Tasmanian Politics – Page 16

EMRS: Liberal 55, Labor 23, Greens 18 in Tasmania

The latest Tasmanian state poll has the Liberals doubling Labor’s vote with 9% to spare.

The latest quarterly EMRS poll of Tasmanian state voting intention has Labor slumping four points to a new low of 23%, with the Liberals sustaining their majority-busting 55% and the Greens up three to 18%. Premier Lara Giddings and Liberal leader Will Hodgman are both down a point, to 24% for Giddings and 46% for Hodgman, with Nick McKim up two to 13%. The poll targets 1000 respondents and has a theoretical margin of error of 3%.

NOTE: Apologies for reading off the wrong column in the table in the first version of this post, though luckily the numbers weren’t much different.

EMRS: Labor 27, Liberal 55, Greens 15 in Tasmania

More bad news for the Greens courtesy of Tasmanian pollsters EMRS, who have recorded a seven-point drop in their support at state level since last quarter. The Liberals meanwhile have further widened their already commanding lead.

The latest quarterly EMRS survey of Tasmanian state voting intention shows a six-point hike in the already very healthy Liberal vote to 55%, matching a previous peak of August last year, and a seven-point slump to 15% for the Greens, who ordinarily do rather too well out of EMRS. Labor’s vote is steady at 27%. Lara Giddings has gained three points as preferred premier to 25%, but still badly trails Will Hodgman who is up two to 47%. Nick McKim of the Greens matches his party’s fortunes in dropping four to 11%. EMRS has also helpfully published a chart showing the progress of its polling over the current term.

Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition

Newspoll’s famous 50-50 result of three weeks ago is left looking more than ever like an outlier, with the latest result coming in four points higher for the Coalition. Meanwhile, the less erratic Essential Research continues to trend slowly Labor’s way.

AAP, for some reason, reveals that the Newspoll to be published in The Australian tomorrow will have the elastic jerking back after the 50-50 anomaly of three weeks ago, with the Coalition now leading 54-46 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 33% for Labor (down three), 45% for the Coalition (up four) and 10% for the Greens (down two). However, Julia Gillard has improved further on her strongly recovering personal ratings last time, holding steady on approval at 36% and dropping two on disapproval to 50%, producing her best net approval rating since April last year. The wide gap which opened on preferred prime minister last time has narrowed only modestly, coming in at 43-33 in Gillard’s favour rather than 46-32. Tony Abbott’s personal ratings have also improved, his approval up three to 33% and disapproval down five to 55%.

Today’s Essential Research had Labor gaining a further point on the primary vote to 37%, with the Coalition steady at 47%. Essential has shown Labor gaining five points on the primary vote over six weeks, to reach a level not seen since March last year. The Coalition’s two-party preferred lead is unchanged at 53-47. Essential has smartly chosen this week to repeat an exercise from a year ago concerning trust in media personalities, finding Alan Jones among the most famous but least trusted (22% trust against 67% do not trust). The others best recognised were Laurie Oakes and George Negus, with the former slightly edging out the latter on trust (72% compared with 69%). Only 17% registered support for funding cuts to the ABC, with around a third each wanting funding maintained or increased. Opinion on government regulation of the media was fairly evenly spread between wanting more, less and the same.

UPDATE (9/10/12): The latest Morgan face-to-face result, combining its surveys over the past two weekends, has Labor down half a point to 37%, the Coalition up 1.5% to 43% and the Greens up half a point to 10.5%. The Coalition’s lead on respondent-allocated preferences is steady at 52-48, but they have gained a point on the 2010 election preferences measure to lead 51-49.

Senate-heavy preselection news:

• Barnaby Joyce’s lower house ambitions for the next election have foundered with Bruce Scott’s determination to serve another term as member for Maranoa. Joyce will not challenge Scott for preselection, saying to do so would be “self-indulgent personality politics”, despite the impression many received from his declared opposition to the locally contentious purchase of the vast Cubbie Station by a consortium led by Chinese interests. Unidentified Nationals quoted by Dennis Shanahan of The Australian “maintain Joyce had the numbers for preselection over Scott but it was going to be an ugly and drawn-out affair”.

• Two of the Queensland Coalition Senators whose terms expire after the next election have announced they will not seek re-election, leaving only 2007 ticket leader Ian MacDonald. Ron Boswell, who has been in the Senate since 1983 and was re-elected from number three in 2007, surprised nobody by announcing that at the age of 70 the time had come to bow out. Andrew Fraser of The Australian reports those in contention to take his place on the LNP Senate ticket include David Goodwin, the Boswell-backed president of the Queensland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, along with LNP vice-president Gary Spence, LNP treasurer Barry O’Sullivan, and Barnaby Joyce staffer Matt Canavan. Liberal Senator Sue Boyce today announced she would not contest the next election as she wished to spend more time with her family, while acknowledging her preselection would have faced opposition from forces who perceive her as too moderate. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reported that other applicants are likely to include David Moore, who worked on Campbell Newman’s election campaign. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reported that hopefuls for a Senate position included David Moore, an LNP operative whose activities as a lobbyist were recently criticised by Clive Palmer.

• Chris Ketter, state secretary of the Right faction Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, has been preselected to top the Queensland Labor Senate ticket. The number one candidate from 2007, Senate President John Hogg, will retire. The second and third elected candidates from last time, Claire Moore and Mark Furner, will retain their old positions, a gloomy prospect for Furner in particular.

• Mark Kenny of The Advertiser reports that Labor in South Australia will not promote Penny Wong to the top of its Senate ticket, despite the “bad look” of having the position instead go to one-time Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association state secretary Don Farrell on the strength of his Right faction’s control of between 55% and 60% of the votes at the party’s state convention.

• Long-simmering hostilities between the NSW Liberals and Nationals over the seat of Hume have come to an end, with the Nationals agreeing not to field a candidate against Liberal candidate Angus Taylor in his bid to succeed retiring Liberal Alby Schultz. Senator Fiona Nash had most frequently been nominated as a potential candidate, together with state government minister Katrina Hodgkinson.

• Bob Carr told reporters last week that were Robert McClelland to retire in Barton, he could not think of a better candidate to succeed him than his own successor as Premier, Morris Iemma. However, McClelland insists he has no plans to do so.

• As anticipated, former Australian Medical Association president Bill Glasson has been confirmed as the LNP candidate to run against Kevin Rudd in Griffith. Glasson’s father, Bill Glasson Sr, was once Nationals member for the rural seat of Gregory and a minister in the Bjelke-Petersen, Cooper and Ahern governments. Other names mentioned in relation to the preselection were John Haley, Alfio Russo and John Adermann, who stayed with the process to the end, along with Angela Julian-Armitage and Wayne Tsang, who dropped out at an earlier stage.

• The Mercury published extensive results on Saturday for polling of state voting intention in Tasmania, conducted on behalf of the Liberal Party by ReachTEL. The figures, which make for dismal reading for Labor, are detailed below, and have been thoroughly analysed by Kevin Bonham at the Tasmanian Times. The poll also found Liberal leader Will Hodgman favoured by 57.3% ahead of 22.9% for Premier Lara Giddings and 19.8% for Greens leader Nick McKim, and that 34.4% opposed the forestry “peace deal” against 28.2% support.

	 Lyons	 Bass	Braddon	Denison	Franklin Total
 
Labor 	 22.3% 	 17.4% 	 23.2% 	 18.5% 	 27.6% 	 22.7%
 
Liberal  55.7%   62.9%   56.8%   36.5%   46.3%   51.5%
 
Greens   13.6%   13.6%   14.6%   23.2%   19.4%   17.7%
 
Other	  8.4% 	  6.1% 	  5.3% 	 21.9% 	  6.7% 	  8.1%
 
Sample 	  233 	  230 	  232	  241	  238	  1174

EMRS: Labor 27, Liberal 49, Greens 22 in Tasmania

The latest semi-regular EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania has Labor recovering four points from a disastrous result in May, when it was equal with the Greens on 23%. However, there is little change in support for the Liberals (steady on 49%) and the Greens (down one to 22%), and the changes on preferred premier are likewise within the margin of error: Lara Giddings up a point to 22%, Will Hodgman up two to 45% and Nick McKim down two to 15%. The sample on the poll is 853 and the margin of error about 3.5%, although EMRS has been noted for producing inflated results for the Greens.

EMRS: Labor 23, Liberal 49, Greens 23 in Tasmania

The latest semi-regular EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania has produced a remarkable result, even accounting for its traditional tendency to overstate support for the Greens: parity between Labor and the Greens, who are both at 23% (respectively down four and up five), with the Liberals down three to 49%. On the question of preferred premier, Lara Giddings is down three to 21%, Will Hodgman down one to 43% and Nick McKim up two to 17%. The poll was conducted by telephone from a sample of 1000, with a margin of error of about 3%.

Hobart and Western Tiers live

Sunday. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has provisionally reviewed the preferences and been unable to determine definitively that the Greens will finish ahead of Labor in Hobart, although it seems fairly clear that they will. Beyond that, only the margin of Valentine’s win over whoever finishes second is at issue. In Western Tiers, Greg Hall has 73.4% of the vote.

7.41pm. Four more booths in and three more to go, and we’re still looking at a result of about 36% for Valentine, 22% for the Greens and 20% for Labor.

7.15pm. Par for the course result from West Hobart booth.

7.14pm. 1235 pre-polls are very strong for Valentine (40.6%), very weak for Labor (15.5%) and status quo for Greens (23.6%).

7.09pm. Lenah Valley booth is Valentine’s strongest and the Greens weakest yet; but South Hobart the Greens’ strongest yet and Labor’s weakest. Greens looking very likely to finish second, unless James Sugden’s preferences flow heavily to Labor for some reason. The gap between Valentine and the Greens is now 37.0% to 23.1%, so if you weren’t calling it for Valentine before you would be now.

7.01pm. North Hobart relatively strong for Labor and weak for Valentine, though the Greens have still beaten Labor in every booth so far.

6.59pm. I defer to the superior judgement of Stephen Luntz in comments, who reckons Labor preferences will favour Valentine over the Greens, meaning he should win easily.

6.57pm. Mount Stuart is a relatively weak result for the Greens, with 19.5% only fractionally ahead of Labor on 19.4%, and Valentine on 35.8%. More results like that would put the issue beyond doubt.

6.54pm. The two Hobart city booths are now in, and the Greens candidate has a solid lead over Labor (26.3% to 20.4%), and remains close enough to Valentine (34.3%) to make life interesting – depending on the behaviour of preferences from Labor and strongly performing independent James Sugden (12.9%).

6.46pm. First result in from Hobart is West Hobart, and Rob Valentine’s has 31.8%, Labor’s looking bad with 22.9%, with the Greens in second place on 24.5%. At this early stage, you wouldn’t rule out a Greens win over Valentine on Labor preferences, even if your money would be on Valentine.

6.45pm. Half of Western Tiers’s booths are in before Hobart has got out of bed, and Hall is now on 74.6%.

6.31pm. Three more booths from Western Tiers, and Hall now up to 76.2%.

6.25pm. Four booths in from Western Tiers, and clearly no prospect of a boilover: Greg Hall 72.9%, John Hawkins 27.1%.

6pm. Polls have closed for the Tasmanian upper house elections for Hobart and Western Tiers. I presume we’ll be getting small rural booths in very shortly from Western Tiers, but will have to wait half to three-quarters of an hour for results from Hobart.

Tasmanian upper house elections: May 5

Voters in two of Tasmania’s 15 Legislative Council divisions (or at least, those of them who can be bothered) will go to the polls on Saturday, a result of the quaint arrangement for that chamber in which elections are held annually for members who serve terms staggered over a six-year cycle. These elections have more of the feel of local government than state parliamentary elections, and outside Hobart (and to a considerable extent inside Hobart as well) are dominated by independents to the extent that the major parties rarely bother to field candidates.

Labor managed to secure five of the chamber’s 15 seats at the peak of its electoral cycle from 2001 to 2007, but it has been shedding them steadily ever since and is at risk of being reduced to one if things do not go their way in the division of Hobart – and the consensus view is that they won’t, given the retirement after 18 years of Doug Parkinson and the entry into the race of Rob Valentine, the long-serving former lord mayor. The other contest is in the northern and central Tasmania seat of Western Plains, where independent incumbent Greg Hall faces another independent challenger in John Hawkins.

The division of Hobart was known prior to the 2008 redistribution as Wellington, and is bounded to the south by the Sandy Bay Rivulet, a small waterway running south of the city centre. From there it extends north through South Hobart, West Hobart, North Hobart and Hobart proper, and on to New Town and Lenah Valley. This is ground zero for the Greens in Tasmania: their Senate vote in this area’s polling booths was 39.3% at the 2010 federal election, compared with 31.6% for Labor and 24.8% for the Liberals. At the last election for Wellington in 2006, Doug Parkinson received 43.1% against 26.3% for the Greens (then as now, the Liberals did not field a candidate).

The Greens’ position has evidently strengthened since then, and they have further benefited from a redistribution which exchanged the Labor-voting northern end of the electorate at Moonah and Lutana for Greens heartland in South Hobart. It would thus appear to offer the Greens an excellent chance of winning their first ever seat in the chamber, to supplement the five they hold in the 25-member lower house. However, the consensus is that the entry of Valentine will thwart them.

The candidates in ballot paper order:

Penelope Ann (Greens). A teacher and Eastern Shore bed and breakfast operator.

John Michael Forster (Independent). A “business analyst” who polled weakly in earlier runs for Rumney in last year’s Legislative Council election and for Franklin at the 2010 federal election. He tells the Mercury he has “spent the past 20 years working in accounting and IT for businesses small and large, Australian and multinational”, and is concerned with fiscal responsibility.

Paul Hiscutt (Independent). A Hobart nurse and former death penalty advocate who polled 8.2% when he ran in 2006. He is also described by the Mercury as a “former pop star”, though I suspect this may be laying it on a bit thick.

James Sugden (Independent). An industrial engineering consultant, who if nothing else has won the favour of Greg Barns.

Rob Valentine (Independent). Valentine first became an alderman in 1992 and began his epic stint as lord mayor in 1999, which continued until he declined to seek a fourth term at the elections held last year. Tasmanian gentleman psephologist Kevin Bonham relates at the Tasmanian Times that Valentine has “occupied a moderate position on the Council, more or less in between the endorsed Greens and the informal ‘blues’ cluster of pro-development/business lobby aldermen who sometimes have links to the Liberal Party”.

Dean Winter (Labor). A media adviser to the federal member for Franklin, Julie Collins. No doubt with the 61-year-old Valentine in mind, 26-year-old Winter has criticised the Legislative Council as a “retirement village for former town mayors or conservatives”, and received support from Bill Shorten, who went to so far as to describe the chamber as “nothing but a nursing home”. Winter’s entry into the “wildcard division” of Cleo’s Bachelor of the Award informs us that he looks for a woman with “intelligence, passion and nice eyes” (Kristina Keneally reportedly fits the bill), and that his best body part as his chest. Labor had originally planned to use the election to trial a preselection primary, but this fell through due to lack of interest at both ends: few locals registered interest in participating, and Winter was the only eligible candidate to nominate. Another hopeful, Denison state election candidate Madeleine Ogilvie, was ruled out on the grounds she was a non-financial member of the party.

A quieter contest is unfolding in Western Tiers, known before the redistribution as Rowallan, which mostly consists of territory inland of the northern population centres of Launceston and Devonport (plus a small stretch of coast east of Devonport), from where it extends deep into central Tasmania. Greg Hall is seeking a third term, having won 31.9% in a six-way contest in 2001 and 82.0% in 2006 when he was opposed only by the Greens. Kevin Bonham relates that Hall is “strongly supportive of the Tasmanian forest industry, so it’s no surprise that his opponent is a critic on forestry issues”. That opponent is John Hawkins, a Chudleigh businessman and farmer of apparently considerable means. Hawkins’ chief claim to fame to election watchers at large is that he launched but shortly withdrew a legal action against Eric Abetz’s Senate election in 2010, claiming that he was ineligible by virtue of having failed to renounce his German citizenship. He has resolved if elected to serve only one term.

EMRS: Liberal 52, Labor 27, Greens 18 in Tasmania

Tasmanian outfit EMRS has published one of its occasional polls of state voting intention, and it continues to show the Liberals in a commanding position: their primary vote is at 52 per cent, down two since November, with Labor up four to 27 per cent and the Greens down two to 18 per cent (EMRS have thankfully dropped their practice of burying the most useful set of results, which excludes the undecided and allocates those “leaning towards a party”, as “Table 3”). Liberal leader Will Hogdman leads Premier Lara Giddings as preferred premier by 44 per cent to 24 per cent, with Greens leader Nick McKim on 15 per cent. The sample on the poll is about 1000, and the margin of error about 3 per cent.