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%.
[zoomster
Posted Sunday, January 12, 2014 at 9:59 pm | PERMALINK
I do like the way ModLib talks about rusted ons as if she isn’t one of them.
Talk about a lack of self awareness..]
Another personal attack with no substance and without providing the post of mine to which you are taking offence, eh?
This speaks volumes….
@Mod Lib/350
No you are by focusing on the spelling or grammer of someone, but not on the discussion!
Full stop is also a dot.
Idiot Mod Lib.
You know……..
like this…….
Get my point?
Another walkover cricket victory to Australia.
What happened to that English side we faced in the UK last year?
zoidlord,
shouldn’t you be in Tokyo sucking down some Sake with your Sashimi and rice right about now?
Please don’t tell me you are wasting your well deserved holiday on Crikey
@Sean/354
Shouldn’t you be busy trying to bribe someone down their wage to help you increase your 100K fat profit margin?
zoidlord, zoidlord, zoidlord……what to say?
This “.” is a dot, you are correct. When used in a web address you call it a dot and that is how it looks. However, when you are using it to end a sentence, it is called a full stop.
Also, given you are calling me an idiot, I feel within my rights to point this out:
[zoidlord
…..
No you are by focusing on the spelling or grammer of someone, but not on the discussion!
……
Idiot Mod Lib.]
….its grammar not grammer.
ModLib
really? You can’t work out which post I’m referring to?
I’m sorry, I’ve been crediting you with too much intelligence. I’ll try to avoid that in future.
bemused @ 263
[Over the years I have noticed our membership always seems to go up after Labor loses government. It seems when we are in government, supporters are just complacent.
A little dose of the Tories gets them moving.]
Yes, a bit like a laxative…..
It’s always funny to me for Sean to assume that I am already in Japan and secondly that I drink.
(apparently).
zoomster:
I am used to your slurs and abuse, so at least you are consistent which is more than can be said for many others here (including this very night as we have seen!)
@Mod Lib/356
No you do not have the rights.
Since you are trying to be the smart ass of PB.
[zoidlord
Posted Sunday, January 12, 2014 at 10:09 pm | PERMALINK
@Mod Lib/356
No you do not have the rights.
Since you are trying to be the smart ass of PB.]
When you are calling another poster an idiot, that poster is well within their rights to point out that you do not know a full stop from a dot, grammar from grammer, advice from advise…..and from #361 right from rights.
Either stop calling people idiots, or stop making idiotic mistakes, otherwise you are going to continue to have egg on your face!
[Well I thought this was exactly what you were saying….in fact you were boasting that you had recommended exactly this when Rudd said nobody arriving by boat would ever be settled in Australia from memory.
If you are saying that you are happy for people who come here without authorisation could be admitted here under some circumstances then I am very glad you are making this clear!]
I’m sorry if this is a bit too subtle for you. My position is this: in a circumstance where a country has a small number of illegal entrants claiming to be refugees, it can accommodate that. That was Australia’s position in the 1930s. We were a long way from Europe and the number of Jewish refugees who came here illegally must have been very small. So far as I know, the Lyons government made no real effort to find and deport them. If that was the position today, I would support government taking the same attitude. But that’s not the position today. Today Australia is being subjected to an organised commercial operation designed to force us to accept tens of thousands of people we have not authorised to come here, on the spurious basis that they are refugees rather than migrants. In these circumstances my position for the past three years has been that we should not allow anyone brought to Australia in this way to enter the country, until such time as we break the back of this racket. That is also your party’s position.
@Mod Lib/362
As long as you keep with your bias political games, I will not.
Focusing the entire discussion on someone’s grammatical or spelling precession is a pathetic personal attack on someone.
I will not have egg on my face, especially when someone attacks their postings with spelling and gramm(A)r fixation.
Just like this fixation of Boats that you guys seem to have.
Quiet pathetic, low.
And it just shows that you have no focus on Education OR the topic at hand.
precession = precision @ 364 (before anyone make confusion).
[Psephos
…..I’m sorry if this is a bit too subtle for you.]
Well it is quite interesting that you provide this footnote, for this first time, as far as I can remember. I am sorry that I was not able to demonstrate premonition that you would come up with this tonight, I will try to hone my foretelling skills (I always forget whether the aloe vera needs to be rubbed in clockwise or anti-clockwise…..
[ My position is this: in a circumstance where a country has a small number of illegal entrants claiming to be refugees]
So what is a “small number” in your view?
[That is also your party’s position.]
What party? I have never been a member of any political party, nor attended any political meeting or event.
[zoidlord
Posted Sunday, January 12, 2014 at 10:14 pm | PERMALINK
@Mod Lib/362
As long as you keep with your bias political games, I will not.]
Up to you, prepare yourself for your ongoing demolition then! :devil:
[What party? I have never been a member of any political party, nor attended any political meeting or event.]
Ho hum.
@Mod Lib/368
Demolition? Ha.
So as long as you prepared to have a go on fixation.
You would have only yourself to blame.
It’s stalkerish.
[zoidlord
……It’s stalkerish.]
You call me an idiot, I don’t call you anything, but point out the mistakes you are making in your sentences when you are posting that I am an idiot, and you interpret this as me stalking you?
Centre boasts about how the stock market proves Abbott is bad, so I ask what was the relative performance of the stock market under the ALP and LNP, and I am insulted!
Psephos claims that there are circumstances when it is acceptable for people seeking asylum here to be accepted, even when they have no visa to enter, and he patronises me that I am having trouble understanding…….the only problem is that this view is diametrically opposed the the view he not only posted here, he posted it repeatedly, and then actually boasted about holding the view for some time that nobody entering Australia without authorisation should ever be accepted here.
Of course, my hypothetical involved Jewish asylum seekers, but nobody should draw any conclusion from that when compared with the Muslim asylum seekers coming here from Pakistan and Afghanistan please.
confessions boasts about how the boats are stopping now due to Rudd’s policies having a lag effect, but can’t bring herself to acknowledge that, by the exact same logic, it was Rudd who started the problem in 2008 and that by the same measure Howard should be complimented for his results from 2002….no, THAT reduction was all push factors!
YIKES! This place is truly bizarre sometimes!
Peter of Marino@358
Yes! Exactly. 😆
And Tone is like a particularly strong dose.
Then in Qld they have like a double dose with CanDon’t. 👿
[actually boasted about holding the view for some time that nobody entering Australia without authorisation should ever be accepted here.]
That was always in the context of the current situation. It was never a blanket statement about other periods of history. I have in fact been asked the “Jewish refugee” question before and have given the same answer. And before you ask, I was also not opposed to accepting the Vietnamese boat arrivals. There were only 2,000 of them, they came here directly from Vietnam, they were not brought here by people smugglers and they all had papers.
[confessions boasts about how the boats are stopping now due to Rudd’s policies having a lag effect, but can’t bring herself to acknowledge that, by the exact same logic, it was Rudd who started the problem in 2008 and that by the same measure Howard should be complimented for his results from 2002….no, THAT reduction was all push factors!]
I agree with you on these points.
Well, fair enough, Psephos. If you are saying that it is only a temporary measure to never allow current asylum seekers* to have citizenship, due to a current crisis. I would argue that current numbers are completely insignificant in a country of 22 million which has, off the top of my head, 3 or 4 million visitors per year! However, that is subjective opinion, so you have every right to consider the number large.
The other inconsistency is that a boat arrival is treated differently from a plane arrival, and the numbers issue has nothing to do with that…..but then again, we have definitely been over that before, so perhaps not tonight, eh????? I think I have put rather a dampener on discussion here tonight, so I might love you and leave you.
Good night all, peace be upon you all…..
* I know you disagree with this term!
@Mod Lib/371
Oh dear.
You may not call me anything, but instead of just picking up mistakes, you make fun of not just me – but also everyone else.
That is fact.
But it is like shooting fish in a barrel zoidlord, what do you propose I do?
@Mod Lib/377
Here comes more stalkerish.
Psephos @ 373 (and elsewhere) is correct in his observations and has been remarkably consistent on this issue for as long as I’ve been reading comments posted here….
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/BoatArrivals
Oh… the funniest review of all has just appeared today on Amazon fro Corgi’s book.
Now I didn’t make it up or even change a word. Here it is.
[0 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars President Obam and President Clinto agree with Cory Bernardi, January 11, 2014
By Prof.David Flint – See all my reviews
This review is from: THE CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION (Paperback)
This is a worthwhile well researched book calling for a return to traditional values.
Not everyone will agree, but it is interesting to note that Presidents Obama and Clinton are in substantial agreement with the author on the need to minimise abortion, and President Obama agrees with him on the advantages of the traditional family.
Just one final counsel, unless you are a fraud, do not review a book here unless you have actually read it.]
So far he has managed to attract 5 comments which do a great job of nailing him. 😆
Everything@377
Little wonder when zoid suffers from a disability.
Shame on you, you grub. 😡
From the article, re Wilkie – “When the government’s numbers improved slightly after Peter Slipper took the Speaker’s chair, the government retreated from the commitment”
And people wonder why the ALP lost the trust of voters.
2 term Tony at the very least.
I didn’t know that bemused, however, that does not justify calling anyone else an idiot, which is all that I have been asking zoidlord to stop.
Everything@383
It has been mentioned more than once and his reaction seems to be a result of your baiting.
However, he does call you correctly.
[It has been mentioned more than once]
Perhaps, but thankfully, I don’t spend my life here!
[ and his reaction seems to be a result of your baiting.]
He insults people when I am just lurking and not posting, so you can’t blame me for his actions!
Anyhow, you can knock yourselves out now…..good night!
Apparently Mod Lib is all innocent.
What do we do about plane arrivals Psephos ( visa overstayers I mean ) ?
zoidlord@386
Innocent as in “knows nothing”.
Mod Lib
[I did the analysis for the 6 standard economic indicators]
Did you author the APH paper that those figures came from? Or are you falsely claiming that you analysed those figures when in fact you simply lifted them from another source?
If you analsyed them (or even if you falsely claim them as your own for that matter) you will know those figures do not show what you claim they show (because it says so in the introduction to the paper), and it is about time you stopped making false claims.
That so many here imbue you with so much says something about the poor state of ALP politicking. Calling a hack a hack is not an insult.
Possum Comitatus @Pollytics 11m
So Newman hires mercenary mouthpieces with taxpayer dollars, to say how great flogging public assets is to LNP mates at discount prices
Possum Comitatus @Pollytics 6m
It’s Crazy Campbell’s Runout Sale – your cancer tests done by the cheapest bidder! Phillips Group provides the crazy carpet guy voice over
—
Just wait for Abbott to start doing it.
zoidlord@390
The Age had a good opinion piece on Privatisation back on 10th January but I didn’t see anyone link to it. Better late than never.
Privatisation provides no dividends for the poor
The author, Professor Sharon Beder is a visiting professor at the University of Wollongong and the author of Power Play: The Struggle to Control the World’s Electricity.
[The privatisation of essential government services is not about competition and efficiency; it is about the redistribution of wealth and control.
Privatisation has become the final resort of governments that need funds but are afraid to tax the wealthy and prevent tax evasion by big businesses. Instead, government assets are sold in a scramble for cash at the expense of ongoing dividends and government control of essential services. Struggling families and small businesses suffer most from the inevitable price rises that follow.
Privatisation is promoted by a group of powerful vested interests greedy for low-risk financial investments, consultancy and legal fees, or banking business. They are aided by business-funded think tanks and economic advisers who spread the ideologically based belief that private management is superior, despite the plethora of examples contradicting this.
For example, experience in the United States, where public and private enterprises supplied electricity contemporaneously, has consistently shown that public enterprises can provide a reliable service at lower cost to ratepayers. Similarly, in Britain and France, municipal governments offer water services at cheaper rates than privately operated services.]
And before I head off.
TPP News:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-10/park-seeks-tpp-talks-entry-as-south-korea-pursues-trade-deals.html
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1701&MainCatID=17&id=20140112000043
Did I mention that South Korea has a first female President?
@Bemused/391
That was my belief for a long time, and that is why I will never support any party that will privatize government assets.
And I will now head off, I have big day on Tuesday due to flying out mid morning, may pop-in tomorrow.
[The privatisation of essential government services is not about competition and efficiency; it is about the redistribution of wealth and control]
Which is why you will rarely see a business plan before privatisation and even more rarely will you see a study outlining the consequences of government privatisations.
zoidlord@393
Bon Voyage!
I hope you have a real blast in Japan. 😀
[What do we do about plane arrivals Psephos]
Deport them when we find them.
Thankfully they showed up on valid passports so that is easy
I have to admire the ignorance of those trying to make some sense out of the raw data from the stock exchange to determine if the market has gone up or down over a certain period.
First one must chart how the world market performed over the period and then weigh the raw date from the ASX and measure it against the world market. Now as the world data includes the markets in all the G20 nations it becomes a a massive task and could easily result in , say the decline under Rudd / Gillard being in fact a increase.
For example because of the effects of the GFC it would be reasonable to expect that the world market fell by more then 30% which would in fact mean that the market during Gillard and Rudd’s tenure was in fact an increased.
When you get people like ST sprouting rubbish it tend to low the IQ of all of us.
[For example because of the effects of the GFC it would be reasonable to expect that the world market fell by more then 30% which would in fact mean that the market during Gillard and Rudd’s tenure was in fact an increased.]
Nice spin, but the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and U.S S&P are significantly higher than their 2007 peak in comparison to your Rudd-Gillard-Rudd 23% decrease.
So no.. using your little “world market” benchmark, Labor have failed and failed badly.
You are slow ST.
You have forgotten to take into account the Fed’s policy of quantitative easing ie printing money.
This has artificially increased the Dow.
Now if you are so smart please identify the amount of the effect of this policy of printing money has had on the Dow and the NASDAQ
One of the things that ST has not learnt and I assume now that he never will is that you must compare likes with likes.
Comparing raw data is a sign of gross ignorance.
Of cause another issue that he has failed to take account is the US budget deficit which is much greater that Australia’s deficit in percentage terms and which has been stimulation the US economy for quite a long time now.
This also has an effect on the stock market but I am sure that ST would be against such a move here where our budget deficit is almost akin to petty cash.