EMRS: Liberal 46, Labor 33, Greens 16 in Tasmania

The second Tasmanian state poll conducted since the election finds some of the sheen coming off the support that delivered a landslide win to Will Hodgman and the Liberal Party in March.

The second EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania since the Liberals’ landslide win in March finds evidence of a Labor recovery, their primary vote of 33% comparing with 27.3% at the election and 25% at the last poll in May. The Liberal Party is at 46%, compared with 51.2% at the election and 48% in May, while the Greens – whose support EMRS tends to exaggerate – are at 16%, up from 13.8% at the election but down five points on the last poll. Will Hodgman retains a commanding 51-25 lead over Labor’s Bryan Green as preferred premier, down slightly from 54-22 in May.

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.

13 comments on “EMRS: Liberal 46, Labor 33, Greens 16 in Tasmania”

  5. zoidlord@4

    Kevin,

    How often EMRS does rogue polls?

    Judging by GhostWhoVotes, it’s a pretty big jump.

    They only poll every 3 months so large poll-to-poll changes can be real. That said I thought the Green vote in their last poll was way too high, perhaps rogue. Whether the Labor vote in this one is really up that much we’ll have to see another to be sure.

    Libs might release some internal polling to pour cold water on it.

  8. shellbell@2

    Hi Kevin

    What is your impression of the new government?

    It really hasn’t bugged me that much so far. That’s probably because we haven’t seen much by way of social issues debate.

    The budget is a bit wimpy. Went into an election raising ire about the state being bankrupt then put out a business-as-normal budget that doesn’t take any risks.

    I approve of the partial dismantling of the forest peace deal; it was based on shoddy science.

    They’ve embarrassed themselves considerably on anti-protest laws but the LegCo will probably kill those off for them.

  9. Not living in Tassie any more, but still having family and friends there, the impression I got was that the last election was a huge “get out” vote to Labor and the “true” state of party preference is a little closer.

    This poll seems to support that – most people still want the Libs in, but the people who wanted to put the boot to Labor have swung away a bit.

  10. I read it a bit differently, teh_drewski. I think Tasmanians are generally left-of-centre in policy terms, they were just sick to death of tired old Labor, who just seemed like they weren’t even trying anymore. And thanks to the Liberals spendy promises, they figured the Hodgman opposition was a kind of Blue Labor who would freshen the place up, balance the books and quieten the media shrieking for a while. Now in government, the Liberals are walking on thin ice. They won’t mistake their electoral fortunes for a policy mandate (despite the rhetoric). So far all they’ve done is tweak a few dials and flip the bird at the Greens. There’s really not much they can do to hit Labor’s left flank, except put money into hospitals and drop a few regional stimulus packages, but that can’t last, so I predict a very slow but steady decline over their first term.

    Far more interesting, I think, is where the Green vote goes from here.

  12. I think this is the beginning of a trend. The coalition haven’t been setting the world on fire locally and Abbot isn’t helping federally. At the last state election the liberals promised to be all things to all people and so far zilch. The local economy (I live in Tassie) is on life support and the Libs seem to be scratching to know where to find the money for their spending promises. Having promised to gut the public service they seem a bit non plussed at what a bang up job labor did of gutting the PS and now there doesn’t look like there’s much left to cut. Much to Gutwein’s dismay. Labor were incompetent and well past their use by date but expect a re energised opposition when the coalition begins its ‘reform’ agenda.

  13. The Government’s bid to send its anti-protest bill to a committee in the LegCo in order to further examine and reword them died in a ditch today after the vote to do so was tied 7-7 and thereby lost on casting vote. Quite likely the bill will be killed when the LegCo finally gets around to dealing with it and the Government will have to rewrite from scratch. (Or they may feel they’ve made enough noise on this one and move on.)

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