The latest EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania finds Labor’s “divorce” from the Greens has done nothing to alter its dismal electoral standing, with the Liberals up a point on the November survey to 50%, Labor up one to 23%, the Greens down two to 17%, and the Palmer United Party steady on 5%. Liberal leader Will Hodgman’s lead over Lara Giddings as preferred premier is likewise essentially unchanged, out from 47-22 to 48-21. This is well in line with results of a Liberal internal poll published in The Mercury recently, conducted on January 20 by ReachTEL from 1984 respondents. The Liberals were on 48.8%, Labor on 25.8% and the Greens on 15.3%.
UPDATE: Here’s how the term’s ERMS and ReachTEL polling looks when run through the Bludgerometer, which applies to both pollsters downward bias adjustments for the Liberals and the Greens:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/emrs-divorce-tactic-falling-flat-as.html
Me on this. I make it 14-7-4 and my aggregate has gone to that. Still treating the idea that either Lara Giddings or David O’Byrne is going to lose in Franklin with scepticism but some candidate polling would be fascinating.
Kevin – I used to think that Tasmania’s electoral system (Hare-Clarke multimember?) was a good model. But given the decades of inertia which characterises Tasmania’s “progress” in the Federation I’m starting to think they might have done better with 25 separate electorates. Or is the electoral system totally unrelated to the state’s seemingly eternal low ranking on health/education/employment statistics?
It wasn’t too long ago ( just a few years ago ) that Tasmania was outpacing every other state in terms of economic growth, rising house prices and the unemployment rate. In fact at one stage we had the lowest unemployment rate in the country. It seems that interfering social and political commentators who have a right wing, anti-environmental bent conveniently forget such facts..and hide the truth that current circumstances are cyclical. Every week now, we hear of improving economic figures.
The electoral system has got nothing to do with it.
Tick tock, tick tock……
Rocket Rocket@2
I think with 25 electorates we’d still have a shallow talent pool. We’d also have very parochial electoral politics because of small electorates. And we’d still have economic issues associated with small population size and isolation. We’d probably have majority government more often, but I’d back Greens or Green-leaning indies to frequently win one or two of the 25 seats.
Tasmania’s economy is erratic. Usually the Greens get the balance of power when a major party has already started to stuff it up and then they carry the can, rightly or wrongly, for the subsequent deterioration. The Gray majority government was an economic basket-case and the Field minority government cleaned up the mess. Maybe Tas would do better economically under a different system but I’m not really convinced electoral system is the primary problem.
Big ReachTEL coming tomorrow. I’ll have full coverage on my site from 8:30 am but expect the Mercury will have stuff up on their site before then.
Early taster: http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania-state-election-2014/state-election-its-up-to-the-people/story-fnl83ie0-1226827808228
According to The Mercury’s Matt Smith support for the Greens is not rising fullstop…it’s rising in “isolated pockets”. LOL. Despite what appears to be a concerted effort by all news organisations in Tasmania ( but especially The Mercury ) to relegate or belittle the Greens and PUP as inconsequential in the public’s imagination, the method is backfiring spectacularly. That Mercury writer is a bit of a joke and I look forward to that newspapers frantic call in coming weeks purely for comic reasons as it calls for it’s readers to vote Liberal in the face of readers revolt against that papers blatant bias reporting of the last several weeks.
There’s a lot about PUP that deserves relegation (unfortunately since Tas really could do with a proper 4th-party alternative) but I just think the readers who are receptive to it wouldn’t vote for them anyway. The exception to that is Etter in Denison. I did think Etter was making a mistake running with PUP rather than as an indie but now have the impression many voters treat her as an indie anyway. I’m not quite sure where the “isolated pockets” thing came from but there is something very funny going on with the distribution in seat terms.
Oh I just think the reporter was trying to downplay the result for the Greens with manipulative language. Judging by the type of readers who contribute to The Mercury’s online site, that would be quite an easy thing to do. “isolated pockets” sounds like a weather term to describe a passing shower in a mountain valley. Anyway, as usual, I look forward to reading your analysis on your blog!
My comments are up:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/reachtel-pup-surge-has-landed.html
There are some very odd things in this ReachTEL. Treat with caution. That said, I think they may have partly or largely fixed up their Tassie house effect.