EMRS: Liberal 39, Labor 26, Greens 12, JLN 9 in Tasmania

A poll conducted shortly after the Tasmanian election was called finds the Jacqui Lambie Network well placed to win seats and the Liberals unlikely to recover their majority.

The quarterly Tasmanian state voting intention poll from EMRS has made a well-timed arrival, showing the Liberals steady since November on 39% (as compared with 48.7% at the 2021 election), Labor down three to 26% (28.2% at the last election) and the Greens steady at 12% (12.4% at the last election). The Jacqui Lambie Network was included as a response option for the first time and recorded 9%, a substantially more modest result than the 20% recorded over New Year by YouGov, though in this case the option was not provided for respondents in Clark, where the party is not fielding candidates. Its inclusion presumably has something to do with a three-point drop in independents to 14%.

Despite Labor going backwards on voting intention, Rebecca White is up three on preferred premier to 38%, with Jeremy Rockliff steady on 41%. The poll was conducted from February 15 to 21, starting a day after the election was called, by live interviewer phone polling from a sample of 1000.

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.

36 comments on “EMRS: Liberal 39, Labor 26, Greens 12, JLN 9 in Tasmania”

  1. EMRS’ Managing Director Paul Jamrozik said “Despite garnering considerable media attention, the proposed AFL stadium is a priority for seven per cent of voters.”

    I would love a pollster to just ask the 3 point scale question, Support, Don’t Support, Don’t Know on the AFL stadium.

    Meanwhile the political parties are tying themselves up in knots over the issue. Premier Rockcliff tried to delay the launch event which is occurring a week before the election. He knew it was there, probably hoped for a bounce in popularity, now wants to walk away from the event.

    The Tasmanian Football Club say yeah nah, we’ve booked the band and the caterers so we’re going ahead regardless.

    The Mercury https://archive.md/uKrgJ

  2. Tasmanian Labor never gets a break even in favourable conditions i.e. when there is severe Liberal fighting.
    At 26%, they won’t get more than 10 seats in expanded House of Reps. Shaking my head emoji.

  3. ”
    Mostly Interestedsays:
    Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 3:27 pm
    EMRS’ Managing Director Paul Jamrozik said “Despite garnering considerable media attention, the proposed AFL stadium is a priority for seven per cent of voters.”

    I would love a pollster to just ask the 3 point scale question, Support, Don’t Support, Don’t Know on the AFL stadium.

    Meanwhile the political parties are tying themselves up in knots over the issue. Premier Rockcliff tried to delay the launch event which is occurring a week before the election. He knew it was there, probably hoped for a bounce in popularity, now wants to walk away from the event.

    The Tasmanian Football Club say yeah nah, we’ve booked the band and the caterers so we’re going ahead regardless.

    The Mercury https://archive.md/uKrgJ
    ”

    I think it was a poster named “south”, a Labor supporter, who presented a compelling case against the stadium but got so much disgusted with C@tmomma hectoring that he withdrew from PB( that is what south posted before stopped posting). He was a very perceptive Labor supporter.
    south please come back. C@tmomma is banished for the time being.

  4. Based on those numbers we are looking at something like –
    Liberal 15
    ALP 10
    Greens 7
    JLN 3

    The only real question is who will support the minority Liberal government.
    Surly it will be the greens, they have been banning on forever about how someone in government should let them be a coalition partner.

    I really can’t see the ALP wanting to stich up some sort of deal with a 3 party coalition especially with the greens, due to the current level of hatred the parties have for each other.

    Surly this farcical situation will see Tasmanians wake up to themselves and flip their voting systems like the other states.

  5. History of the TAS lower House

    1998 Labour 14
    2002 Labor 14
    2006 Labor 14
    2010 Labor 10 Greens 5
    2014 Liberal 14
    2018 Liberal 13
    2021 Liberal 13

    Tasmania has not been a big majority goverment state for a while

    –

    As for going to single member districts you just need to look at their upper house which has gone with independents as the main party to see what that would do.

  6. Hi Jacobin.
    As a proud Taswegian, I like our Hare-Clark system. Long may it reign.
    If the Greens get more than 5 I will be very surprised.
    Many of the upper house (& council) independents have an (undisclosed) affiliation with a political party – often Liberal.

  7. Redbridge polling kosta I think the guys name is was interviewed today said their polling on the tas election out on Friday is showing votes if they move from libs not going to labor but to other parties.

  8. Taz
    I don’t have a problem with the Hare-Clark system its just it is best used in the upper house. It is not a good system for choosing the executive arm of government.

  10. The concept of 2pp in a
    Pr ballot does not inform that much. However I estimate 52/48 in favour of the libs. Via this opinion poll.in 2021 was approx 55/45 their way.This represents a 3% swing to Labor. I estimate each of the major parties have a min of 10 seats and a maximum of 15 seats. This means 10 seats go else where . At the moment Johnson
    obryne and 2 greens hold elected seats.Those not elected Tucker and Alexander have lesser chances… I think Tucker’s chances are higher. The best greens can do is 4 and jln 3 If Chaos comes with the endorsed liberals filled via countbacks.. what happens with a Cross bench 4 greens jln 2 and say 4 independents?

  11. Why would the Greens support the Liberals under that estimate when Labor + Greens outnumbers them?

    Surely the message would be “Tasmania voted for change” and the goal for Labor will be to get confidence and supply from the Greens & JLN?

  12. Depends who the independents are
    left 2
    Garland ………I don’t know. How many greens? How many Lambie. If Lambie are only 2 EVEN if they support libs they could still be less than 18. I would not wish to have to rely on Tucker’s support. Also I suspect
    Minority govt is a poisoned chalice which dooms who ever is part of it….. why would you want to be part of if you
    Got smashed at the next election

    .

  13. @michael, the belief that minority government is a poisoned chalice is an interesting one. Stage Bracks in Victoria one a landslide (2003) after initially securing a minority government (1999).

    Yet it is. Very strong belief in the community that minority is a death knell (Gillard?).

    I hope we are more mature than that now. Most of the democratic world has minority governments. The Anglosphere seems hell bent on 2 party systems….

  14. @ balding…. my argument is given this
    Election that greens lambie network and at least 2 independents will Win seats. It is Possible that no 2 parties will have a majority of seats. Alp certainly so and libs .probably . This can be the “poisoned ” chalice . I spoke of. Nsw is different though alp is a minority of one
    There is 2 pro Labor independents and I think 3 greens. For the liberals to govern they need to have every one else on side. (9 members of cross bench

  15. Going for the name drop here….. I spoke to Bracks about this. He says the secret to their success was they ignored the Libs and just governed. Albo should try the same thing….

    I’m looking forward to a Tassie hung parliament and then to see how they work it out! Interesting times.

    It will be a very interesting night of TV.

  16. PP, his name is Kos Samaras. Kos is short for Kosmos. He lurks here. Good guy. Very intense!

    His wife is a state ALP minister. His business partner is an ex Lib backroom number cruncher.

  17. “Minority govt is a poisoned chalice which dooms who ever is part of it….. why would you want to be part of if you”
    If you don’t want to govern now because of what might happen in 3 years, you shouldn’t be a politician.

    Doubly so if your state has been ruled by incompetent Liberals for 10 years.

  18. Tasmanian Labor are a basket case, literally, Rebecca White is a failed recycled leader, and the only person in there who’d be a viable future leader, Dean Winters, is universally hated by the Labor factions down there.
    The fact that in the 2022 federal election, Labor barely held on to Lyons and lost badly in Bass and Braddon speaks volumes.
    The stadium issue might cost the Liberals some votes, but those aren’t going to Labor. The main beneficiary would seem to be the Jackie Lambie network and other independents.
    So, another Liberal minority Government seems to be the likely outcome of this election.

  19. Labor was not defeated badly in Bass…there was
    Only a 1% swing against
    Labor. What is liberals plus jln only won 16 or
    17 seats?
    ..

  20. In the Tasmanian case, the 1996 election was most certainly a poison chalice for the Liberals.

    After winning a majority of 19/35 seats at the 1992 election, the Liberal government under Ray Groom went on a hard-right conservative agenda, the most odious of it was going after the LGBT+ community, which incidentally the most likely future MHA for Franklin Eric Abetz fully supported.

    4 years later in 1996, the Liberals lost that majority only winning 16/35 seats with Labor winning 14 and the Greens winning 4 with 1 independent, but the main story was that the Liberals still held the most seats. So for some strange reason they and the Tasmanian Greens under Christine Milne made an agreement for confidence and supply.

    After that, everything went to hell for the Tasmanian Liberals. They abruptly lost power in the snap 1998 election and did not regain it until 2014, where they seem to be fairly secure now at the moment with their more moderate modern position as compared to their shameless gay-bashing of the 1990’s.

  21. Tasmania is notoriously different with minority government (and notoriously more hostile to minority governments reliant on the Greens), so comparisons to other states don’t hold up.

    I don’t get the random love for Dean Winter, and I think he would lose even if the party could be magically forced to get behind him. I feel like someone like Josh Willie would be a wiser choice, assuming he makes the jump to the House.

  22. jacobin: “Surly this farcical situation will see Tasmanians wake up to themselves and flip their voting systems like the other states.”

    Yeah, ‘cos proportional electoral systems have reduced Germany and New Zealand to basket cases of democracy …

  23. MABWM:
    “@michael, the belief that minority government is a poisoned chalice is an interesting one. … Bracks in Victoria [won] a landslide (2003) after initially securing a minority government (1999).”

    Ditto Palaszczuk. Minority government in 2015, re-elected 2018 and 2021.

    The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true …

  24. I’ve been jokingly thinking about a power sharing consensus government between Labor and the Liberals.

    Probably the divide is too wide, and with the likely election of EricA betz the Tas Liberals will slide to the right on identify politics.

  26. The Mercury has written up a piece about minority government, I think using the EMRS poll results. They come to slightly different outcomes than what Dr Kevin Bonham posted in his link on Wednesday below.

    I think I also spotted a math error where they are saying 16 seats is needed for majority, but it’s an odd sentence. “The leaders of both major parties have ruled out a deal with the Greens, but both could be in the running to form government if they can win the support of enough crossbenchers to reach 16 votes in the new 35-seat House of Assembly.”

    The article makes some pretty brave (biased) calls on who the independent members will be, as there isn’t any named independents in the EMRS results (assuming that is what they are using).

    Finally also some AFL Stadium polling, I think that’s why Premier Rockcliff is ever so slightly starting to walk away from the issue by not attending the launch of the team in the week before the election and by proposing a cap on spending (which has been widely called out as BS).

    “Support for the government’s stadium proposal was low.
    In Clark, 36 per cent of people support the stadium and 55 per cent are opposed, with the remainder being undecided; in Franklin, 39 per cent supported the stadium and 55 per cent were opposed.

    Support for the stadium was lowest in Braddon with 27 per cent in favour and 62 per cent against and in Bass with 21 per cent in favour and 67 per cent against.”

    The BTL comments are full of the usual positions. Vote Labor get Green, Liberals did nothing for 10 years, minority government is both terribad and wonderful in equal portions.

    The Mercury – https://archive.md/FO56j

    And finally @jacobin what a stupid thing to say Friday, March 1st, 2024 – 9:36 am

  28. This mystery poll is like a juicy fruit found in the wild (4,000 state-wide sample !), but you don’t know if its poisonous or not!

    Here are first preference shares with change from last election in brackets.

    Clark: Lib 26 (-6) Ind 25 (+2) ALP 24 (+2) Grn 16 (-4) Oth 9

    Franklin: Lib 33 (-9) Lab 24 (-9) Grn 20 (+1) Ind 8 (+7) JLN 8 Oth 7

    Lyons: Lab 35 (+2) Lib 34 (-17) Grn 12 (+3) Ind 10 (+9) JLN 8 Oth 1

    Bass: Lib 37 (-23) Lab 28 (+2) JLN 15 Grn 13(+4) Oth/Ind 7

    Braddon: Lib 45 (-12) Lab 26 (-1) JLN 15 Grn 5 (-1) Oth/Ind 9

    I have put in Others myself based the remainder left over from 100% from reported results. In Bass & Braddon where no independent results were quoted, I bundled the Ind + Others together.

    A rough and ready statewide figure equally weighting each seat is:

    Lib 35.0(-13.7) Lab 27.4 (-0.8) Grn 13.2 (+0.8) JLN 9.2 Ind/Oth 15.2 (+4.5)

    Compared to EMRS its a little worse for the Libs, a little better for Labor and the Greens.

  29. Thanks Kevin for finding out the source of that poll.

    Was it the Tasmanian Hospitality Association who ran a massive negative campaign against Labor about pokey machines a few elections back? As there’s detailed outputs on the AFL stadium I wonder if they were trying to see if they should back it or not.

  30. jacobin says:
    “Oliver Sutton,
    Proportionate [sic] voting isn’t helping to bring peace in Israel.”

    And it’s not helping to cure cancer, either.

  31. @isle…
    I get 14 to 16 liberals
    gr4
    Jln 3
    Alp 10 to 11
    According to that poll
    It is Possible that jln may share balance of power with another group or groups

  34. Mick,

    That looks close to what Kevin Bonham got as well.

    If this comes to pass, how much can we assume JLN MHAs will stick together. Currently there is no reason to suspect this. However new parties can fracture over a term (e.g One Nation in Qld 98-01, NZ First in 96-98.)

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