Seat of the week: Lyons

The central Tasmanian electorate of Lyons covers some of the poorest and least ethnically diverse territory in the country, and it recorded the nation’s biggest anti-Labor swing at the 2013 election.

Known prior to 1983 as Wilmot, Lyons covers what’s left over of Tasmania after the north-west coast (Braddon), north-east coast (Bass), central Hobart (Denison) and Hobart’s outskirts (Franklin) are ordered into natural communities of interest. It thus includes small towns on either side of Tasmania’s pronounced north-south divide, including New Norfolk outside Hobart and the southern outskirts of Launceston, along with fishing towns and tourist centres on the east coast and rural territory in between, together with a short stretch of the northern coast between Braddon and Bass at Port Sorell. According to the 2011 census, Lyons has the lowest proportion of non-English speakers of any electorate in the country, along with the second lowest proportion of people who finished high school and the sixth lowest median family income. The Liberals gained the seat in 2013 on the back of the election’s biggest swing, which converted an existing Labor margin of 11.9% into a Liberal margin of 1.2%.

Blue and red numbers respectively indicate size of two-party majorities for Liberal and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Wilmot was in conservative hands from 1901 to 1929, when it was won for Labor by the man whose name it now bears. Joseph Lyons had been Tasmania’s Premier until the defeat of his minority government in 1928, and upon entering federal parliament he assumed the position of Postmaster-General in the newly elected government of Jim Scullin. However, Lyons and his followers split from Labor in 1931 after a dispute over economic policy in response to the Depression. Joining with the opposition to become the leader of the new conservative United Australia Party, Lyons became Prime Minister after a landslide win at the election held the following December, retaining the position through two further election victories until his death in 1939.

Labor briefly resumed its hold on Wilmot after the by-election that followed Lyons’ death, but Allan Guy recovered it for the United Australia Party at the general election of 1940. It next changed hands at the 1946 election when Labor’s Gil Duthie unseated Guy against the trend of a national swing to the newly formed Liberal Party. Duthie went on to hold the seat for nearly three decades, until all five Tasmanian seats went from Labor to Liberal in 1975. The 9.9% swing that delivered the seat to Max Burr in 1975 was cemented by an 8.0% swing at the next election in 1977, and the Franklin dam issue ensured the entire state remained on side with the Liberals in 1983 and 1984. The realignment when Burr retired at the 1993 election, when the loss of Burr’s personal vote combined with the statewide backlash against John Hewson’s proposed goods and services tax delivered a decisive 5.6% swing to Labor.

Labor’s member for the next two decades was Dick Adams, a former state government minister who had lost his seat in 1982. Adams survived a swing in 1996 before piling 9.3% on to his margin in 1998, enough of a buffer to survive a small swing in 2001 and a large one in 2004, as northern Tasmania reacted against Labor forestry policies which Adams had bitterly opposed. Strong successive performances in 2007 and 2010 left Adams with what appeared to be a secure buffer, but this proved illusory in the face of a swing in 2013 that reached double figures in all but a handful of the electorate’s booths, and in several cases topped 20%. The victorious Liberal candidate was Eric Hutchinson, a wool marketer with Tasmanian agribusiness company Roberts Limited, who had also run in 2010.

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.

1,035 comments on “Seat of the week: Lyons”

Comments Page 16 of 21
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  1. Apostrophes….they’re useful but not essential. Whether they should be used really depends on how much precision is required. There’s certainly no case for insisting on them. As long as accurate meanings are recorded and transmitted, who cares about glyphs? In any case, we can and do create new ones @##$%!

    It seems to me that apostrophes must have been imported into text so that written forms of language could better reflect the sounds heard in speech, and convey meaning with the same economy. They are also used to draw attention to the literary credentials of writers, so it’s not a surprise that some would like to dispense with apostrophes on non-grammatical grounds. Personally, I like the visuals and the nuances and won’t be erasing my ””.

  3. T.P

    [“My name is Kevin, I’m from Queensland and I’m here to help,”]]

    Kevin’s ‘Help’ was in the end about the same as dog sh#t.

    Grow up or move to somewhere KRudd reigns. Choices?

  5. As Tony has done the numbers regarding Carbon impost on the economy , Clive should ask him exactly how much the savings to tax payers are & legislate that amount to come from relevant companies via an increase to their tax rates & a matching tax reduction to consumers.

    But Tony you know the exact amount …don’t you?
    It’s a mess Tony has created!

  6. Latest tweet from Tony Windsor

    [$100 roast –true or false–myth or fact.Senate should breathe in and get the fact sheet right and then make decisions]

  11. victoria

    Abbott lied to the people. This means he has no mandate on getting rid of the carbon “tax”

    Even the tax bit was a lie. So the bit Abbott is trying to bully with by saying the people voted for repeal of this toxic tax is a lie.

    Palmer and his Senators will know this so will not be swayed by that argument

  12. Palmer’s playing with Abbott’s mind.

    Reminds me of that quote from Keating about ‘doing Hewson slowly”.

  13. [Tony Windsor @judbell43 Correct Judith the Senate is confused and that’s not a reflection on intelligence it’s an indicator that should take time]

  16. victoria

    Thats why I said I hope. At this point some delay is great. Especially if it means after September 1.

    Then Abbott will be trying to repeal a carbon market as created by an ETS. A lot harder sell

  17. [depends on how much precision is required]

    Precision? Accuracy? From a grammatical war to the old precision/accuracy definition one? Yikes mikes!

    If meaning is easily derived from context then its purely decorative. If you like it pretty, punctuate it. If youre lazy and dont care too much for pretty, then leave it out.

    If you have something stuck up youre cloaca, then complain when people dont do it your preferred way. Id recommend a check up from the neck up tho.

  20. briefly
    Posted Sunday, July 13, 2014 at 2:39 pm

    [In the end, voters need to know the Government can indeed govern. What we now have is a Government that cannot even tie its shoelaces unaided, let alone run the country.]

    There is a Facebook meme going around that notes the hung parliament of Gillard had passed 127 pieces of legislation in its first 7 months.
    Abbott’s COALition has managed just 7.

  24. Just heard on radio that there is a photo on facebook of Gough Whitlam Paul Keating and John Faulkner celebrating Gough’s 98th birthday.

    I am not on facebook can anyone find it.

  27. [One of Australia’s most loved, albeit retired, TV personalities, Andrew Denton has made a brief return to the screen to deliver a stinging rebuke to the Abbott Government.

    But it was no ‘party political’ spray from Denton, long-time host of ABC’s Enough Rope and a two-time nominee for the Gold Logie. Denton also took aim at the Labor Party, who he describes as “unelectable” and the Greens, who he labels ‘strategically ineffective’.]

    https://www.newmatilda.com/2014/07/13/andrew-dentons-advice-tony-abbott-duck

  30. It’s quite plausible, imo, that Jennifer Byrne dictated to Denton the paragraph relating to Labor’s unelectability.

  31. What’s going on with Julie Bishop? Two puff pieces in Fairfax and now she pops up in another one over at the “Daily Mail” .

  32. poroti@781

    What’s going on with Julie Bishop? Two puff pieces in Fairfax and now she pops up in another one over at the “Daily Mail” .

    A Mesma challenge in the offing? 😀

  33. Re apostrophes…
    __________
    I rather agree with Fran and Just Me that we could abandon the use of them
    Yesterday in The Age there was an article quoting an acedemic at a recent conference in Sydney making a number of proppsals for spelling reform
    also questioned the three forms of “their “and the two forms, of “too/to)

    She made the point that what she called Grammer Nazis like to pontificate on such matters as it gives some a sense of superiority over the common herd
    She made the point that spelling was no guage to in telligence or literary skill 

  35. I would understand the impulse to ‘change the rules’ of written English if there was anything remotely difficult about it. It seems to me the vast majority of errors (when typos are excluded) are down to pure laziness.

    If you only know one language at least know it well!

  36. Denton may be a wanker in the eyes of some, but his views on the Tories and Murdoch
    are spot on.

    Some may take issue with his opinion on Labor and the Greens.

  39. [Andrew Denton is also one of Australia’s greatest wankers.]

    I’m a big fan of Andrews but I find the ‘Labor stands for nothing’ stick to be reflective of one of two things, gross ignorance or a strong greens bent such that it really reflects not that labor stands for nothing but that labor isn’t a well funded successful greens clone.

  40. [I would understand the impulse to ‘change the rules’ of written English if there was anything remotely difficult about it. It seems to me the vast majority of errors (when typos are excluded) are down to pure laziness.

    If you only know one language at least know it well!]

    Well there are groups of very intelligent people who do find it difficult.

  42. Re The Horrors of Gaza and The atrocity in Jerusalem
    ___________________
    Uri Avenery,a distinguished jewish-israeli writer,former MP and the founder of”Peace Now” Movement ,writes in the US mag’Counterpunmch” of his abhorence at the prevailing harsh racist feelings in Israeli,by what he calls”Hebrew-Nazis”…a terrible indictment from a Jewish survivor of the holocaust

    Avenery says he was shocked by the lack of public outcry at the burning alive of a small Palestinian boy kidnapped by a right-wing group on Israelis…whom he says are typical of the racist -fascist mood now growing in Israel

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/11/the-atrocity/

  45. Rex douglas

    Did you read this bit?

    [But some uncertainty still surrounds the repeal bills. The PUP leader, Clive Palmer, told Guardian Australia that he was on holidays and “oblivious” to any deal, the PUP senators are not scheduled to meet to consider any changes until Monday morning, and four other Senate crossbenchers refuse to guarantee their vote until they see the final form of the agreement.]

  47. On Wednesday I received my first “News for Seniors” from Centrelink.

    As foreshadowed, it had “A message from the Prime Minister” saying how wonderful the budget is and ends with “ensure that Australia continues to be a fair and decent society”.

    Funnily, it came in a plain brown paper (actually grey plastic) wrapper with no indication of who sent it.

    I hope the postie didn’t think it was porn.

  49. Re Dutch language reform
    _______________

    I understand that in past years the Dutch govt, instituted a number of conferences,from which there came a series of changes to spelling by law
    Does anyone know of this?

    This would be difficult with Englich given the widespread use of same in a number of countries like India and the USA which would be outside any spelling changes say in the UK or Australia…but it’s worth a thought

  50. victoria

    Yes I read Lenore’s article in full and I’m inclined to think the repeal will get the required support.

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