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 28 of 36
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  1. Federer should do his bit too. He’s got more money than you can poke a stick at ($450 million), not needing a deal with Credit Suisse:

    [‘Roger Federer has issued a non-committal reply to Greta Thunberg and the rest of the climate activists who have been protesting against the sponsorship deal he has with Credit Suisse – a bank closely associated with fossil fuel extraction.’]

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis/federer-shrugs-off-criticism-from-climate-activists-over-sponsorship-20200112-p53qqk.html

    Thunberg’s surely getting under the skin of the rich & powerful. I feel a Nobel prize is on the horizon.

  3. PM @scottmorrisonmp says his original intention was to holiday on the south coast of NSW but he had to bring forward the holiday .. and that’s why he instead went to Hawaii.

    Don’t laugh… we couldn’t get bookings at Jindabyne last year, so we had to settle for St. Moritz. #lifesnotallabowlofcherries

  4. I don’t think there is any more point in referring to Morrison’s religious affiliation to explain his actions or his words. He is simply a deceitful, self-centred egotist with no heart. No more needed.

  5. poroti says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 9:28 am

    nath

    …”Could be worse, could be psephology or economics”…

    Phrenology?

  6. lizzie @ #1272 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 9:32 am

    Peter Clarke
    @MediaActive
    ·
    13m
    Very successful #PR outing for @ScottMorrisonMP ? He almost visibly ticked off his crafted talking points. Used his well practised tactics of deflection, avoidance, obfuscation infused w anodyne tone.
    @David_Speers followed, didn’t shape #interview.

    I have a different take.

    If Speers intention was to give enough rope to the dope to expose his narcissism, Speers did the job well.

    Lesson to learn for serious interviewers and Opposition MP’s – if you are fully prepared and courageous, you can reduce this shonky salesman PM down to the surly, sulky blowhard that he is underneath the suit.

  15. @mjrowland68
    2h
    Asked whether he accepts any fault over his handling of the bushfire crisis, PM @ScottMorrisonMP talks about the change in community expectations of governments.

    See? It’s not Scomo’s fault, it’s our “changed expectations” in the “new normal”.

    Follow young Scoot as he rewrites the manual for leadership and the history of the world.

  16. Prime minister acknowledges he could have handled things better in the ‘strained’ emotional environment on the ground

    Arsehole. Blames the victims what with all their “strained” emotions being the root cause of his being exposed as a dud f’wit.

  17. I watched the Morrison interview on mute. I think I made the right decision. He’s aged a couple of years since his secret holiday to Hawaii became public knowledge. Reynolds too has some explaining to do.

  19. bakunin says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 9:48 am

    …”Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today, but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool”…

    ……………………

    As was an axe made of flint.

  22. Michelle Arrow, historian and author of The Seventies (NewSouth 2019). Co-editor of the AHA’s journal History Australia (2019-2021).

    https://twitter.com/MichelleArrow1/status/1216123069904736256

    “So my big takeaway from the Morrison/Speers interview is that we must keep mining coal because we can’t abandon those communities but we can happily abandon all other communities, especially those which rely on tourism, and the ones that like air they can breathe?”

  23. @JWhiteWildlife
    ·
    1m
    And this new normal bullshit line is just that. Climate change impacts are on a continuum (might not be linear), it actually gets worse, so the base line for normal shifts. Things will actually get worse. #ScottyFromMarketing doesn’t want you to think about that.

  24. Rex Douglas @ #1355 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 11:29 am

    lizzie @ #1272 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 9:32 am

    Peter Clarke
    @MediaActive
    ·
    13m
    Very successful #PR outing for @ScottMorrisonMP ? He almost visibly ticked off his crafted talking points. Used his well practised tactics of deflection, avoidance, obfuscation infused w anodyne tone.
    @David_Speers followed, didn’t shape #interview.

    I have a different take.

    If Speers intention was to give enough rope to the dope to expose his narcissism, Speers did the job well.

    Lesson to learn for serious interviewers and Opposition MP’s – if you are fully prepared and courageous, you can reduce this shonky salesman PM down to the surly, sulky blowhard that he is underneath the suit.

    Care to name an opposition MP up to the task?

  25. Pegasus @ #1372 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 11:49 am

    Michelle Arrow, historian and author of The Seventies (NewSouth 2019). Co-editor of the AHA’s journal History Australia (2019-2021).

    https://twitter.com/MichelleArrow1/status/1216123069904736256

    “So my big takeaway from the Morrison/Speers interview is that we must keep mining coal because we can’t abandon those communities but we can happily abandon all other communities, especially those which rely on tourism, and the ones that like air they can breathe?”

    Yes, the absurdity is so clear – yet partisans will be rock solid partisans…

  26. Not Sure

    As was an axe made of flint.

    Yeah and then along came those bastard bronze buggers and ruined it for the Flint Napper’s Union members. Lordy did they wish they had been working with coal in Qld. 🙂

  27. Morrison’s holiday to Hawaii still fascinates many. However, the caravan has moved on imho. His explanation this morning seems reasonable. The family were intending to go on holidays during the Christmas break. However, the India and Japan trips came up. The timing was such that he needed to cancel his existing holiday break plans and bring the holidays forward. Hawaii seemed a good idea at the time and his best opportunity to spend time with his wife and children after a particularly busy year.

    The early and catastrophic fire season was not on his radar and the reality that hands on involvement of Morrison was needed was something he had no inkling. That he fluffed his response is clear to all and sundry and just shows how “Events’ can undermine the credibility of even the most seemingly straight forward plans of a politician. His personal deficiencies have been on full display. Certainly, his lack of flexibility, resilience and empathy have undermined his standing in the community and it is questionable whether he can recover in the short, medium and long term.

    His latest utterings are an attempt to grab back the agenda and be seen to be doing the right things that a leader needs to. However, as has already been pointed out, the concessions so far are modest and he has to contend with an influential and noisy rump of deniers on his Back bench. Morrison has transformed from unassailable saviour of the Party and Leader for Life in to another PM that gets skewered by the politics of Climate Change in this country.

  28. Not Sure @ #1369 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 8:46 am

    bakunin says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 9:48 am

    …”Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today, but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool”…

    ……………………

    As was an axe made of flint.

    Pseudoscience?????

  31. Greensborough Growler,
    As I said from the get-go, it’s actually governing and responding to real time events that will bring Morrison undone, no matter how well he plays catch up afterwards.

  33. Steve777 says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 11:54 am
    But the flint axe was actually a useful tool, unlike the horoscope.
    ___________
    Be careful. C@t and her family of grifters will be after you.

  38. GG

    Scrotty being warned, Scrotty saying he was all prepared, the fires well underway before he left, Scrotty heading off on holiday (2nd in 6 months) makes the juxtaposition of Scrott on holiday with his claims and the reality on the ground at the time very relevant re his “image”. It goes to the heart of his judgement and lack of leadership. The attempt to hide it shows he knows it too.

  39. John Quiggin on twitter:

    “If all goes to plan, I will be on CNN International Newsroom at 3pm Brisbane time talking about economic impact of #AustralianFires My preliminary estimate of costs, at least $100 billion”

  40. C@tmomma @ #1346 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 11:56 am

    Greensborough Growler,
    As I said from the get-go, it’s actually governing and responding to real time events that will bring Morrison undone, no matter how well he plays catch up afterwards.

    I agree. People can and will look at all the obvious clues that lead to his actions and how his failure to understand the true situation respond appropriately at the right time. But, from here it is going to be how and if he delivers the results that the community are demanding.

  41. Nice metaphor.

    Rick Morton
    @SquigglyRick
    ·
    3m
    We here at polio deniers central have never denied that polio exists, but we do believe it is our job to shepherd an informed debate such as: does polio really exist? And if it did, which we will tell you it doesn’t, are vaccines REALLY the costly govt response we need?

  42. I haven’t read the book as yet, but I am in full agreement with Wilson….

    Wilson explains it all. Chapter by chapter, he debunks the myths, wishes, and pipe dreams which have led previous Democratic presidential nominees down the garden path to the runner-up’s position in November.

    Those whose hearts lie with the Bernie Sanders / Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party won’t like his advice. But at the end of the day, you can’t argue with it.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-book-running-against-the-devil-rick-wilson-2020-election-democrats-a9277571.html

  45. poroti @ #1353 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 12:02 pm

    GG

    Scrotty being warned, Scrotty saying he was all prepared, the fires well underway before he left, Scrotty heading off on holiday (2nd in 6 months) makes the juxtaposition of Scrott on holiday with his claims and the reality on the ground at the time very relevant re his “image”. It goes to the heart of his judgement and lack of leadership. The attempt to hide it shows he knows it too.

    You can make whatever assertions you like, but the scale and extent of the Bushfires this year are clearly not aspects he had factored in to his decision making. for him, previous behaviour and assumptions didn’t apply and he was been overwhelmed because he hasn’t got the character or personal skill sets to deal with the events as they unfolded.

  46. Pegasus @ #1382 Sunday, January 12th, 2020 – 11:57 am

    Albanese – Transcript of a doorstop interview, Melbourne, 10 January:

    https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/transcript-doorstop-interview-melbourne-friday-10-january-2020

    You mean “Albo made speech?” … great! … let’s see what he says …

    JOURNALIST: Alright, so let’s talk about climate. The debate is well and truly back on. You still don’t have a policy? When can we see something in relation to targets? In relation to national action on emissions?

    ALBANESE: Well, what we’re not going to do is to say to the Government, ‘Don’t bother doing anything, because this is what we’re going to do in 2022 after the election, if we’re successful’. That, quite frankly, would be irresponsible. We want the Government to act immediately. And the idea, at this stage in the cycle, that the Labor Party’s policy today will have an impact in 2022 is quite frankly an immature question.

    …

    JOURNALIST: Okay, but you don’t have a climate or an energy policy either?

    ALBANESE: I refer to the previous 3,224 times that I have answered that question and say to you that the next election is in 2022.

    …

    JOURNALIST: Going back to your policy. Will you have one this year? Will you have one next year? Will you have one the year after?

    ALBANESE: We’ll have one when we announced it, well before the election.

    JOURNALIST: And when will that be?

    ALBANESE: Well, the next election.

    FFS, what can you do when your party is headed up by such an idiot? 🙁

  48. Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
    Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 11:53 am

    …”Pseudoscience?????”…

    …………….

    Did my stupidity go over your head?

  49. Victoria
    He is still a Repug and from this in the article he sounds like saying the Dems need to be Repugs. Possibly hard line ones if that is what it takes.

    will similarly be left mouths agape by Wilson’s tell-it-like-it-is advocacy for a realpolitik style of campaigning that owes more to The Hunger Games than The West Wing.

  50. Turnbull’s got more front than Myer, who when prime minister acquiesced, only really interested in his own preservation:

    [‘Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called upon Australia to act against climate change, saying there are “simply no more excuses”.’]

    https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/politics/simply-no-more-excuses-malcolm-turnbull-and-other-angry-australians-slam-pm-scott-morrison-on-climate-change-policy/news-story/88810efb6bc8cbb4a7d1c9ff2b8cf7c5

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