EMRS: Liberal 47, Labor 30, Greens 14 in Tasmania

A fairly typical post-election honeymoon poll result for Will Hodgman’s Liberal government in Tasmania, which has also laid claim to a seat in the Legislative Council after the recent periodic elections.

EMRS has published its first poll of Tasmanian state voting intention since the March election, and it records the Liberals on 47% (compared with 51.2% at the election and 46% in the pre-election poll in February), Labor on 30% (32.6% at the election, 34% in the last poll) and Greens on 14% (10.3% and 12%). Will Hodgman holds a 47-41 lead as preferred premier, little changed on 48-41 in February. The poll was conducted from May 7 to May 10, from a sample of 1000.

While on the subject of matters Tasmanian, the results for the upper house elections on May 5 have been resolved, and the contested seat of Prosser ended up being a win for the Liberals, who again have a second seat in the chamber after losing Vanessa Goodwin to cancer. The threat to the Liberal candidate, Jane Howlett, appeared to be from independent Steve Mav, but he ended up falling well behind Labor candidate Janet Lambert to be excluded before the final count, at which case he had 5392 votes to Lambert’s 5910 and Howlett’s 6885. With the distribution of Mav’s preferences, Howlett finished ahead of Lambert by 8776 to 7889, a margin of 2.7%.

In the seat of Hobart, independent incumbent Rob Valentine’s re-election has been confirmed by an 11.0% margin over rival independent Richard Griggs, with Valentine recording 11,032 votes to Griggs’ 7051 at the final count.

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.

5 comments on “EMRS: Liberal 47, Labor 30, Greens 14 in Tasmania”

  1. Liberals losing 4.2% and Lab+Greens gaining 1.1% doesn’t sound like a honeymoon such as having gone from majority government on election day, to minority government on sitting day 1, to opposition on current polling.

    Unless EMRS has a systemic bias?

  2. EMRS has a systemic bias in favour of the Greens. It also underestimated the Liberals by 4 points at this election, though in previous elections it tended to underestimate the sitting Labor governments of the time.

    A lot of people are calling the government a minority government but in my view it is not. Sue Hickey is still a Liberal, even if she chooses not to sit in the party room. For now it is just like the federal Coalition, which is still a majority government notwithstanding that it has two different party rooms and that George Christensen from time to time threatens to cross the floor. We have to wait and see to what extent Hickey actually votes independently, and if she does it often whether the party gets sick of it and throws her out. Of course if she leaves the party then it becomes a minority government but this has not yet happened.

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