Category: Tasmanian Politics

EMRS: Liberal 54, Labor 23, Greens 20 in Tasmania

The latest quarterly EMRS poll of state voting intention in Tasmania finds essentially no change since August: the Liberals are up a point to a still commanding 54 per cent, Labor is up one to a still diabolical 23 per cent, and the Greens (who tend to do inordinately well in this series) are up two to 20 per cent. As usual, you have to go to Table 3 in the link above to get results which include leaners and exclude the undecided, which other pollsters do as a matter of course. Liberal leader Will Hodgman is down four points to 48 per cent on preferred premier but still holds a commanding lead over Premier Lara Giddings, who is steady on 19 per cent, with Greens leader Nick McKim up a point to 14 per cent. The sample on the poll is 857, producing a margin of error of about 3.3 per cent.

Two further Tasmanian matters:

• A plan by the Tasmanian ALP to hold a preselection primary for the state upper house seat of Hobart fell through after Dean Winter, 26-year-old media adviser to federal Franklin MP Julie Collins, was the only eligible candidate to nominate. ALP state secretary John Dowling was quoted in The Mercury saying the one other candidate to emerge was a non-financial member – this possibly refers to Madeleine Ogilvie, who ran as a candidate for Denison at the state election and was named as a starter. The seat will be vacated at the election with the retirement of Labor’s Doug Parkinson, who expressed reservations about the preselection primary concept. Craig Hoggett of The Mercury further reports that the party was struggling to get 100 voters in the constituency to register as party supporters in order to participate in the vote. Dowling was quoted in the report saying the party was considering using a primary process to choose its candidate to run against Andrew Wilkie in Denison at the next federal election. The Mercury also reports that recently retired lord mayor Rob Valentine will run as an independent; that Hobart aldermen Bill Harvey could possibly run for the Greens, council colleague and unsuccessful lord mayor candidate Helen Burnet having ruled herself out; and that “former Labor MP and cabinet minister Julian Amos has yet to confirm if he will run”, presumably as an independent.

• The Burnie Advocate reports former Liberal Senator Guy Barnett is considering running for state preselection for Bass or Lyons.

EMRS: Liberal 55, Labor 22, Greens 18 in Tasmania

Another shocking opinion poll for Labor, this time the latest quarterly EMRS survey of Tasmanian state voting intention. Removing the undecided and including “leaners”, as other pollsters do but which EMRS publishes as “Table 3”, the poll has Labor down three points from an already disastrous result in May to 22 per cent, the Liberals up seven to 55 per cent and the Greens down four to 18 per cent (remembering that EMRS polls have traditionally been over-generous to the Greens). Since assuming the premiership in January, Lara Giddings preferred premier deficit over Opposition Leader Will Hodgman has progressed from 27-38 to 22-42 to 19-52.

EMRS: Liberal 48, Labor 25, Greens 22 in Tasmania

Tasmanian polling outfit EMRS has released one of its occasional surveys of about 850 respondents on state voting intention. As always, you need to go to EMRS’s Table 3 to get the “percentage of decided voters” figure that other pollsters would publish as the headline: Liberal 48 per cent (up two since February), Labor 25 per cent (down two) and the Greens 22 per cent (up five). These figures are respectively up two, down two and down three on the February poll, conducted shortly after Lara Giddings became Premier, and would almost certainly deliver majority government to the Liberals if repeated at an election. Giddings has also gone backwards from her unpromising start against Will Hodgman as preferred Premier: Giddings is down five to 22 per cent, Hodgman up four to 42 per cent and Greens leader Nick McKim up two to 18 per cent.

In other news, the recount to determine who fills former Premier David Bartlett’s vacancy in his House of Assembly seat of Denison was won by Graeme Sturges, who lost his seat in last year’s election. Sturges is best remembered for telling a security guard at a 2009 parliamentary function: “Don’t you know who I am? I’ll have your f..king job.” This is generally credited with the subsequent collapse of his primary vote from 9.6 per cent 1.9 per cent. Sturges owes his recount win to the fact that the other Labor incumbent to lose their seat, Lisa Singh, has since found a place in the Senate – she polled 6.0 per cent at the election. This effectively produced a two-horse race between Sturges and the one remaining Labor candidate, Madeleine Ogilvie. The recount, based on preferences from the votes which elected David Bartlett, gave 5362 votes to Sturges (51.3 per cent) and 4197 to Ogilvie (40.1 per cent). The Australian’s Strewth column advises that Sturges has retracted his apology after the security guard incident, which was “forced by a spin doctor”.

Newspoll: 54-46 to Coalition; Nielsen: 56-44

The latest Newspoll has produced the 54-46 two-party preferred result the market has come to expect, but with Julia Gillard taking a hammering on her personal ratings: approval down four to 34 per cent, disapproval up six to 55 per cent. However, Tony Abbott is down too, contrary to other polls from recent weeks: his approval is down four points to 38 per cent and disapproval up three to 51 per cent. Julia Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister is down to just four points: her own rating is down three points to 42 per cent, with and Abbott up two to 38 per cent. Labor’s primary vote is steady on 33 per cent with the Coalition up two to 46 per cent and the Greens down two to 10 per cent.

The poll also finds that the tough-medicine angle on the budget is the one that has gained currency: 37 per cent believe it will be good for the economy against 32 per cent bad, but fully 41 per cent believe it will make them worse off personally against only 11 per cent who think it will make them better off. As it is with so many things these days, opinion as to whether the Coalition would have delivered a better budget is evenly split: 38 per cent say yes, 41 per cent say no. However, the latter number would include those who believe they would have done no better or worse, so this would have to be rated a positive set of numbers for the Coalition. Figures as always courtesy of GhostWhoVotes on Twitter. UPDATE: And now full tables.

UPDATE: The montly Nielsen poll is even worse for the government, though not actually worse than in the previous Nielsen poll a month ago: the results are steady for two-party preferred (56-44) and both major parties’ primary votes, with the Coalition leading Labor 47 per cent to 31 per cent. As in Newspoll, the Greens have dropped two to 10 per cent. Personal ratings are bewilderingly different from Newspoll’s: Julia Gillard is down two on approval and up two on disapproval, but her totals of 43 per cent and 52 per cent. The poll provides further evidence that Tony Abbott’s position has improved over the past month, his approval up three to 45 per cent and disapproval down one to 50 per cent. Gillard’s lead as preferred prime minister has narrowed from 50-42 to 47-44. The budget was rated “fair” by 42 per cent and not fair by 39 per cent. There were also questions on the deal with Malaysia on asylum seekers, the results of which are summarised thus by Michelle Grattan of The Age:

Just over a third (35 per cent) support the Malaysian deal, including a bare majority (51 per cent) of Labor voters. Less than a quarter of Coalition voters (23 per cent) support it, and 45 per cent of Green voters. More than seven in 10 Coalition voters and nearly four in 10 Labor voters are against it. Asked about the policy’s effectiveness, 23 per cent predicted it would increase arrivals by boat, while only 16 per cent said it would reduce them. Of those who support the measure, 57 per cent think it will make no difference and 12 per cent believe it will increase arrivals – just 28 per cent think it will reduce them. Among those opposed, 60 per cent say it will make no difference, 30 per cent believe it will increase arrivals and a mere 8 per cent think it will reduce them. The Malaysia solution has the most support in Western Australia.

We also had on Saturday a Galaxy poll which found the budget to be deemed good by 28 per cent and bad by 39 per cent, comparing with respective figures of 43 per cent and 28 per cent last year. Only 11 per cent of respondents deemed Labor “sound managers” of the economy, down six points on last year, with “poor managers” up eight points to 33 per cent. In a gobsmacking repudiation of reality, fully 47 per cent of respondents were ready to nominate a family income of $150,000 as “about average” – as of 2007-08, the planet Earth figure for median household income was $66,820. Only 44 per cent acknowledged such an income as “very rich” or “quite rich”. It was also found 51 per cent were opposed to the government’s plan to provide free digital set-top boxes for pensioners, with 45 per cent supportive. Full results from GhostWhoVotes.

Notable local happenings:

• Jon Stanhope has resigned as Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory after 10 years in the job, and will formally quit parliament next week. His deputy, Katy Gallagher, was chosen by caucus to succeed Stanhope without opposition. Stanhope’s vacancy in the Legislative Assembly will be filled by a re-count of the votes that elected him to his Ginninderra electorate seat at the 2008 election. In practice this means it will go to whichever of the unsuccessful Labor candidates from the election chooses to nominate. These included Adina Cirson, a staffer to Gallagher who polled 5.0 per cent of the ttoal vote at the election; David Peebles, who holds a senior position at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and polled 4.9 per cent; and Chris Bourke, a dentist of Aboriginal background. Noel Towell of the Canberra Times reports that Peebles “has been offered and accepted a job as Australia’s Deputy High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands and is thought to be unlikely to accept an Assembly seat”, which would appear to make the position available for Cirson should she choose to accept it.

• Four months after resigning as Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett has announced his resignation from parliament. This will activate a recount similar to the one outlined above. The three unsuccessful candidates from Bartlett’s division of Denison included two incumbents – Lisa Singh, who had been a minister, and the accident-prone Graeme Sturges – both of whom lost out to Labor newcomer Scott Bacon. The other candidate on the ticket was Madeleine Ogilvie, a barrister. Singh has since been elected to the Senate, where she will assume her seat on July 1, and is hence not a starter. Ogilvie has confirmed she will seek the position, while Sturges has been reported saying he is “considering his options”.

UPDATE 2: Essential Research has turned in a bit of a surprise, with the Coalition lead narrowing from 54-46 to 52-48. This comes from a one point drop on the Coalition primary vote to 46 per cent, a one point rise for Labor to 36 per cent and a one point rise for the Greens to 11 per cent. The poll nonetheless finds a generally negative response to the budget: 29 per cent believe it will be bad for them personally against 11 per cent bad; 25 per cent think bad for business against 20 per cent good; and 29 per cent say bad for the economy overall against 27 per cent good. Despite that, a question on whether the economy is headed in the right or wrong direction produces near identical results to last year’s post-budget poll, with 46 per cent saying it is and 29 per cent saying it isn’t. On the question of which party “would be best at handling the Australian economy in the interests of you and people like you”, 40 per cent say Liberal and 30 per cent say Labor.

There ia also a question on asylum seekers which to my mind mostly demonstrates how much trouble pollsters can get into when their questions seek to explain things to respondents. The question in this case being: “Do you support or oppose the Government’s plan to send asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia to PNG and Malaysia if it means it will cost taxpayers substantially more than it would if we just processed asylum seekers on the mainland in Australia.” And since they put it like that: 60 per cent say oppose, 24 per cent say support. Which sounds like good news of a kind for supporters of a liberal stand on the issue, but only because tougher approaches were left off the menu.

UPDATE 3 (17/5/11): JWS Research has polled 2141 people in the 10 most marginal Labor and Coalition seats, finding an aggregate 58-42 result in the Coalition’s favour on voting intention. Fully 50 per cent of respondents rated the Howard government the best of Australia’s last five – though it should be noted here that “government” was defined in terms of who the prime minister was, so that the Labor vote was split four ways. Very similar personal ratings were recorded for Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott – 33 per cent approval and 44 per cent disapproval for the former, against 33 per cent and 46 per cent for the latter. Findings on the budget were broadly in line with other recent polling, with a slight majority deeming it good for the economy and a larger one deeming it bad for them personally.

Tasmanian upper house elections live

Figures at close of counting on polling day.

RUMNEY

#
%
Swing
Proj.
Lin Thorp
5718
33.3%
-14.2%
*
Tony Mulder
4783
27.9%
Paul Mason
2554
14.9%
Penelope Ann
2299
13.4%
2.1%
14.3%
Others
1808
10.5%
Booths counted (/22)
22

DERWENT

#
%
Swing
Proj.
Craig Farrell
6558
39.1%
-12.3%
39.3%
Jenny Branch
3341
19.9%
-13.4%
20.1%
Phillip Bingley
1684
10.0%
-5.3%
9.6%
Deirdre Flint
2460
14.7%
Ray Williams
2723
16.2%
Booths counted (/27)
27

LAUNCESTON
#
%
Rosemary Armitage
5310 31.8%
Steve Bishop
3310 19.8%
Lou Clark
2395 14.3%
Sam McQuestin
5679 34.0%

Sunday, May 8

9pm. The two-candidate preferred figures make it very clear Tony Mulder will defeat Lin Thorp in Rumney: he leads 10,607 to 9343.

5pm. Adam Clarke in comment reports the indicative count in Rumney has Tony Mulder ahead of Lin Thorp by 500 votes: if confirmed, that would pretty much put the issue beyond doubt. Thorp has lost further ground on the primary vote with the addition of 595 pre-polls and 317 postals. The latter is also true of Labor’s Craig Farrell in Derwent, but with 38.6 per cent of the primary vote he should still get up. Sue Neales of The Mercury suggests the Greens might use the opportunity of a reshuffle forced by Thorp’s defeat to push for a third seat in cabinet.

Saturday, May 7

7.54pm. All booths have now reported, so here’s a call of the board. Rumney: My projection still has Lin Thorp a few points above her raw vote, suggesting she did very well on declaration votes last time (UPDATE: No, the discrepancy is because I’m operating off a pre-redistribution baseline. For this reason, I’ve chopped the projection from the table). It’s possible that won’t be replicated at this election, so she could well finish in the mid-30s. Kevin Bonham seems to think that will be enough, but you certainly wouldn’t want to call it. Derwent: Labor’s Craig Farrell is a shade under 40 per cent, which is enough to make him the front-runner but again it’s too close to call. Possibly some intelligence from scutineers will emerge to give us some sense of what to expect. Launceston: Sam McQuestin’s primary vote lead over Rosemary Armitage simply won’t be enough to hold off preferences from anti-Liberal Labor voters and anti-major party indepedendents, such that Armitage’s win here is the one projection I’m entirely confident about.

7.41pm. Two booths left to come in Rumney, including Labor’s best booth of Rokeby. My projection tells me that Lin Thorp will perhaps edge into favouritism once it’s reported. All booths in now from Launceston; one outstanding in Derwent.

7.33pm. Only two booths left to report in Derwent: Craig Farrell’s vote is back above 40 per cent, which is the litmus test for Labor’s secure hold on the seat.

7.27pm. Sam McQuestin’s primary vote lead has widened in Launceston, but not by enough.

7.26pm. With 21 booths in, Craig Farrell’s primary vote had dipped slightly below 40 per cent again, but he’s probably done enough.

7.22pm. Sixteen booths now from Rumney and Lin Thorp’s position has improved. However, much still depends on the imponderables of preferences, such that it probably won’t be possible to call this one this evening.

7.18pm. Rosemary Armitage has now almost caught up with Sam McQuestin on the primary vote in Launceston, and is well and truly home and hosed.

7.12pm. Sixteen booths in from Rumney, and Craig Farrell will be breathing easier now his primary vote has cracked 40 per cent.

7.09pm. Eleven booths now from Launceston cause little change to the situation: I’m still calling it for Rosemary Armitage.

7.06pm. With 12 booths in from Rumney, the situation has stopped improving for Lin Thorp, who will need a very strong flow of Greens preferences to hold off Tony Mulder.

6.58pm. A good result in the Roseneath booth improves Labor candidate Craig Farrell’s position in Derwent, such that I’d now say he’s the favourite. The raw figures still aren’t good, but the good Labor booths to come should push him up near 40 per cent, which will likely be enough.

6.56pm. Nine booths in from Launceston and Rosemary Armitage’s position continues to improve, such that I’m ready to call it for her. She is only just short of the Liberal candidate on the primary vote, and without question will close the gap on preferences.

6.54pm. The count continues to proceed so quickly it’s making my head spin. Twelve booths now in from Derwent, and while the raw figures look lethal for Labor, many of their best booths are yet to report. It will come down to the tightness of preferences and the number of exhausted votes (voters only have to number three boxes). Flint and Williams now neck and neck for second.

6.52pm. Seven booths now from Rumney (fastest count ever!), and while Lin Thorp is struggling, the situation is less bad for her than the initial figures suggested. A solid flow of preferences from the Greens could save her, but she’s not out of the woods. As anticipated, Tony Mulder is the biggest danger to her.

6.49pm. Five booths in from Launceston, and the gap between Armitage and McQuestin has narrowed – the former now looking extremely well placed.

6.47pm. The count proceeds at a rapid clip: now seven booths in from Derwent, and I think you can about say Labor have lost the seat. Their candidate is slightly behind independent Deirdre Flint, who will surely pull further ahead on preferences. Another independent, Ray Williams, possibly can’t be written off yet.

6.43pm. Three booths in from Launceston, and while Liberal candidate Sam McQuestin leads my early sense is that independent Rosemary Armitage would be likely to chase him down on preferences.

6.40pm. Three booths in from Derwent, and here too the Labor vote has slumped well into the danger zone. Ray Williams is the front-runner out of the other candidates.

6.37pm. The Saltwater River booth in Rumney has reported, and while it’s a small booth, it’s very interesting to note the Labor vote there has collapsed from 79.4 per cent in 2005 to 40.2 per cent.

6.00pm. Polls have closed for today’s elections for the Tasmanian upper house divisions of Rumney, Derwent and Launceston. We should probably be seeing the first results in about 45 minutes.

Tasmanian upper house elections

One-fifth of Tasmanian voters will go to the polls tomorrow, the first Saturday in May being the usual date for its periodical Legislative Council elections. These are traditionally dull affairs owing to the chamber’s unique non-partisan composition: the current numbers there are Labor three, Liberal one and independents 11. Recently though, an ageing Labor government’s struggles to retain existing seats has brought a few recent contests to life. Most notable was the Pembroke by-election in August 2009 where Labor humiliatingly declined to offer a candidate to succeed their outgoing member, Allison Ritchie. The seat was won for the Liberals by Vanessa Goodwin, who became the first formal Liberal member in the chamber’s history. This time it’s a sitting member, Education, Children and Police Minister Lin Thorp, who is struggling to survive.

Members of the Legislative Council serve six-year terms, with the divisions organised into a cycle where two or three seats are up for election each year. However, this year the situation is complicated by the concurrence of what is actually a by-election for Derwent, which is being vacated by the retirement of Michael Aird, long-serving Labor member and former Treasurer Michael Aird. There will also be no election for one of the three seats being vacated, as no candidate has emerged to challenge incumbent Ruth Forrest in Murchison.

Rumney is based around Storm Bay about 25 kilometres east of Hobart and including Sorell, Richmond and Port Arthur. Lin Thorp did well to win the seat for Labor on its creation in 1999 at the expense of independent Steve Wilson, who had held the abolished division of Monmouth since 1980. Thorp’s re-election bid has been complicated by the independent candidacy of Paul Mason, a former Children’s Commissioner who has been critical of Thorp and the government over child protection issues, and to whom Thorp had to apologise for revealing confidential details about his job selection. Running as an “independent Liberal” is retired police commander Tony Mulder, who has enjoyed at least moral support from a Police Association campaign against the government over predicted cuts to police numbers. Rounding out the field are Penelope Ann for the Greens and two further independents, Cate Clark and John Forster. The ABC reports that “internal polling has Tony Mulder slightly ahead of Lin Thorp with voters, and the former children’s commissioner Paul Mason is said to be coming third”.

Covering the southern part and most of the centre of the city bearing its name, Launceston is being vacated by independent Don Wing, who has served here since 1982. Liberal and Labor have both stepped into the breach, their respective candidates being Sam McQuestin, the state party president, and Steve Bishop, a local lawyer. Informed Tasmanian observer Kevin Bonham talks of McQuestin running a “subtle as a brick” campaign involving “government-bashing of a kind typically seen in lower house elections”, together with an attempt to marshall anti-Oakeshott/Windsor sentiment against independents. The latter are two: Rosemary Armitage, a Launceston alderman and former deputy mayor, and Lou Clark (a woman), an executive officer of the Launceston Chamber of Commerce. The Greens have contentiously decided not to contest, despite traditionally polling in the high teens in the area. Kevin Bonham thinks Armitage the most likely winner, despite/because of McQuestin’s heavy-handed attacks on her as “a defacto Green candidate”.

Derwent extends from Hobart outskirts for about 100 kilometres through the Derwent Valley. Labor’s nominee to succeed Michael Aird is Craig Farrell, Derwent Valley deputy mayor and electorate officer to federal Lyons MP Dick Adams. The Greens are fielding Phillip Bingley, a New Norkfolk environmental health officer. There are three independents: Jenny Branch, a Glenorchy councillor who ran as a Liberal candidate at the state election and as an independent when Aird was last up for election in 2009; Deirdre Flint, the mayor of Central Highlands; and local retailer Ray Williams. Aird’s vote fell from to 77.3 per cent to 51.6 per cent in 2009, and Labor is likely to fall further in his absence. Nonetheless, Kevin Bonham reckons Farrell should be able to do enough to win.

As always, tune in here tomorrow evening for live coverage of the count.

EMRS: Liberal 46, Labor 27, Greens 25 in Tasmania

Tasmanian polling firm EMRS has published one of its quarterly polls of state voting intention, the full report of which is available courtesy of the seemingly omniscient GhostWhoVotes. Conducted from February 17 to February 21, it suggests the leadership change from David Bartlett to Lara Giddings on January 24 has done Labor no good at all: using the conventional measure, the primary votes are Liberal 46 per cent, Labor 27 per cent and Greens 25 per cent. This compares with 42 per cent, 30 per cent and 24 per cent in the previous poll in November, and 39.0 per cent, 36.9 per cent and 21.6 per cent at the election on March 20 last year.

As always, I must observe that EMRS is most unusual in using as its headline figure a result based on raw responses to the opening question on voting intention. Like all polling firms, it then prods the undecided by asking them who they are leaning towards, and then excludes the stubbornly undecided from the final result. However, it is unique in publishing each of these figures separately – full points for transparency here, but I think they would do better to publish “percentage of respondents supporting or leaning towards a party after excluding undecided voters” as table one rather than table three. Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless worth observing that the Greens have achieved parity with Labor on the raw result from table one, which could well be a first for them.

Despite Labor’s decline on voting intention, Giddings has done slightly better than Bartlett on the question of preferred premier, recording 27 per cent compared with 38 per cent for Liberal leader Will Hodgman and 16 per cent for Greens leader Nick McKim. The results in the November poll were 23 per cent for Bartlett, 39 per cent for Hodgman and 21 per cent for McKim. There are no personal approval figures, but breakdowns across Tasmania’s five electorates are offered if you’re interested – given the sample size for each is about 200, I’m not. The margin of error on the statewide results is about 3 per cent, but it must also be remembered that EMRS seems to have a substantial bias in favour of the Greens. This probably has something to do with the high undecided rate Essential always seems to end up, as undecided voters tend to end up with the major parties.

David Bartlett resigns

Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett has dropped a bombshell by announcing (on Facebook, if you please) that he will relinquish the leadership, citing family reasons. Bartlett plans to remain in parliament and cabinet for the remainder of the current term, but will not contest the next election. Deputy Premier Lara Giddings has Bartlett’s “full support” to succeed him, but the ABC reports former deputy Bryan Green is believed to be another potential candidate. Green however is carrying weighty baggage from the previous term, when he resigned over the granting of a building accreditation monopoly to a company part-owned by former Tasmanian and Queensland (respectively) Labor ministers John White and Glen Milliner. He was tried twice on charges of conspiracy and attempting to interfere with an executive officer, both of which ended in hung juries. The leader and deputy leader positions will be determined at a caucus meeting tomorrow. The new Premier will be the fourth since Labor came to power in 1998, following Jim Bacon, Paul Lennon and David Bartlett.

UPDATE: Channel Ten has reportedly reported that Bartlett likely faced a leadership challenge from Giddings if he did not go quietly.

UPDATE 2: Kevin Bonham relates in comments that Giddings has been elected unopposed, with Green back as deputy.