I normally type up results from EMRS’s quarterly polls of Tasmanian state voting intention in a half-conscious state, but coming after the Liberal rout at the federal election three weeks ago, these results are particularly interesting. The poll has the Liberals down four points to 37%, which is their third successive drop from a peak of 48% last November. Labor has risen from 25% in November to 29% in the previous poll to 32% in the current poll, and the Greens are down from 21% to 17%. However, Will Hodgman maintains a very substantial lead over of 48-25 over Bryan Green as preferred premier, down from 51-22 last time. The poll was conducted last Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1000. Kevin Bonham’s quota crunching suggests this would cost the Liberals their majority, reducing them to 11 seats out of 25 or 12 if they were lucky. However, prognostications are complicated by a four-point spike in “independent” to what looks an unprecedented level of 12%.
The Libs =are on the nose down here William but the Opposition leader currently considered a lame duck alternative by alot of Tasmanian’ s . He is just not inspiring .
Meantime, in Queensland —
BANANA SPLITS?
Disgruntled power brokers in the Queensland LNP are planning to set up a separate party room in Canberra to leverage more ministerial power. – they would set up a separate Coalition deal with the Liberal Party.
Tensions started when Malcolm Turnbull “robbed” the LNP of 2 cabinet positions after taking over the leadership last year. He then added fuel to the flame by awarding two positions to NSW which the LNP felt they were ‘entitled to’ following their very good showing in the 2016 election compared to the Libs in NSW.
If the proposal went ahead, all LNP members could decide if they wanted to stay with their current Liberal or National room or join the new LNP party room. The LNP would only need 5 MPs or Senators to secure party status in the Parliament. At least 8 LNP elected members including MP George Christenson [Dawson], Barry O’Sullivan and Ian MacDonald are reportedly supporting the proposal. QLD LNP Senator George Brandis is against the proposal and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is reported to be “petrified”. Queensland Senator Ian MacDonald, who sits in the Liberal party room, is taking the proposal to the next LNP State Convention in August after it was quashed at an LNP executive meeting this week.
As others have already told us here at PB–
‘Under the terms of the current LNP merger deal, the Nationals are allocated Kennedy [Katter took this one] and
Capricornia (Michelle Landry) Dawson (George Christensen) Flynn (Ken O’Dowd)
Hinkler (Keith Pitt) Maranoa (David Littleproud) Wide Bay (Llew O’Brien)LNP Senators Matt Canavan and Barry O’Sullivan also sit with the Nationals.’
The Nationals include these 6 MPs and 2 Senators in their party room of 22 MPs and Senators. Without them, the Nationals would be reduced to 14. [7 MPs in NSW- 3 in Victoria and 4 National Senators]. All the rest of the LNP HOR elected MPs sit in the Liberal party room. However, two of them were previously National Party members who might find a newly formed LNP party room a better fit for them – John McVeigh in Groom and Scott Buchholz in Wright. The other 13 are
Bonner [Ross Vasta] Bowman [Andrew Fleming] Brisbane [Trevor Evans] Dickson [Peter Dutton] Fadden [Stuart Robert] Fairfax [Ted O’Brien] Fisher [Andrew Wallace] Forde [Bert van Menen] Leichardt [Warren Entsch] McPherson [Karen Andrews] Moncrieff [Steven Ciobo] Petrie [Luke Howarth] Ryan [Jane Prentice]
An LNP executive member claimed that “there are now LNP parliamentarians and thousands of new party members who have no allegiance to either the Liberals or the Nationals”.
Dawson MP George Christenson has already marked himself as a maverick by publicly stating he will cross the floor in the HOR to vote against the retrospective changes to Superannuation. His support of an LNP party room in Canberra, renamed Queensland Conservatives, or what I would call them-banana splits- comes as no surprise.
This Coalition Government is already a rabble without one word being spoken in the Parliament yet. Christenson might be dreaming, but the Coalition nightmare has begun.
How long have you lived here, Rogue scholar?
To say Bryan Green is uninspiring is a significant understatement.
Eg, this article from Crikey
https://www.crikey.com.au/2007/12/10/the-tasmanian-compliance-corporation-and-justice-island-style/
PS, Green ended up being tried twice. Both times there was a hung jury and in the end the DPP dropped the charges. Everyone expected Green to leave politics, but he memorably stated that he had spoken to the guy who ran his local bottle shop, who encouraged him to keep going, so he did.
It’s hard to see ALP wanting to go into partnership with Greens here again, which would make this quite an interesting hung parliament.
Similarly you would expect the undecideds (or even some decideds) to swing their vote to try to give one party a majority, as the major parties and their voters are often more similar to each other than to the greens (and like each other more).
But you never know, the spirit of independents might swing through at state level too.