …

  13. Poroti,

    Not many, I suspect. Having worked in government, dealing with policy and legislation (in a different area but one still dominated by industry groups), I can attest to the fact that vested interests can make any changes extremely difficult to implement. Even proper enforcement of existing legislation can be rendered almost impossible.

    I’m not sure it would do much good anyway. You can cleverly design all you like but if you put the house amongst mature gums, with a good fuel load on the ground almost to the walls and allow huge drifts of twig and leaf material to accumulate on the roof, if it comes under significant ember attack, it’s probably gonna burn eventually. Believe me, people really can be that stupid. I daresay there’ll be some frantic cleaning up happening now, but two days ago I could have taken you on a ten minute tour ofthe area and shown you two dozen houses with glaring, and entirely avoidable, fire hazards.

  15. CTar1@664

    bemused

    There was a magnitude 3.7


    Any thing that even attempts to wake Melbourne up is OK.

    I heard 3.7 on radio but Age says 2.7.

    I felt it but it was nothing much, just a bit of vibration like a big truck going past.

    Of course all the drama queens get a run in the paper about how terrifying it was.

  17. [There was a magnitude 3.7 earth tremor in Melbourne today at approx 3:59pm. Epicentre was 10km deep under Croydon.]

    Naptime’s reaction to someone saying Shaw?

  18. one can never underestimate the rank subversion and trouble abbott likes and will like to cause. i stir therefore i exist. to call him our bogan PM is to insult deserving bogans. he will do anything unabated to keep ahead of the rule of law. just think this man boasts of christian defence of freedom but wants to attack abc for criticism him. to makings of authoritarianism are all there but he aint no howard and he trip over his own shadow one day any day

    the best news is that he is out on a limb and it can break anytime – to use a familiar boat image, he is in unchartered waters far from land without navigation.

  20. david – I was inclined to send a can of backed beans.

    instead advise was clean towels on the carpet and lots of walking around

  21. victoria@666

    CTar1

    Melbourne is fhe most Awake city in the country in more ways than one

    I wouldn’t exactly say that, but it has improved since the acquisition of a Rugby League and a Rugby Union team.

    Culture at last! 👿

  27. victoria@672

    Bemused

    Of course, we were just a backwater until we got the rugby here.

    In world terms, yes!

    Now Melbourne Rugby or League players can aspire to represent their country, something no AFL player can. Oh, I don’t count that odd confected game with the Paddies. 👿

  30. More from Morgan –

    [The Roy Morgan unemployment rate of 11.2% is the highest since January 1995 (11.3%) – nearly twenty years ago. In addition, a further 1.092 million Australians (8.6% of the workforce) are under-employed. A record high total of 2.503 million (up 99,000) Australians are looking for work or looking for more work.]

  34. ruawake

    Work and sport has taken me to Melbourne about 8 times . Coming from Sandgropia it has always been a shock to find such high quality food and service at such reasonable prices. Vote 1 Melbourne on that front.

  35. Who would have thought it. Rising unemployment under a Liberal government. As much as I dread what is going to happen there is an entire generation that needs to learn how inept the liberal party is during a recession. The last time was when Howard was treasurer and the idiots total inability to do anything that wasn’t squarely aimed at a small and wealthy political demographic was seminal in creating a visceral hatred of the libs for me. To hear the propaganda that Howard spouted about the Liberal party being good economic managers made me vomit. Rodent couldn’t count to ten with his fingers, let alone manage an economy.

  37. Prefs distributed as at 2013 election

    ALP 53 – LNP 47.

    Time for Rupert to whop out the anti Shorten opinion pieces, er sorry he tried that.

  40. Looking at Morgan’s graphs there was an immediate plummet for the libs after the election hovering along pretty much neck and neck…………until something happened early December when there was a big leap to Labor. Any thoughts what event/events triggered that ?

  48. v
    Interesting link. Here I was thinking that it might all be part of a conspiracy and the article reckons it is a series of cock ups.

  49. poroti@697

    bemused

    Not to mention the benefit of posting as many times as possible something to piss orf the residents LNPers

    Maybe I should re-post them all next time Sean posts something or Mad Lib appears. 👿

  50. Thanks for the link Sean – excellent piece highlighting the stupidity and dishonesty of Abbott and Morrison plus importantly noting the insult to real soldiers in real wars. Very poor form. Again thanks for the link.

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