Category: Tasmanian Politics

Essential Research: 61-39

The latest weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s two-party lead steady on 61-39. As promised, there is also voluminous material on attitudes to the economy and stimulus package:

• 62 per cent are “concerned” about job security over the coming year, although 60 per cent are “confident” Australia can withstand the crisis.

• The opposition’s approve-disapprove split on handling of the crisis has widened from 31-35 to 35-44, while the government’s is little changed.

• Labor is more trusted to handle the crisis than the Coalition by 55-25.

• A somewhat unwieldy question about which leader’s approach to stimulus is preferable has Rudd leading Turnbull 51-33.

• Opinion is also gauged on five individual aspects of the package, with free ceiling insulation rated significantly lower than the rest.

• Perhaps most importantly, Peter Costello outscores Malcolm Turnbull in a head-to-head preferred Liberal leader contest 37-26.

What’s more:

• Last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph reported that Malcolm Turnbull is supporting preselection moves against former NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam in the blue-ribbon Vaucluse, which is wholly contained within Turnbull’s federal seat of Wentworth. Those named as possible successors are “restaurateur Peter Doyle, barrister Mark Speakman, UNSW Deputy Chancellor Gabrielle Upton, barrister Arthur Moses and former Optus spokesman Paul Fletcher”. Debnam quit shadow cabinet last May in protest against his party’s support for the government’s attempt at electricity privatisation, and was left out in December’s reshuffle despite reportedly angling for the Shadow Treasurer position. Also rated as a possible starter is Joe Hockey, who might have other ideas now he’s Shadow Treasurer. Alex Mitchell writes in Crikey that Hockey might also be keeping an eye on Jillian Skinner’s seat of North Shore, and muses that Tony Abbott might also consider the state premiership a more achievable objective than a return to government federally.

• Former Howard government minister Richard Alston has nominated for a Liberal federal electoral conference position, which is reportedly a gambit in the keenly fought contest to replace retiring Petro Georgiou in the blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong. Described by The Age as a “patron” of long-standing hopeful Josh Frydenberg, Alston will attempt to gain the position at the expense of incumbent Paula Davey, who is associated with faction of Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu – which would prefer that the seat go to Institute of Public Affairs director John Roskam.

• Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported that long-serving Fremantle mayor Peter Tagliaferri has been sounded out by Labor as a possible successor to Jim McGinty as state member for Fremantle. The report raised the prospect of McGinty going sooner rather than later, thereby initiating what could prove a very interesting by-election in the Poll Bludger’s home electorate. While Fremantle has been in Labor hands since 1924, McGinty received an early shock on election night when it appeared Greens candidate Adele Carles might overtake the Liberals and possibly win the seat on their preferences. Carles was ultimately excluded at the second last count with 28.6 per cent of the vote to the Liberal candidate’s 32.1 per cent.

• Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett rates himself “extremely pleased” that Winnaleah-based school principal Brian Wightman will seek Labor preselection for Bass at the March 2010 state election. Labor narrowly failed to win a third seat in Bass at the 2006 election, being pipped at the post by the Greens for a result of two Labor, two Liberal and one Greens. The likelihood of a swing against Labor next time means Labor is all but certain to again win two seats: one seems certain to stay with former federal MP Michelle O’Byrne, while the other is being vacated by retiring member Jim Cox. Also in the field will be CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean, reckoned by The Mercury to be a “star candidate” despite having been “condemned by many diehard members of the Labor Party in 2004 when he backed Liberal Prime Minister John Howard over Labor’s then-federal opposition leader Mark Latham”.

• The Hobart Mercury talks of upper house disquiet over Tasmanian government legislation for fixed terms, a draft of which is “currently out for consultation”. The government wants early elections for the House of Assembly to be allowed if the Legislative Council does so much as block a bill the Assembly has deemed to be “significant”. This sounds very much like South Australia’s “bill of special importance” exception, which I gather has never been invoked since it was introduced in 1985. Independent Council President Sue Smith says there is concern that “the provision could be used as a threat to pass controversial legislation or as an excuse to go to an early election”. Another exception, according to The Mercury, is that “the Lower House would also go to an election if the Upper House blocks supply of funds for a budget”. This seems to suggest that 1975-style supply obstruction would produce an instant election, though I suspect it’s not quite as simple as that. Nonetheless, Greens leader Nick McKim has “foreshadowed an amendment by which the Upper House would also have to go to the polls if it blocked budget supply”. This would be a significant development for a chamber that currently never dissolves, as its members rotate annually through a six-year cycle. Less contentiously, the legislation also allows for an early election if the lower house passes a no confidence motion.

EMRS: 42-36 to Labor in Tasmania

The latest Tasmanian state poll from EMRS has Labor at 42 per cent (up two from November), the Liberals at 36 per cent (up one) and the Greens at 19 per cent (down four). David Bartlett’s preferred premier rating is up four to 41 per cent, while Will Hodgman is steady on 29 per cent. Electorate breakdowns show Labor performing strongly in Lyons but struggling in Braddon, although these results are from samples of around 200. More from Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics.

Essential Research: 61-39

Newspoll seems to have taken the week off, but there’s always Essential Research, which has Labor’s lead up to 61-39 from 60-40 last week. Also featured are questions on becoming a republic within the next few years (52 per cent support, 24 per cent oppose – the latter sounds a bit low), whether Australia should agree to allow Japan to conduct whaling if it limits its activities to the northern hemisphere (10 per cent agree, 81 per cent disagree), “how would you rate your loyalty to your employer” and “how would you rate your employer’s loyalty to staff”. Furthermore:

• The silly season endeth – Kerry O’Brien and Lateline are back, and parliaments federal, Victorian and South Australian resume today.

• The Australian Workers Union has released a comprehensive survey of workers’ attitudes to the global financial crisis, derived from 1016 interviews conducted by Auspoll. The headline finding is that 40 per cent fear losing their jobs in the next year.

• Parties’ disclosures of receipts, expenditure and debts are available for perusal at the Australian Electoral Commission, at least so far as donations of over $10,500 are concerned. Siobhain Ryan and Imre Salusinszky of The Australian and Bernard Keane of Crikey sift through the evidence; the latter also opens fire on the Coalition over its obstruction of legislation reversing the 2005 disclosure threshold hike. Keane notes that one travesty can’t be pinned on the previous government: that we have had to wait until February 2009 to find out what went on at an election held in November 2007. Anyone who imagines this has something to do with logistics should consider the practice in New York City, where donations have to be declared before election day and “made public immediately on a searchable, online database”.

• Antony Green returns from a fortnight in the wilderness (literally) with a belated post-mortem on the Liberals’ defeat in South Australia’s Frome by-election. As I suspected, independent Geoff Brock owes his win to a peculiarity of the state’s electoral system that saves ballot papers with incomplete preferences by assigning them the preferences officially lodged by their favoured candidate. Without this provision, 258 ballots that were thus admitted the day after polling day would have been informal, leaving Brock 38 votes behind Labor at the second last count rather than 30 votes ahead. Another issue has been brought to my attention by Kevin Bonham, who points to the fact that a certain number of Liberal voters harmed their candidate’s chances by voting Liberal rather than Labor. If 31 such voters had tactically switched to Labor, Brock would have been excluded and the distribution of his preferences would have given victory to Liberal candidate Terry Boylan. Public choice theorists call this flaw in preferential voting “non-monotonicity”, which is elaborated upon here (although Bonham reckons “some of their worked examples are wrong”).

• Antony also gets in early with a preview of Western Australia’s May 18 daylight saving referendum, which combines customary psephological insight with a keen eye for the state’s lifestyle peculiarities.

• Former Labor MLA Kathryn Hay will run as an independent for the Tasmanian upper house division of Windermere (extending from the outskirts of Launceston north to the proposed site of Gunns’ Bell Bay pulp mill), challenging independent incumbent Ivan Dean at the poll likely to be held on May 2. Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics reports that one of the the other two seats up for election, the Devonport-based division of Mersey, looms as a clash between Latrobe mayor Mike Gaffney and Devonport mayor Lyn Laycock. Mersey is being vacated by retiring independent Norma Jamieson.

• Staying in Tasmania, a recount has confirmed that the last remaining Labor candidate in Franklin from the 2006 election, Daniel Hulme, will assume the lower house seat vacated by former Tourism Minister Paula Wriedt.

• Mining magnate and former National Party director Clive Palmer is making himself visible as the Queensland state election approaches, having been profiled last week on The 7.30 Report and in a cover story for The Weekend Australian Magazine. The latest salvo in Palmer’s charm offensive is a demand of $1 million in damages for defamation from Anna Bligh, who said there was “something just not right about one billionaire owning their own political party” (the annual financial disclosures discussed previously list $600,000 in donations from Palmer to the Liberal and National parties). Sean Parnell’s Weekend Australian piece describes Palmer as a “notorious litigant”, who “once listed it as a hobby in his Who’s Who entry”. Palmer’s 18-year-old son Michael has been preselected as the Liberal National Party candidate for the safe Labor seat of Nudgee.

• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that Nationals-turned-Liberal Senator Julian McGauran will face a number of challengers in his bid for one of the two safe seats on the Victorian Senate ticket, with other incumbent Michael Ronaldson “widely expected to claim top spot”. The field includes prominent Peter Costello supporter Ross Fox, barrister Caroline Kenny and solicitor Cate Dealehr. Other names mentioned by Andrew Landeryou’s VexNews are Terry Barnes, a “former Tony Abbott adviser”, and Owen Lysaght, who ran as an independent in Chisholm in 2004.

Newspoll: 54-46

The first Newspoll survey after the end-of-year break shows the Coalition recovering to 54-46 after the shock 59-41 result of December 9. The Australian spruiks this as the Coalition clawing back support, but a more likely explanation is that the previous poll was a rogue. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 66-19 to 60-22.

UPDATE: Graphic here. Rudd’s approval is down seven points to 63 per cent; Turnbull’s is down two to 45 per cent, his weakest result to date.

Elsewhere:

• Essential Research’s weekly survey has produced a status quo 59-41 result, along with a 56-20 preferred prime minister lead for Kevin Rudd that marks little shift from the previous time the question was asked in late November. Also featured are questions on expectations of the year ahead economically and for the Barack Obama presidency. Most interestingly, respondents were also asked to name their favourite prime minister since World War II, which produced a win for John Howard on 28 per cent. This is largely because those supporting Liberals (45 per cent of the total) showed no interest for contenders other than Howard and Bob Menzies (11 per cent), whereas the Labor loyalist vote was split between Kevin Rudd (20 per cent), Bob Hawke (12 per cent), Gough Whitlam (9 per cent) and Paul Keating (8 per cent).

• Former Tasmanian Tourism Minister Paula Wreidt has retired from politics, creating a vacancy in the electorate of Franklin that will be filled by a countback on February 2. This provides a clear entry to parliament for Daniel Hulme, the only remaining unelected Labor candidate from the 2006 election. My election guide entry tells me Hulme was an “Australian Taxation Office worker and former Young Labor president described by Sue Neales of The Mercury as a ‘right-wing pro-development campaigner’”. Hulme was the last man standing after Paul Lennon’s exit in the middle of last year resulted in the election of Ross Butler – who, according to Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics, has raised eyebrows with his performance. If Hulme declines to nominate, or if any further Labor vacancies arise in Franklin before the next election, we might see the unprecedented activation of the clause which would allow Labor to initiate a by-election rather than have the seat go to another party. Still more from Peter Tucker.

• More casual vacancy news: the last remaining Australian Democrats MP, South Australia’s Sandra Kanck, has been replaced following her retirement from her upper house seat by David Winderlich. More from Andrew Bartlett.

• The NSW Nationals have intriguingly announced they will preselect a candidate for a yet-to-be-determined winnable seat at the 2011 state election by conducting an American-style primary, open to all voters enrolled in the electorate. Peter van Onselen notes in The Australian that “parties in countries such as Britain and Italy have increasingly embraced primary contests, more often than not with electoral success to follow”. The most likely electorates for the trial are said to be Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Tamworth, each traditionally Nationals seats currently held by independents.

• Counting continues in South Australia’s Frome by-election, on which I have written an overview in today’s Crikey. Read about and comment on the progress of the count in the post below.

Morgan: 60-40

Like Essential Media before it, Roy Morgan‘s first poll of the year shows no significant change from the last polls of 2008. The face-to-face survey has Labor’s two-party lead steady at 60-40 and their primary vote down one point to 51.5 per cent, while the Coalition’s is down half a point to 35 per cent. The Greens have recovered two points from the curious slump they suffered in the first poll after the government’s emissions trading scheme announcement, which brought them down from 10.5 per cent to 6 per cent. What’s more:

• South Australia’s first state by-election since 1994 will be held tomorrow in Frome. Read and comment about it here, and tune in to this site for live coverage of the count from about 6.30pm local time.

• It appears a contest is on to fill Petro Georgiou’s Liberal preselection vacancy in Kooyong, with reports emerging that merchant banker Josh Frydenburg is not the shoo-in many had assumed. Frydenburg pursued a membership recruitment drive before the last election in an unsuccessful bid to topple Georgiou, but sources quoted by Andrew Landeryou at VexNews say two-thirds of these memberships have lapsed. This leaves Frydenberg vulnerable to opposition from Institute of Public Affairs director John Roskam, previously an unsuccessful candidate for Senate preselection (and more recently mentioned as a successor to Peter Costello in Higgins), who stands poised to garner support from Georgiou and the locally powerful Ted Baillieu/David Davis faction. Also mentioned is John Pesutto, described by Melissa Fyfe of The Age as “an industrial relations lawyer who led a rewrite of the Victorian Liberal Party’s constitution last year”.

• Liberal Senator Judith Troeth has announced she will retire when her current term ends in mid-2011, adding a new dimension to the Victorian Senate preselection contest for the next election. The Nationals are likely to secure an extension of the agreement that will give them second place on a joint Coalition ticket, leaving the Liberals with the safe first position and the dangerous third. Michael Ronaldson is presumably likely to retain pole position from the 2004 election; Troeth’s departure enhances Nationals renegade Julian McGauran’s chances of taking number three.

• Marc Moncrief of The Age on the race to fill Evan Thornley’s vacancy in the Victorian upper house region of South Metropolitan:

Labor’s factions are also in a battle over how to fill the vacancy in the upper house created by Mr Thornley’s departure, with confusion over whether the Southern Metropolitan seat will be delivered to Labor’s right-wing Unity faction or to the Socialist Left. Unity faction powerbroker Michael Danby, the federal member for Melbourne Ports, is believed to have collected a number of names including Julia Mason, former candidate for the federal seat of Goldstein. However, one member of the Right faction said the Left was more likely to have a claim to the post, as Unity now holds all three of the top positions in Parliament – Premier, Deputy Premier and Treasurer. If the Left is given the nod, it will have to ensure the choice is a member who can keep the relatively conservative seat at the next election.

• Other ructions in the Victorian ALP: forces of the Right associated with Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy have formed an alliance with the Socialist Left, freezing out what The Australian’s Rick Wallace describes as “the portion of the Right aligned with state frontbenchers Tim Holding and Martin Pakula and the shop assistants’ union”. More commentary plus an intermittently interesting comments thread at VexNews.

• Large parts of the media remain convinced that Anna Bligh will shortly be calling a Queensland state election. Mark Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo/Crikey isn’t so sure, while fellow local Possum deems Lawrence Springborg to be no better equipped to pitch to Brisbane as leader of the Liberal National Party than he was as head of a fractious coalition.

• The silly season news cycle has been awash with talk of Barnaby Joyce seeking a berth in the lower house to assume leadership of the Nationals, at the urging of John Howard. Joyce himself has mentioned Labor’s 2007 gains of Leichhardt, Dawson and Flynn. More intriguing has been talk of a move south of the border to take on independent Tony Windsor in New England, which locals quoted by Matthew Clayfield of The Australian had no trouble recognising as a most courageous proposition. Possum notes that any such move might cost the Nationals Joyce’s Queensland Senate seat in the event that the Liberal National Party disintegrates following a state election defeat.

• Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics gets in early on this year’s Tasmanian Legislative Council periodic election action. This year is the turn of Derwent, a Hobart seat held for Labor by Treasurer Michael Aird; Windermere, which extends from outer Launceston up the eastern bank of the Tamar River to the sea, and is held by independent Ivan Dean; and Devonport-based Mersey, held by independent Norma Jamieson. Jamieson’s retirement after one six-year term sets the scene for an unpredictable contest likely to attract a Melbourne Cup field. Aird and Dean are almost certain to be re-elected, potentially without opposition in Dean’s case.

• The indefatigable Ben Raue at The Tally Room has moved to his own domain.

Morgan: 59.5-40.5

The latest Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s lead at 59.5-40.5, up from 58.5-41.5 a fortnight ago. Primary votes are Labor 50.5 per cent (up 1.5), Coalition 35.5 (down 0.5) and Greens 7.5 (down 1). Elsewhere:

• The redistribution of Tasmania’s electoral boundaries has been finalised. Several amendments have been made from the original proposal, which you can read about here. Antony Green calculates the new boundaries have increased Labor’s margin in Braddon from 1.4 per cent to 2.5 per cent, while reducing it in Denison from 15.6 per cent to 15.3 per cent, Franklin from 4.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent and Lyons from 8.8 per cent to 8.4 per cent. Bass remains at 1.0 per cent.

• A bill to introduce fixed terms was introduced to the Northern Territory parliament on Wednesday. David Bartlett says similar legislation will be introduced in Tasmania next year, confirming the next election will be held on March 20, 2010 and setting up an ongoing clash with South Australia’s elections (to Antony Green‘s dismay). I’ll have much more to say on fixed four-year terms next week.

• Tomorrow is Victorian local government election day, which in most cases means today is the last day for submission of postal votes. Read and comment about it here. Ben Raue at The Tally Room has council and ward map files for viewing in Google Earth.

• In Queensland, poll-driven decisions on water policy are being seen as a harbinger of an early election.

EMRS: Labor 40, Liberal 35 in Tasmania

Tasmanian polling firm EMRS has published its latest survey of 1000 respondents on state voting intention, as it does every two or three months. It gives Labor one of its better state polling results of recent times: they have held steady on 40 per cent while the Liberals have dropped three points to 35 per cent, with the Greens up four to a formidable 23 per cent (remembering that the Tasmanian Greens often over-perform in polls). Like all EMRS polling of the current term, this points to Labor losing its majority and the Greens holding the balance of power. Preferred premier ratings are 37 per cent for David Bartlett (down three), 29 per cent for Opposition Leader Will Hodgman (down four) and 15 per cent for Greens leader Nick McKim (up three).

EMRS: 40-38 to Labor in Tasmania

The latest EMRS survey of Tasmanian state voting intention shows a recovery for Labor following the disastrous poll in May which immediately preceded Paul Lennon’s resignation as Premier. Excluding the considerable 14 per cent undecided from the sample of 1000, the poll shows Labor on 40 per cent, Liberal on 38 per cent and the Greens on 19 per cent – respectively up 7 per cent, down 4 per cent and down 2 per cent. New Premier David Bartlett leads Opposition Leader Will Hodgman 40 per cent to 33 per cent as preferred leader, respectively down 6 per cent and up 1 per cent since a poll conducted in June which canvassed leadership preference only. New Greens leader Nick McKim was favoured by 12 per cent of respondents.

UPDATE: Peter Tucker weighs in on the poll and Antony Green discusses moves towards four-year terms, which as currently proposed might entrench a permanent quadrennial clash with South Australian elections on the third Saturday in March. Both also discuss talk of an early Tasmanian election.