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 7 of 36
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  1. Indigenous woman dies in custody in Victoria two days after being refused bail

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-10/woman-death-in-custody-victoria-dame-phyllis/11856430

    Advocates say it raises serious questions about the impact of Victoria’s tough bail laws, particularly on Indigenous women, in a system already under strain.
    :::
    “This tragedy serves to highlight the fact that custody is not a safe place for women. Unless the alarming increase in the number of women being remanded in custody for minor offences is urgently addressed, it is only a matter of time until a tragedy like this is repeated,” Ms Prior told ABC News.

    “Our legal system as it relates to criminalised women is over-burdened and under-resourced. Our current bail laws are placing an increased burden on this system, which is only exacerbated around the Christmas and New Year period where many support services are unavailable.”

    The number of women behind bars in Victoria has grown rapidly over the past decade: as of June 2019 there were 578 women locked up, more than 13 per cent of them Aboriginal (less than one per cent of the population in the state is Indigenous) — though the government recently announced a boost in funding for programs aimed at shrinking that figure.

    Alarm has also been raised in recent years over the high proportion of those on remand: the latest data show 46 per cent of all women in prison in Victoria — and 55 per cent of all incarcerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women — are unsentenced.

    Experts have attributed this partly to a tightening of the state’s bail laws, which may have led to more women, including those charged with minor offences, being denied bail.
    :::
    Jill Prior said it was “unacceptable” that almost 30 years after the recommendations from the royal commission were released, another family and community had been “torn apart by another senseless death in custody”. “The lives of Aboriginal women matter,” she said.

  3. ‘poroti says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:47 pm

    ‘Sterner stuff” , is that wot gets used for the arse end of boats ?’

    LOL

  4. Nothing is ever good enough for Rexie from Greens Marketing. He helped Kill Bil and Kill Labor.

    Morrison is Rexie’s Main Man.

    So Rexie from Greens Marketing is at it again on Sleazy from Marketing’s behalf.

  5. Boerwar says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:40 pm

    …”I have faced death quite a few times. Some times for months at a time. I have physically protected kids from rape by a drunken mob at grave risk of my life. I have been threatened with being murdered, face-to-face and several times by several people. I had sacked this chap because his alcoholism was a threat to his young charges. I knew the chap meant to kill me. But, some months later, I got lucky. He murdered someone else first by chopping their head open with an axe. That one tested my stern demeanour. Because, however very stern you are in daily life, at night the nightmares come to get you. I could go on. Your concerns are piffle, IMO”…

    If you are looking for an empathetic ear, then you are barking up the wrong arsehole.

    Sorry.

  7. ‘Not Sure says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:51 pm

    Boerwar says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:40 pm

    …”I have faced death quite a few times. Some times for months at a time. I have physically protected kids from rape by a drunken mob at grave risk of my life. I have been threatened with being murdered, face-to-face and several times by several people. I had sacked this chap because his alcoholism was a threat to his young charges. I knew the chap meant to kill me. But, some months later, I got lucky. He murdered someone else first by chopping their head open with an axe. That one tested my stern demeanour. Because, however very stern you are in daily life, at night the nightmares come to get you. I could go on. Your concerns are piffle, IMO”…

    If you are looking for an empathetic ear, then you are barking up the wrong arsehole.

    Sorry.’

    The main point I was making was that your comment about being of ‘sterner stuff’ was piffle. Some of us have done the hard yards. People like you do the hard braggadocio.

    I would not expect a nanosecond’s empathy from the narcissistic ratbags who are going to demonstrate today. Nor would I want any. If they had any empathy at all they would be out and about helping those who need help and not stroking themselves into a tingle.

  8. Goodness me. The natives are getting restless in Mordor Media.
    .
    LIVE
    BUSHFIRES

    ‘Dangerous, misinformation’: News Corp employee’s fire coverage email

    A News Corp employee has slammed the organisation for its “irresponsible”, “dangerous” and “damaging” coverage of the national bushfire crisis, urging executive chairman Michael Miller to think about the “big picture”.

    In an email distributed to News Corp Australia staff and addressed to Mr Miller, commercial finance manager Emily Townsend said she had been filled with anxiety and disappointment over the coverage, which had impacted her ability to work.
    https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dangerous-misinformation-news-corp-employee-s-fire-coverage-email-20200110-p53qel.html

  9. Mavis
    I note that the predictive map envisages the ACT being virtually cut in half by fires tonight. Most of that will be forests and cleared pastures. It is virtually uninhabited country.
    If any strong winds in an arc from south-west to south-east blow up once it has got across the ACT then it will be all hands to the pump for Canberra’s urban areas within an hour or two.
    I have been watching those fires to the west for around a week, waiting for them to hit the ACT.

    It is all a bit like watching a snake trying to figure out how to reach you with its fangs.

  12. poroti

    I have always valued real moral courage much higher than physical courage.

    She deserves a medal.

    But she will probably get the sack.

  13. Mavis
    It is possible that we could reach the point where all the fires across southern NSW and Gippsland could merge into one fire. Something that i don’t think that has ever happened before.

  14. Boerwar says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:50 pm

    Nothing is ever good enough for Rexie from Greens Marketing. He helped Kill Bil and Kill Labor.

    Morrison is Rexie’s Main Man.

    So Rexie from Greens Marketing is doing his ‘hard yards’ again on Sleazy from Marketing’s behalf.

  15. Beat me to it poroti

    I have been severely impacted by the coverage of News Corp publications in relation to the fires, in particular the misinformation campaign that has tried to divert attention away from the real issue which is climate change to rather focus on arson (including misrepresenting facts),” she said.

    Deflect, look over there, now is not the time….

  16. M
    It hasn’t to my knowledge, although it would be hard to believe that the previous largest fires, in the mid-19th century, didn’t cross the border.

    I suspect that there is a theoretical statistical benefit in terms of a gross reduction in fire front lengths if large fires join up.

  17. poroti says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:47 pm

    …”‘Sterner stuff” , is that wot gets used for the arse end of boats?”…

    It is the correct English language adjectival form of the noun, and nothing to do with boats.

  18. Boerwar:

    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:58 pm

    It really is scary stuff. The smoke haze per se in Canberra must be horrific, not yet (and hopefully not) taking the actual fires into account. I wish you & yours well given where you live.

  19. I have always valued real moral courage much higher than physical courage.

    Wikipedia on moral courage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_courage

    Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences.

    Does anyone want to go there in relation to our major party political leaders and major political parties?

  21. News Corp employee lashes climate ‘misinformation’ in bushfire coverage with blistering email

    Senior employee’s reply-all email to executive chairman calls the company’s coverage ‘irresponsible’ and ‘dangerous’

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/10/news-corp-employee-climate-misinformation-bushfire-coverage-email

    The email landed in the inbox of all News Corp staff, and was leaked to the Guardian by multiple sources, but not the author.

    Sources say the email has since been deleted from News Corp inboxes.

  22. Boerwar says:
    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    …”I would not expect a nanosecond’s empathy from the narcissistic ratbags who are going to demonstrate today. Nor would I want any. If they had any empathy at all they would be out and about helping those who need help and not stroking themselves into a tingle.”…

    …………..

    Craig Kelly and Barnaby Joyce would be in full throated agreement with you.

  24. Pegasus @ #319 Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 1:08 pm

    I have always valued real moral courage much higher than physical courage.

    Wikipedia on moral courage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_courage

    Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences.

    Does anyone want to go there in relation to our major party political leaders and major political parties?

    Dinatale threatening that he would make Labor adopt green policies during the last election certainly had adverse consequences, but fails on the moral courage and moral reasons aspect though.

  25. One last word P1

    It helps if you can quantify the losses and benefits and put forward a costed proposal.

    One idea you could try is half price accommodation to attract tourists back and help the area.

    Govt stumps up the other half.

  26. Mexicanbeemer:

    [‘It is possible that we could reach the point where all the fires across southern NSW and Gippsland could merge into one fire. Something that i don’t think that has ever happened before.’]

    I see Boerwar responded to your post. He’s way more knowledgeable in this area than me. Anyway, it’s looking dire at the moment.

  30. Anyone asked Morrison how much the liberals got in donations from his bushfire ad featuring the Polish army saving the day.

    Perhaps those donations could go to a better cause.

  31. I would imagine a similar trend has been experienced in Australia.

    Derek ThompsonVerified account@DKThomp
    1h1 hour ago
    Single-family homes, then and now

    In early 1970s:
    – Median space-per-resident: 507 sq ft
    – 36% with central AC
    – 23% with 4 bedrooms or more

    In 2017:
    – Median space-per-resident: 971 sq ft
    – 93% with AC
    – 46% with 4 bedrooms or more

    https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2017.pdf …

  32. Vogon Poet also lacks moral courage. He thinks Albo has the talent to be a regional mayor. But when Albo becomes leader of the ALP he now wants him running the country. Where is the moral courage in that?

    Vogon Poet @ #2593 Friday, November 2nd, 2018 – 9:48 am
    Albo would make a good regional town mayor.
    Ipswich recently sacked their council, maybe he should move there.
    Even a couple of craft breweries there that he could drop in wearing his robe and have a beer and chat with the locals.

  33. News Corp employee lashes climate ‘misinformation’ in bushfire coverage with blistering email

    Emily Townsend a flickering echo in Mordor of the revolt in days past.
    ==========================================
    News Limited newspapers savaged Whitlam and strongly backed opposition leader Malcolm Fraser, so much so that journalists at The Australian took industrial action in protest.

    “Australian publisher privately turns on Prime Minister,” the telegram from US Consul-General in Melbourne, Robert Brand, reported to the State Department that “Rupert Murdoch has issued [a] confidential instruction to editors of newspapers he controls to ‘Kill Whitlam’ “.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/murdoch-editors-told-to-kill-whitlam-in-1975-20140627-zson7.html

  35. “Force”, what a laugh. How about try and influence.

    This is what RDN actually said, 11 May 2019:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/11/weve-delivered-in-spades-richard-di-natale-on-the-greens-role-in-driving-change

    The Greens would support a future Labor government to use regulation to enforce climate policy in the event of a hostile Senate, Greens leader Richard Di Natale says.

    The Victorian senator says he is confident the Greens will be able to work with Labor leader Bill Shorten, despite Shorten not responding to a letter he sent last year asking them to do just that.

    Di Natale says that if the Senate crossbench is populated by right-wing parties opposed to climate action, he will support a Labor government using other means to achieve environmental goals.

    “We have to work hard in an environment where no one has the balance of power in their own right… to look for common ground and work to achieve it,” Di Natale says.

    “Some changes, like those to the safeguard mechanism, might be made through regulation rather than legislation and I hope that a Labor government recognises that Australians want them to take very strong and decisive action.

    “We know that there are some changes that we won’t need a parliament to support.”
    :::
    Scott Morrison has joined conservative commentators in describing the Greens as equal and opposite to the right-wing minor parties in seriousness and scope.

    Di Natale says the comparison is “a smokescreen for Scott Morrison doing a deal with racists and climate deniers”.

    Deakin University politics lecturer Geoffrey Robinson says the comparison is unfair.

    “The Palmer party is obviously a kind of personal vehicle largely devoid of any policy commitment whatsoever,” Robinson says. “To compare the Greens and One Nation depends on your views about xenophobic populist nationalism versus Greens social democracy … but even there I think you can argue that the Greens give a lot more serious thought to policy than One Nation has.”

    The Greens have form in getting some of those policies enacted. The banking inquiry, the royal commission into the abuse of people with disabilities, the medevac legislation carried in the lower house by independent MP Kerryn Phelps, as well as bipartisan support for a federal anti-corruption body, could all be credited to the Greens in the last term of parliament.

    Labor’s shift on the live sheep export trade, its recent announcements on environmental protection laws, expanding free dental care to pensioners, and the bipartisan commitment to establish a national integrity commission can also be traced to the Greens.

  36. SK. Why don’t you check for yourself rather than post vicious lies.
    Every cent has been donated to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal.

    I didnt post a lie, I asked you a question about your post about his donation.
    Just as with Forrest, considering the charity history, questioning the effectiveness of a charitable donation is nothing I will be ashamed of.

    But thank you for answering the question, and thank you Shane Warne and the buyer for being so generous.

    My other question came about as I was only last week watching an interview with Warne on Ch7 (I think) where he said he gave the cap to Kerry Packer.

  38. News Corp Australia said the coverage recognised Australia was having a conversation about climate change, adding the role of arsonists were legitimate stories to report.

    “Having a conversation” is exactly what Scomo has been pretending.

  39. The two walking toward the road are the Captain and his daughter, who has flown up from Melbourne where she works as a pharmacist in a major oncology unit. His son, her brother, is also on the job. They are grading a containment and access trail, virtually around the houses on our road which runs a ridge for about 4Km. The chatter wanders idly about, dogs, gardens, local flora, jobs at the ABC, what Mum is doing, the people down the road, how good the little cakes are, but all the while reverting back to what they are doing and why, and the best way to do it, without any sense of fear or panic.

  40. Mexicanbeemer @ #266 Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 12:00 pm

    There probably wont be any violence since protests out the front of the State Library are pretty common.

    How about “There probably won’t be violence because these are students protesting climate change and not white supremacists protesting black people”?

    Also you can’t fight CO2 with violence; setting shit on fire just makes the problem worse. 🙂

  41. Tyrannosaurus Rex:

    The hard yards are done at the ballot box by changing away from the destructive same same…

    Waiting for the voters to “do the hard yards at the ballot box” is the antethesis of doing the hard yards.

  43. lizzie @ #338 Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 2:25 pm

    News Corp Australia said the coverage recognised Australia was having a conversation about climate change, adding the role of arsonists were legitimate stories to report.

    “Having a conversation” is exactly what Scomo has been pretending.

    Except the conversation seems to exclude that the Fire Commissioner and the Police and anyone else in the know have said categorically that arsonists are not a significant contributor, and what data there is says they are less contributory than farm accidents. Don’t hear them talking much about farm accidents either, come to think of it.

  44. nath:

    Friday, January 10, 2020 at 2:20 pm

    Although you show sound research skills, people change their minds from time to time. You do it, I do it, and nearly everybody else does it save perhaps RI, who has consistently said, “We’re all fucked”.

  45. I have no problem with the bushfire protests, and wish I was there.

    I think many on the Labor side have been spooked by the last election result.

    But times have changed, as have circumstances… for the worse.

    We are seeing a massive disinformation campaign being prosecuted by Denialists, right up to (as of today) the Prime Minister’s blatherings about arsonists.

    If my interactions with locals (in a solidly National Party electorate) are any guide, there is very little love lost for ScoMo and his merry band of deceivers, braggarts and obfuscators. People come up to you in the street wanting to talk about the fires. Very little, if any of it is complimentary to the Prime Minister.

    And we in this district, south of Forster, have not been seriously affected yet, being one of the dwindling number of coastal enclaves that have (so far, touch wood) escaped the holocaust. It’s a different story right in the centre of Forster, and north and west of Tuncurry, where much of the landscape is lunar.

    I believe that if a fire goes through here, support for The Deniers would be even closer to zero.

    In my view this is the BEST time to demonstrate and protest publicly, while the fires are still burning. It’s not a matter of theory anymore. The holocaust is real.

  46. ItzaDream

    The time for “having a conversation” was immediately after the election, when a responsible PM would have started organising for the summer ahead.

  49. lizzie @ #346 Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 2:34 pm

    ItzaDream

    The time for “having a conversation” was immediately after the election, when a responsible PM would have started organising for the summer ahead.

    You mean the conversation with the Fire Experts he arrogantly fobbed off, that conversation. I’m struggling not to throw the ‘wicked’ word around, but it’s getting close to being the adjective de jour.

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