Call of the board: Tasmania

Some overdue insights into what went wrong for Labor in Tasmania, whose five seats accounted for two of the party’s five losses at the federal election.

Welcome to the penultimate instalment of the Call of the Board series (there will be one more dealing with the territories), wherein the result of last May’s federal election are reviewed in detail seat by seat. Previous episodes dealt with Sydney (here and here), regional New South Wales, Melbourne, regional Victoria, south-east Queensland, regional Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

Today we look at Tasmania, which has long been noted as a law unto itself as far as federal electoral politics are concerned. The Liberals managed clean sweeps of the state amid poor national results in 1983 and 1984, and the state likewise went all-in for Labor at their losing elections in 1998 and 2001. The state’s form more recently, and especially last May, suggest a normalising trend – in this case, Labor’s defeats in the northern seats of Bass and Braddon were emblematic of their poor show in white, low-income regional Australia (and they can probably count themselves likely that Lyons wasn’t added to the list).

Conversely, another easy win for independent Andrew Wilkie in the central Hobart seat of Clark (formerly Denison) confirmed the uniquely green-left nature of that seat, while a predictable win for Labor in Franklin typified the party’s ongoing hold on low-income suburbia. It may be worth noting in all this that the state’s economic fortunes appear to be on an upswing, and that this coincides with one of its rare periods of Liberal control at state level. It’s tempting at this moment to speculate that the state has a big future ahead of it as a haven from climate change, with electoral implications as yet unforeseeable.

In turn:

Bass (LIBERAL GAIN 0.4%; 5.8% swing to Liberal): Bass maintained its extraordinary record with Labor’s defeat, changing hands for the eighth time out of ten elections going back to 1993. The latest victim of the curse of Bass was Ross Hart, who joins Labor colleagues Silvia Smith, Jodie Campbell and Geoff Lyons and Liberals Warwick Smith (two non-consecutive terms), Michael Ferguson and Andrew Nikolic on the roll call of one-term members. The only exception to the rule has been Michelle O’Byrne, who won the seat in 1998 and was re-elected in 2001, before losing out in 2004 and entering state politics in 2006. Labor also retained the seat in 2010, but their member at the time, Jodie Campbell, resigned after a single term.

Braddon (LIBERAL GAIN 3.1%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): Northern Tasmania’s other seat has been a slightly tougher nut for the Liberals since Sid Sidebottom ended 23 years of Liberal control in 1998, having been won for party since on three occasions: with Mark Baker’s win in 2004, as part of the famed forestry policy backlash against Labor under Mark Latham (who may have taken the episode to heart); with the heavy defeat of the Labor government in 2013, when it was won by former state MP Brett Whiteley; and now with Gavin Pearce’s win for the Liberals. Also in this mix was the Super Saturday by-election of July 28, 2018, at which the now-defeated Labor member, Justine Keay, was narrowly returned. Such was the attention focused on the Coalition’s weak result in the Queensland seat of Longman on the same day that few recognised what was a highly inauspicious result for Labor, whose 0.1% swing was notably feeble for an opposition party at a by-election. Much was made at that time of the performance of independent Craig Garland, who polled 10.6% at the by-election before failing to make an impression as a candidate for the Senate. Less was said about the fact that another independent, Craig Brakey, slightly exceeded Garland’s by-election result at the election after being overlooked for Liberal preselection. Both major parties were duly well down on the primary vote as compared with 2016, Liberal by 4.1% and Labor by 7.5%, but a much more conservative mix of minor party contenders translated into a stronger flow of preferences to the Liberals.

Clark (Independent 22.1% versus Labor; 4.4% swing to Independent): Since squeaking over the line at Labor’s expense after Duncan Kerr retired in 2010, independent Andrew Wilkie has been piling on the primary vote with each his three subsequent re-elections, and this time made it just over the line to a majority with 50.0%, up from 44.0% in 2016. This translated into a 4.4% increase in Wilkie’s margin over Labor after preferences. For what it’s worth, Labor picked up a 0.8% swing in two-party terms against the Liberals.

Franklin (Labor 12.2%; 1.5% swing to Labor): The tide has been flowing in Labor’s favour in this seat since Harry Quick seized it from the Liberals in 1993, which was manifested on this occasion by a 1.5% swing to Julie Collins, who succeeded Quick in 2007. This went against a national trend of weak results for Labor in outer suburbia, which was evidently only in that their primary vote fell by 2.9%. This was almost exactly matched by a rise in support for the Greens, whose 16.3% was the party’s second best ever result in the seat after 2010. The Liberals were down 4.0% in the face of competition from the United Australia Party, which managed a relatively strong 6.7%.

Lyons (Labor 5.2%; 1.4% swing to Labor): Demographically speaking, Lyons was primed to join the Liberal wave in low-income regional Australia. That it failed to do so may very well be down to the fact that the Liberals disassociated themselves mid-campaign with their candidate, Jessica Whelan, over anti-Muslim comments she had made on social media, and directed their supporters to vote for the Nationals. The Nationals duly polled 15.7%, for which there has been no precedent in the state since some early successes for the party in the 1920s. However, that still left them astern of Whelan on 24.2%. Labor member Brian Mitchell, who unseated Liberal one-termer Eric Hutchinson in 2016, was down 3.9% on the primary vote to 36.5%, but he gained 1.3% on two-party preferred after picking up around a quarter of the Nationals’ preferences. With a further boost from redistribution, he now holds a 5.2% margin after gaining the seat by 2.3% in 2016, but given the circumstances he will have a hard time matching that performance next time.

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.

1,795 comments on “Call of the board: Tasmania”

Comments Page 25 of 36
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  2. C@t:

    George Conway is also Kellyanne Conway’s husband! Amazing given how ideological and partisan she is towards Trump.

  3. phoenixRED
    The good thing about Trump is he shouts from the roof tops the US are occupiers . No change from Dubya and Obama in reality but now for all to see. How dare those uppity ‘dune coons’ think they can have sovereignty. This is his reaction to the Iraqi parliament’s vote.

    “We will charge (Iraq) sanctions like they’ve never seen before, ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame if there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate.”

  5. KayJay

    Damn. Poroti has gazumped me. Only thing to do is make a cup of fresh coffee and sulk (my major super power). ☕

    Good move with the coffee. That was my secret for gazumption. I’d just finished a nice fresh coffee.

  6. Confessions @ #1178 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 7:55 am

    C@t:

    George Conway is also Kellyanne Conway’s husband! Amazing given how ideological and partisan she is towards Trump.

    There must be some amazing dinnertime conversations! Though I did hear a rumour that Kellyanne believes that her job with Trump is just that, a gig, and she will do it to the best of her ability but that her real views more closely align with her husband.

  7. Good morning KayJay
    I think it was you that told me how to find the David Pope cartoons. I saved it on my old computer that blew up. As I recall it was a parenthesised URL.
    Can you help me out?

  9. poroti says: Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 7:55 am

    phoenixRED
    The good thing about Trump is he shouts from the roof tops the US are occupiers . No change from Dubya and Obama in reality but now for all to see. How dare those uppity ‘dune coons’ think they can have sovereignty. This is his reaction to the Iraqi parliament’s vote.

    *************************************************************************

    Amash accuses Trump of selling military support to Saudi Arabia

    Amash (I-Mich.), a vocal critic of President Trump, on Saturday accused the president of selling U.S. military support to Saudi Arabia.

    Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham the day before that he had pressured Riyadh to compensate the U.S. for a recent deployment to the Middle East.

    “We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia. I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank,” he said.

    “He sells troops,” Amash tweeted in response

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/477837-amash-accuses-trump-of-selling-military-support-to-saudi-arabia

  10. Rick Wilson tells us how Conservative political parties the world over win against Progressive parties:

    “We control 38 state legislatures right now and there’s a reason for that: it’s because of guys like me,” he says, on the phone from Florida. “I helped to build some of the tools in the toolbox for how you go out and exploit the cultural divisions in the country, and the political divisions, to win for Republicans in blue and purple areas. On paper it looks hard but we worked hard and recognised that the way to win is sometimes to not tell people who you really are.”

  11. C@t:

    I just cannot believe she views it as just a gig. She’s been with him for too many years, and she’s had to make way too many excuses and justifications for the inexcusable that she’d now be tarred and damaged goods in terms of future work is concerned. She’s probably the one person on his team that’s been with him the longest when all the others have come and gone. Even gone to jail.

  12. A comment from one of the articles highlighted by BK.

    Fair go fellas. Is that any way to talk about Mr. Whatsisname ❓

    and from Lizzie’s post about the
    “Kelpie and the Koala”

    Ain’t love grand ❓ 💘

  13. C@tmomma @ #1209 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 5:05 am

    Rick Wilson tells us how Conservative political parties the world over win against Progressive parties:

    “We control 38 state legislatures right now and there’s a reason for that: it’s because of guys like me,” he says, on the phone from Florida. “I helped to build some of the tools in the toolbox for how you go out and exploit the cultural divisions in the country, and the political divisions, to win for Republicans in blue and purple areas. On paper it looks hard but we worked hard and recognised that the way to win is sometimes to not tell people who you really are.”

    I posted a quote the other day from a 2004 book which is still relevant today. Broadly speaking, the left spends too much time congratulating itself on its ideological purity while the right forms movements and gets out there to make change. I’d add that the left also spends too much time chastising and scolding others for not being pure enough.

  14. Boxer argues that traditional astrology fitted perfectly with a scientific worldview of impersonal cause and effect, where anything becomes “scientific” as long as you can express it in numbers. “Astrology was an expression of a deeply mathematically deterministic view of the human condition,” he says. “That seems to be the direction many of our current technologies are heading – the idea that we can be described pretty well with certain fairly simple algorithms that predict what you’re going to buy, how you’re going to vote, where you’re going to go, when you’re likely to keel over and die.” Boxer sees a direct link between the algorithms used by ancient astrologers for drawing up horoscopes and making predictions, and those used today by companies and data analysts to anticipate our behaviour and life trajectory.

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/11/how-astrology-paved-way-predictive-analytics

  15. Confessions @ #1187 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 8:05 am

    C@t:

    I just cannot believe she views it as just a gig. She’s been with him for too many years, and she’s had to make way too many excuses and justifications for the inexcusable that she’d now be tarred and damaged goods in terms of future work is concerned. She’s probably the one person on his team that’s been with him the longest when all the others have come and gone. Even gone to jail.

    She’s only been with him since Corey Lewandoski got the bullet. Before that she was just a pollster for the RNC, iirc. I’ll admit that she performs her job with commitment and enthusiasm and she is probably dead inside like a lot of professional Republicans, but her marriage is still together and she regularly gets photographed out and about with George.

  16. David Speers should just work from a general lack of preparedness for the fire season angle.

    Neither climate deniers nor subscribers will cop that.

  17. On Bruce Pascoe and ‘DNA testing of aboriginality’, I’m sure a number of PB contributors have done the 23 and Me ancestry and traits test

    https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/115013698107-About-the-Ancestry-Traits-Service

    In my and Mrs Sprocket’s cases, the results were quite accurate, knowing what we do of our family histories. One being of Eastern European descent, and the other of Western European descent.

    Of interest to both of us was in my case, a percentage of East Asian heritage – the Mongol hordes raping and pillaging across the continent; and in Mrs Sprocket’s case, a fair smattering of North African genetics – those swarthy Moors leaving their calling cards.

    How this would fit into a government decreed ‘racial purity’ model, like Hitler’s Aryans and South African Apartheid – and Dutton/Bolt’s prove you are who you racially are is both bizzare and frightening.

  18. bakunin,
    One of my sons, the one who did Arts and Science at Uni, is fast becoming one of Australia’s most sought after Astrologers and is moving to America this year to continue his work. 🙂

  21. phoenixRED

    I saw a good point made re the murdered General. He is accused of “killing” hundreds of US troops by way of Irans support for Shia militias. Militias who by the way were at the time resisting an illegal invasion by us the US and poms. So why the hell are ‘we’ not going after the Saudis and Gulf States who have been supporting and funding the Sunni Salafist extremists and head choppers since the days of the Taliban ? They have have caused the death of thousands of US troops. Rhetorical question really but it does highlight the bullshit of it all.

  22. Confessions @ #1195 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 8:14 am

    C@t:

    Conway was Trump’s campaign manager.

    Yeah, she got the gig after Corey Lewandoski got fired. She took on the job with great enthusiasm and ended up with the WH gig. A lot of us do jobs we don’t like and where we hate the boss. But we do them well to keep them. She’s Republican through and through, sure, but I don’t think she’s totally Trumpy.

  24. On Morrison’s twitter feed..

    Tomorrow I’ll be appearing live on @abcnews for an in-depth discussion with @David_Speers on the national bushfire crisis. The broadcast is also being made available to other networks, including on radio. You can tune in from 8:30am.

  25. Confessions says: Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 8:08 am

    I posted a quote the other day from a 2004 book which is still relevant today. Broadly speaking, the left spends too much time congratulating itself on its ideological purity while the right forms movements and gets out there to make change. I’d add that the left also spends too much time chastising and scolding others for not being pure enough.

    ************************************************************************

    Wilson warned, is why Democrats are on track to trip before the finish line. Candidates are trying to stand out in the primary by coming up with the most progressive ideas possible on gun control, Medicare for All, abortion rights, and immigration — and while these ideas play well in the primary, they could be points of attack later.

    On Sanders – Wilson and Steve Schmidt are in sync

    Wilson : Bernie Sanders in particular, warned Wilson, is “the easiest person in the world to turn into the comic opera villain Republicans love to hate, the Castro sympathiser, the socialist, the Marxist, the guy who wants to put the aristos in the tumbril as they cart them off to the guillotine.”

    Schmidt : I think in America, a sociopath will beat a socialist seven days a week and twice on Sunday

  28. phoenixRed:

    I agree with Wilson and Schmidt. Democrats did well in the 2018 midterms by appealing to moderate voters, not the rusted-on partisan Dem voters.

  30. I’m concerned Morrison is promoting the interview. Quite possibly it’s already been recorded and he thinks it went well for him.

    Also did he only do it given editing rights?

    Of course he could just be displaying his usual appalling judgement.

    We’ll soon know.

  33. Susan MetcalfeVerified account@susanamet
    41s41 seconds ago
    have to say it is enjoyable watching Morrison squirm under David Speers’ questioning

    He’s been more motormouth than his usual motormouth. Indication he’s feeling under pressure.

  34. BK @ #1207 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 8:00 am

    Good morning KayJay
    I think it was you that told me how to find the David Pope cartoons. I saved it on my old computer that blew up. As I recall it was a parenthesised URL.

    Can you help me out?

    Now that you mention it – there is a new cartoon today from Peter Broelman.

    Five free articles per month.
    You could get 5 items for each browser
    Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Edge.

    I managed to get Chrome to access the site by going to Settings – Advanced – Site Settings – Java Script –

    In addition I have the Paywall Bypass extension for Chrome

    https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

    Another poster referred to a site where the cartoons are available.

    If I can provide more information – I have no appointments until 24th January (GP).

    P.S. I have had my NBN connection drop out. Thank you Mr. Turnbull.

  40. However no carbon price to be considered.

    We are already paying a “carbon price” , the price being the sort of fire and drought we are currently enjoying.

  42. Summary of PM&Speers:
    No change to climate policies
    Didn’t know it was going to be so bad, but contradicts that by saying govt was prepared
    Wanted to focus on the defence force involvement above all else
    Anger at him is diverting attention on response.
    Defensive bluster.

  43. Except for Morrison asserting that this is the new normal, he hasn’t changed his position an iota. All self-serving gabble.

    Queen Victoria
    @Vic_Rollison
    3m
    Summary of PM&Speers:
    No change to climate policies
    Didn’t know it was going to be so bad, but contradicts that by saying govt was prepared
    Wanted to focus on the defence force involvement above all else
    Anger at him is diverting attention on response.
    Defensive bluster.

  44. guytaur says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 9:02 am
    Good Morning

    So a Royal Commission is happening. However no carbon price to be considered.
    ————————–
    This RC will be
    Similar to the RC into banks ,where the Banks ,newsltd and Libs/nats set the terms, instead it will be the polluters ,Newsltd and Libs/nats

  45. Well that was odd. Pollbludger went off line for me for the duration of the interview – other websites still working. Seems no posts between 7:32 and 8:02 (Brisbane time).

    Denial of service attack by the Libs?

  46. Said the accusation of the crisis warning report gathering dust was a lie -said with straight face and kindly explained to Speers that they had been “working through” the recommendations ever since.

  47. There are three main messages from the Speers interview:

    Morrison refused to accept personal fault for anything and refused to accept that he had failed as a national leader.

    Refused to accept that the Coalition’s emissions stance is a shonk.

    Refused to commit to any possibly change in the Coalition’s emissions policies.

    In summary, there is going to be no climate epiphany led by Morrison. Quite the opposite. Morrison is digging in.

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