Tasmanian election live

9.28pm. “I don’t think there are any federal implications here” – Eric Abetz.

9.22pm. The ABC is now calling 13 seats for the Liberals, whose 2.16 quotas in Denison make them certain of a second seat. The only question for them is whether they make it to fourteen by winning the last seat in Franklin ahead of the Greens.

8.57pm. Similarly, Greens member Rosalie Woodruff is less vulnerable to leakage in Franklin than the third Liberal, who will presumably be Nic Street.

8.53pm. The Greens aren’t quite gone in Bass: their member, Andrea Dawkins, has 6.8% with the other Greens on 2.5%. The first Labor candidate, Michelle O’Byrne, is bang on a quota and will have nothing to bequeath as preferences. That leaves the second strongest Labor candidate, Jennifer Houston, on 3.7%, and needing a very tight flow of preferences from the other Labor candidates, who collectively add up to 6.3%. So while Labor has 1.62 quotas to the Greens’ 0.56, they are more vulnerable to preference leakage.

8.39pm. Clear results are Liberal three and Labor two in Braddon and Lyons, and I just about think you can say Labor two, Liberal two and Greens one in Denison, with 59.4% counted. The two question marks are Labor versus the Greens in Bass, where the Liberals have three and Labor one, with Labor leading for the last spot; and Liberal versus the Greens in Franklin, from a base of Liberal two and Labor two, which is very hard to call.

8.31pm. A question now of following Denison and seeing that the Liberal quota results holds, which is presently 2.17 with 57.2% counted.

8.22pm. Nearly half the vote counted now in Denison, and the Liberals are keeping their head comfortably above two quotas. Antony isn’t quite ready to call it though. Very likely result though is status quo, with Ella Haddad replacing Madeleine Ogilvie as second Labor member.

8.17pm. Very tight in Franklin, with 55.5% counted. The Liberals are on 2.86 quotas; the Greens on 0.88; the Liberals will presumably get Shooters preferences; the Greens might get boosted by leakage. Complicated.

8.10pm. Denison at 37.2% counted, the Liberal vote dropping but only very slowly, now at 2.15 quotas.

8.09pm. Now they’re back up again, but the Liberals aren’t out of it. 50.6% counted.

8.08pm. The Greens have lost ground in the latest update from Franklin, meaning the Liberals are not out of the hunt for a third seat and an overall result of fourteen.

8.03pm. Whoever gets the second Labor seat in Lyons will do it from a low share of the vote, with Rebecca White unsurprisingly dominating. Janet Lambert on 2.2% leads Jen Butler on 1.9%, but it really all depends what White’s preferences do.

8.00pm. 37.6% counted in Franklin, still looking likely to be Liberal 2, Labor 2, Greens 1, which is to say Labor gaining a seat from the Liberals. Nic Street the likely Liberal loser, with Will Hodgman and Jacqui Petrusma re-elected. Alison Standen leads Kevin Midson for second Labor seat.

7.56pm. With 25.8% counted, the Greens don’t look to be registering the required improvement. So Liberal three, with all incumbents re-elected; Labor two, with Michelle O’Byrne re-elected and likely to be joined by Jennifer Houston, unseating Greens incumbent Andrea Dawkins.

7.51pm. The Denison count is now on 28.2%, and the Liberals are on 2.18 quotas – not quite ready to call it though, as they’ve been trending down.

7.48pm. Denison “difficult” for a third Labor seat, says Antony Green. When it gets impossible, the election result can be called.

7.47pm. Kim Booth on the ABC confident they are doing well on preferences in Franklin.

7.42pm. Now well advanced in Franklin at 24.2%, and the Greens have strengthened and look ahead for the last seat, indicating a result of Labor two, Liberal two and Greens one. If so, it’s down to Denison needing to give the Liberals a second seat to get them to 13, and that’s certainly how it’s looking at present, though still only 11.8% counted.

7.40pm. So the most likely result for the Greens is that they retain only Franklin and Denison. If Labor indeed only get two in Franklin, the second seat looks a tight race between Alison Standen and Kevin Midson.

7.37pm. Interest results from the Labor ticket in Denison: Tim Cox not doing well, fourth on 5.2%; Ella Haddad leading incumbent Madeleine Ogilvie in the race for second seat. Scott Bacon clearly the leader.

7.36pm. Things starting to move now in Denison, up to 10.3% counted, and now the Greens vote is down there as well, though not enough to trouble Cassy O’Connor. More importantly though, the Liberals are looking on course for two seats there. Up to 18.2% counted in Franklin, and the Liberals still in contention for a third seat there. Bottom line is that it’s looking increasingly hard to see the Liberals losing their majority, unless we see a rapid change in Denison in particular.

7.35pm. Still close between Joan Rylah and Roger Jaensch to get the third Liberal seat in Braddon, with Jeremy Rockliff and Adam Brooks clearly re-elected. Newcomer Anita Dow leads incumbent Shane Broad on the Labor ticket, although both appear likely to win.

7.33pm. Three Liberal incumbents in Bass looking good, Michelle O’Byrne to be re-elected for Labor, second Labor seat probably going to Jennifer Houston on 3.1% to second-placed Adam Gore on 2.0%, Greens still looking sickly on 8.4% overall.

7.32pm. Now up to 15.0% in Franklin, and it still looks tight as to whether the Liberals retain their three seats. If they do so, they could end up on 14, assuming they retain two in Denison.

7.30pm. More numbers now from Denison, up to 4.1% counted, and the result is looking status quo, which is good news for the Liberals. Again though, early days there.

7.29pm. Antony Green detects steady Liberal vote and a big transfer from the Greens to Labor. But again, the qualification must be made that this is mostly rural, with practically nothing of Denison. Of the Greens’ prospects in Bass, Kevin Bonham says there “might be hope” for incumbent Andrea Dawkins if she “can stay fairly close to Labor”.

7.27pm. The fastest count is Lyons, now up to 14.1%, and still nothing to disturb the three Liberal, two Labor picture. In the race for the second Labor seat, Janet Lambert has 2.2%, Jen Butler 1.9%. Other candidates may have locally concentrated support bases that we’ll find out about later.

7.25pm. 5.0% counted in Bass, Greens looking very unlikely to retain their seat unless there’s a very different dynamic in Launceston. All told, the three central/northern electorates are all looking very much like three Liberal and two Labor. Franklin starting to gain momentum with 9.8% counted, and the Liberals are not out of the hunt for a third seat there, with the caveat remaining that they could wash out there on Hobart results. If so, the question is if they hold a second seat in Denison, where it’s still early days with 0.7% counted.

7.22pm. Now up to 5.7% counted in Braddon, still consistent with the Liberals losing a seat as expected, but the swing against them is modest. JLN now on 7.4%, good but not good enough.

7.20pm. The Mercury has a report up on that exit poll pointing to 13 Liberal seats. It turns out to have small samples of 250 per electorate:

The results showed Labor benefited from a significant swing in Franklin of 18.3 per cent, while the Liberals lost 13.3 per cent in that seat. The swing towards Labor in Braddon was 8 per cent, with the Liberals — who currently hold four seats in that electorate — down 5.4 per cent. The Liberals were slightly down in Lyons – by 3.3 per cent – with Labor up 4.1 per cent and the Greens, who had been hoping to secure a seat in that electorate through the party’s anti-salmon farming expansion stance, down 1.4 per cent. The Greens were up slightly in Bass – by 0.5 per cent – where incumbent Greens MP Andrea Dawkins is seen to be under pressure to hold on to her seat. Labor and the Liberals were up 0.5 and 0.4 per cent respectively. In the Hobart seat of Denison, the Liberals were up 1.6 per cent, Labor up by 2 per cent, and the Greens held steady.

7.17pm. Now up to 4.6% in Franklin, Liberals still looking stronger than expected. But what we are perhaps seeing here is the trend of strong rural support for the Liberals, coming in as these small booths report early. That could very well get overwhelmed when Hobart booths come in.

7.15pm. Up to 2.3% now in Franklin, and there is now the anticipated swing away from the Liberals, although it’s fairly small at this stage. Such as it is though, it’s consistent with them losing a result to Labor, although not by a great margin.

7.12pm. At last some good news for the Greens, who have a great result for the one seat in so far in Denison, with the Liberals heavily down. This is extremely early days, and may be due to a quirky swing calculation. But for what it’s worth, it’s consistent with a narrative of Denison looking a big dangerous for the Liberals, whose fear would be falling to one seat.

7.11pm. Up to 8% counted in Lyons, situation unchanged there. The one thing that can be said with certainty is that the rural vote for the Liberals is clearly very strong.

7.08pm. A new booth has just come in from Franklin, leaving that result looking status quo, contrary to expectations Labor would pick up a seat from the Liberals. However, we’re still only talking 1.4% counted here. Jacquie Petrusma slightly ahead of Nic Street if the Liberals do only win two (Will Hodgman obviously home and hosed for the first seat).

7.08pm. Lyons up to 5.6%, still nothing to disturb the impression of a status quo result of Liberal three, Labor two. If so, only question is who wins second Labor seat, with Jen Butler and Janet Lambert currently neck and neck.

7.05pm. Very early results, but Kevin Bonham suggests that seemingly strong result for Greens in Franklin actually has them down 4% on a booth-matched basis.

7.03pm. Now even the swing against the Liberals in Braddon has gone, with Labor and the Greens both down, but only 2.9% counted.

7.01pm. Lyons count up to 4.1%, and still looking extremely good for the Liberals. Liberal incumbents Mark Shelton, Guy Barnett and Rene Holding looking strong, Rebecca White obviously not in trouble, too early to say who might win a second Labor seat.

6.59pm. Greens down across the board, JLN about where the polls said they would be, maybe a little better in Braddon and worth keeping an eye on there.

6.58pm. Roger Jaensch just slightly ahead of Joan Rylah in the race for a third Liberal seat in Braddon. The Liberals are still down on the primary vote there, in line with expectations they can’t repeat their win of four seats. But they’re still up in Bass and Lyons.

6.56pm. A third booth in Lyons maintains the noted trend.

6.55pm. So while it’s very early days, there are some early indications that the Liberals are doing well in rural areas.

6.54pm. A second booth has come through from Lyons, the Liberals are still up, the Greens still down, and Labor still steady.

6.53pm. The Greens vote appears to have halved in the St Helens booth in Lyons, where there are 400 votes.

6.52pm. A less good result for the Liberals has come through from Braddon, where they are now down 5% on the primary vote, with Labor treading water and the JLN starting well at 9.5%. However, the very earliest results in Bass and Lyons are favourable for them. Mark Shelton has done particularly well in the first Lyons booth, which is St Helens.

6.46pm. Very early indications of Braddon from two booths are that the Liberals are almost holding up, and the Jacqui Lambie Network is doing pretty well at around 9%. Still very early days from unrepresentative rural booths though.

6.42pm. Kevin Bonham calculates swings off the early booths (probably only one or two) in Bass of 5% to the Liberals and 3.5% to Labor, with the Jacqui Lambie Network failing to fill the Palmer United void.

6.38pm. Liberal vote actually up slightly in the Lady Barron vote, on Flinders Island in Bass, which is coming up on the ABC now. I believe there are 336 votes here. Apparently no booth results no the TEC site?

6.20pm. An exit poll, apparently for Southern Cross News, predicts 13 seats for the Liberals, nine for Labor, two for the Greens, and one up for grabs between Labor and the Greens.

6pm. Polls have closed. It shouldn’t take long for us to get results from smaller booths, particularly in Lyons, where the Liberals need three seats as a given.

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. View all posts by William Bowe