Category: Tasmanian Politics

Tasmanian upper house elections live

Live commentary on the count for the Tasmanian Legislative Council seats of Montgomery, Pembroke and Nelson.

8pm. With all booths counted now, Casey Hiscutt holds a small lead over Stephen Parry in Montgomery and looks set to win on preferences; Meg Webb is on over 50% in Nelson; and Labor’s Luke Edmunds is on 44.13%, still almost doubling the second-placed Greens and assured of a comfortable win.

7.06pm. Labor member Luke Edmunds has fallen below 40% after a less good result from the third and biggest booth to report so far, Lindisfarne. However, the third-placed Greens, on 26.37%, seem unlikely to do well enough on preferences to threaten him.

6.58pm. With thirteen booths in, Liberal candidate Stephen Parry has pulled ahead of independent Casey Hiscutt, by 1497 (31.46%) to 1486 (31.23%), but the latter still appears likely to win on preferences from the third-placed Greens on 1011 (21.24%), who are presumably soaking up a lot of the homeless vote. Independent incumbent Meg Webb has a majority on first preferences after four of the twelve booths have reported in Nelson, and looks safe. Two booths are in from Pembroke, where Labor member Luke Edmunds’ 302 votes (45.55%) are nearly double his nearest rival’s, suggesting he will be comfortably returned.

6.43pm. The first booth in Pembroke looks encouraging for Labor member Luke Edmunds, who has 216 votes (48.43%) with the rest scattered, the Greens coming second with 90 votes to independent Allison Ritchie’s 85.

6.41pm. Up to eight booths now in Montgomery, and Hiscutt looking good with a lead over Parry of 588 (32.83%) to 463 (25.85%).

6.38pm. Six booths in now from Montgomery, continuing to show independent Casey Hiscutt leading Stephen Parry of the Liberal Party, by 282 (31.58%) votes to 238 (26.65%), suggesting a likely win for Hiscutt given preferences will presumably favour him.

6.35pm. The first booth in Nelson, from Kingston West, has independent member Meg Webb on 119 votes (49.17%) to the Liberal candidate’s 87 (35.95%) and the Greens’ 36 (14.88%).

6.30pm. Three booths in from Montgomery, where independent Casey Hiscutt leads with 122 votes (33.15%) to Liberal candidate Stephen Parry’s 87 (23.64%), not far ahead of the Greens candidate’s 74 (20.11%) and Shooters’ 73 (19.84%). The voting system is preferential, but voters are only required to number a minimum of three boxes.

6pm. Polls have closed for the elections for three of the 15 Tasmanian Legislative Council seats, which are elected over a six-year cycle in which either two or three seats fall vacant each year. This year’s contests are for the northern coast seat of Montgomery, where the retirement of Liberal incumbent Leonie Hiscutt looks to have resulted in a contest between former Senator Stephen Parry as Liberal candidate and Casey Hiscutt, Central Coast councillor and the son of the outgoing member, who is running as an independent; the eastern Hobart seat of Pembroke, where Labor incumbent Luke Edmunds is being challenged by two notable independents in Allison Ritchie, a former Labor member for the seat, and Tony Mulder, a former independent member for the seat of Rumney who has in the past been a Liberal candidate; and the outer southern Hobart seat of Nelson, where independent Meg Webb faces opposition from Liberal and Greens candidates who appear unlikely to trouble her.

Tasmania: EMRS poll and Legislative Council elections

Further bad news for Tasmania’s long-ascendant Liberals ahead of Saturday’s upper house elections.

A fortnight after losing both their federal seats, the quarterly EMRS poll records Tasmania’s Liberals with their lowest state primary vote since 2009, down five points on the last poll to 29% with Labor up one to 31%, the Greens up one to 14%, the Jacqui Lambie Network down two to 6% and independents up five to 17%. The report further relates that the Liberals have fallen ten points in the north-west of the state to 34%, eight points in the north-east to 30%, and two points in the south to 26%. Jeremy Rockliff’s favourability rating, meaning the number rating him from seven to ten on a ten-point scale minus the number rating him zero to three, is down four points to 6%, while Dean Winter is down one to 5%. In spite of everything, Rockliff nonetheless widens his lead as preferred premier from 44-34 to 44-32. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1000.

All of which may or may not have some bearing on Saturday’s periodic Legislative Council elections, this year encompassing three of the seats that make up the state’s 15-member upper chamber. These are normally held on the first Saturday of May, but were delayed on this occasion to prevent a clash with the federal election. The current numbers in the chamber are Liberal four, Labor three, Greens one, independents seven – the seats up for election feature one held by Liberal, one by Labor and one by an independent.

Montgomery. Encompassing part of Burnie and the coast immediately to its east, including Penguin and Ulverstone, Montgomery will be vacated with the retirement of Leonie Hiscutt, who has held it for the Liberals since 2013. Hiscutt was re-elected in 2019 with a 10.2% margin over Labor, who are not contesting this time. The new Liberal candidate is Stephen Parry, who served in the Senate from 2005 to 2017, when a dual British citizenship caused him to fall foul of the Section 44 crisis. Parry’s task is complicated by the fact that Hiscutt is supporting the independent candidacy of her son, Casey Hiscutt. Also in the field are Darren Briggs of the Greens, who was the party’s lead candidate in Braddon at last year’s state election; Gatty Burnett, an independent who likewise ran in Braddon last year, making little impression; and Adrian Pickin of Shooters Fishers and Farmers.

Pembroke. Covering the eastern shore of Hobart’s Derwent river directly opposite the city centre, Pembroke will be defended by Luke Edmunds, who retained it for Labor at a by-election in September 2022 following the resignation of Jo Siejka. Edmunds is being challenged by two former parliamentarians, one being Allison Ritchie, who held the seat for Labor from 2001 until retiring due to ill health in 2009, and has lately served as deputy mayor of Clarence. The seat was then held for the Liberals until 2017 by the late Vanessa Goodwin, whom Ritchie challenged unsuccessfully as an independent in 2013. Also running as an independent is Tony Mulder, who held Rumney from 2011 to 2017 and ran in Franklin as a Liberal candidate in 2011 and an independent in 2024. Also in the field are Carly Allen of the Greens and Steve Loring of Shooters Fishers and Farmers.

Nelson. Independent Meg Webb is seeking re-election after emerging the winner from a field of ten in 2019 following the retirement of Jim Wilkinson, who had held it as an independent since 1995. She faces opposition from Marcus Vermey of the Liberals and Nathan Volf of the Greens. The seat covers Hobart’s riverside southern suburbs around Sandy Bay and the satellite town of Kingston.

Resolve Strategic: 55-45 to Coalition (open thread)

The first federal poll published since the cut in interest rates finds the Labor vote headed in the same direction.

The monthly Resolve Strategic poll for the Nine Newspapers offers cold water for the notion that an interest rate cut might have improved Labor’s fortunes, giving the government its worst result for the term: Labor is down two points on the primary vote to 25%, the Coalition is up one to 39%, the Greens are steady on 13%, and One Nation is up two to a new high of 9%. Having earlier shied away from two-party measures, the pollster is evidently now regularly publishing respondent-allocated figures, which in this case have the Coalition lead blowing out from 52-48 to 55-45. Applying 2022 election preference flows would have it at 53-47.

There are only slight movements on leadership ratings, with Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton both up a point on both approval and disapproval, Albanese to 37% approval and 58% disapproval and Dutton to 41% approval and 51% disapproval. Dutton leads 39-35 as preferred prime minister, out from 39-34. The poll was conducted Tuesday (the day of the rate cut) to Sunday from a sample of 1506. A second opinion may be along later this evening from Freshwater Strategy in the Financial Review.

UPDATE: No respite for Labor from Freshwater Strategic, which has the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 51-49 last month to 52-48 on respondent-allocated preferences, from primary votes of Labor 31% (down one), Coalition 41% (up one) and Greens 13% (steady). Buried beneath these numbers is Labor’s one bit of good news: Anthony Albanese is up three on approval to 35% and down four on disapproval to 46%, Peter Dutton is steady at 36% and up four to 44%, and Albanese opens up a 45-43 lead as preferred prime minister after a 43-43 result last time. The report also says there was “a three-point increase in support for the notion the country was headed in the right direction and a four-point increase in the belief among respondents that their households would be better off in a year”. The poll is in the print edition of the Financial Review, and will presumably appear in the online edition in the early hours. It was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1038.

I should also make note of last week’s quarterly Tasmanian state poll from EMRS: Liberal down one to 34%, Labor down one to 30%, Greens down one to 13% and Jacqui Lambie Network up two to 8%. Jeremy Rockliff’s lead over Labor’s Dean Winter as preferred premier is out from 43-37 to 44-34. The poll was conducted February 11 to 18 from a sample of 1000.

Polls: Essential, RedBridge, Morgan, EMRS Tasmanian (open thread)

Three pollsters chime in with federal voting intention numbers, while a fourth finds state Labor gaining ground in Tasmania.

As Newspoll off-weeks go, a big week for polling, with three further federal voting intention results following upon Freshwater Strategy:

• The fortnightly Essential Research poll has Labor down a point to 30%, the Coalition up one to 35%, the Greens up one to 13% and One Nation down two to 7%, with undecided steady at 5%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor moving into a 48-47 lead, after trailing 49-47 last time. Also featured are the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which have Anthony Albanese down a point on approval to 43% and steady on 48% disapproval, while Peter Dutton is down three to 42% and up two to 41%. A regular “national mood” question reports an improved result off a low base, with a five-point increase in the sentiment that the country is heading in the right direction to 35%, and a four-point decrease for wrong track to 48%. A forced response question on the cause of hotter temperatures records only a 52-48 break in favour of climate change over normal fluctuations, although only 19% rate that Australia is doing too much to address the problem, compared with 33% for not enough and 37% for about right. The poll also finds only mildly negative views on the Trump administration’s likely impact on the global economy and global conflicts, and records 28% favouring Labor’s proposed 20% HECS debt cut over 36% for no change and 36% for abolishing student debt altogether. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1206.

• RedBridge Group has a federal poll recording a tie on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 34%, Coalition 39% and Greens 11%. Further findings from the poll include 54% approval of how Australian federal and state governments handled the COVID pandemic, with 42% disapproval; 53% awareness that the federal government rejected Qatar Airways’ application to increase flights to Australia, with 39% unaware; and 61% perceiving the government gave Qantas preferential treatment in the matter, with 11% disagreeing. The poll was conducted November 6 to 13 from a sample of 2011.

• Both the RedBridge Group poll and last week’s Resolve Strategic poll had questions on perceptions of the Greens. Resolve Strategic found the party was viewed positively by 24%, negatively by 44% and neutrally by 29%, while Adam Bandt was viewed positively by 10%, neutrally by 26% and negatively by 26%, with 38% unfamiliar. With six propositions to choose from, 38% of RedBridge’s respondents favoured clearly negative propositions against 29% for clearly positive, while 14% opted a broadly neutral “party of protest and disruption”.

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 50.5-49.5 to 51-49, from primary votes of Labor 29% (down one-and-a-half), Coalition 39% (up one-and-a-half), Greens 13.5% (up one) and One Nation 6.5% (steady). The two-party measure based on preference flows at the 2022 election is at 50-50, after Labor led 51-49 last week. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1675. Roy Morgan also has a forced response SMS poll, conducted during the royal visit on October 22 and 23 from a sample of 1312, recording a 61-39 split in favour of keeping the existing Australian flag.

• Also out this week was the regular quarterly Tasmanian state poll from EMRS, showing the Liberals’ lead at its narrowest in many a long year, with Labor up four to 31%, Liberal down one to 35%, the Greens steady on 14% and the Jacqui Lambie Network down two to 6%. Jeremy Rockliff’s lead over Dean Winter as preferred premier narrows from 45-30 to 43-37. Also featured are new questions inviting respondents to rate the leaders on a scale from zero to ten, recording 37% favourable, 36% neutral and 22% unfavourable for Rockliff, and 25% favourable, 38% neutral and 11% unfavourable for Winter. The poll was conducted November 5 to 14 from a sample of 1000.

Polls: Resolve Strategic, RedBridge/Accent MRP poll, Wolf & Smith federal and state (open thread)

One regular and two irregular polls, one projecting a Labor minority government, the other offering a rare read on state voting intention across the land.

A lot going on in the world of polling:

Resolve Strategic

Nine Newspapers has the regular monthly Resolve Strategic poll, which has Labor on 28% (down one), the Coalition on 37% (steady), the Greens on 13% (steady) and One Nation on 6% (steady). My estimate of two-party preferred from these results is 50-50, based on preference flows from the 2022 election. Anthony Albanese holds a 35-34 lead as preferred prime minister, after trailing 36-35 last time. Albanese’s combined very good and good rating is up one to 35%, with poor and very poor at up two 53%, while Peter Dutton is respectively steady at 41% and up four to 42%. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1614.

Accent Research/RedBridge Group MRP poll

Accent Research and RedBridge Group have published their second multi-level regression with post-stratification (MRP) poll, in what looks like being a regular quarterly series. This aims for a detailed projected election result by surveying a large national sample, in this case of 5976 surveyed from July 10 to August 27, and using demographic modelling to produce results for each electorate. The full report isn’t in the public domain as far as I can tell but it’s been covered on the ABC’s Insiders and in the Financial Review. UPDATE: Full report here.

The results are not encouraging for Labor: where the previous exercise rated Labor a strong chance of retaining majority government, with a floor of 73 seats and a further nine nine too close to call, they are now down to 64 with 14 too close to call, with the Coalition up from 53 to 59. The median prediction from a range of potential outcomes is that Labor will hold 69 seats, the Coalition 68, the Greens three and others ten. This is based on primary vote projections in line with the recent trend of national polling, with Labor on 32%, the Coalition on 38% and the Greens on 12%.

Five seats are rated as Coalition gains that weren’t last time, Gilmore, Lingiari, Lyons and Aston having moved from too-close-to-call and Paterson going from Labor retain to Coalition gain without passing go. Bruce, Dobell, Hunter, Casey, Tangney, McEwen and Bennelong go from Labor retain to too-close-to-call, while Coalition-held Deakin and Moore are no longer on their endangered list. However, the traffic is not all one way, with Casey in Victoria and Forde in Queensland going from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call. So far as the underlying model is concerned, it is presumably not a coincidence that both seats are on the metropolitan fringes.

The results show a mixed picture for the teals, who are reckoned to have gone backwards in the city, such that Curtin goes from too-close-to-call to Coalition retain and Goldstein goes from teal retain to Liberal gain, but forwards in the country, shifting Wannon from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call while maintaining Cowper as a teal gain. For the Greens, Ryan goes from retained to too-close-to-call while Brisbane does the opposite, with Melbourne and Griffith remaining Greens retains.

Whereas the last assessment was based on 2022 election boundaries, the latest one makes use of the redistribution proposals for New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Respectively, this takes the teal seat of North Sydney out of contention and moves Hughes from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call; costs Labor Higgins and moves Chisholm from Labor retain to too-close-to-call; and introduces Bullwinkel to the too-close-to-call column.

My routine caveat with MRP is that it handles major parties better than independents and minors, perhaps especially with what by MRP standards is fairly modest sample (a similar exercise before the last election involving some of the same personnel had a sample of 18,923). I am particularly dubious about its projection of a blowout Labor win against the Greens in Wills. There also seems reason to doubt its precision in relation to a demographic wild card like Lingiari.

Wolf & Smith federal and state polling

Also just out is an expansive national poll from a new outfit called Wolf & Smith, a “strategic campaign agency based in Sydney” that appears to involve Jim Reed, principal of Resolve Strategic and alumnus of Liberal Party pollsters Crosby Textor. The poll was conducted from August 6 to 29 through an online panel from a vast sample of 10,239, and includes results federally and for each state government. The federal poll has Labor leading 51-49, from primary votes of Labor 29%, Coalition 36%, Greens 13% and One Nation 6%. At state level:

• The poll joins RedBridge Group and Resolve Strategic in recording weak numbers for the Minns government in New South Wales, showing a 50-50 result on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 32%, Coalition 38% and Greens 12%, from a sample of 2047.

• The Coalition leads 52-48 in Victoria from primary votes of Labor 28%, Coalition 40% and Greens 14%, from a sample of 2024, which is likewise broadly in line with recent results from RedBridge Group and Resolve Strategic.

• The Liberal National Party leads 57-43 in Queensland from primary votes of Labor 24%, Coalition 42%, Greens 12%, One Nation 8% and Katter’s Australian Party 3%, from a sample of 1724, which lines up well with the most recent YouGov poll.

• Labor leads 55-45 in Western Australia from primary votes of Labor 37%, Liberal 29%, Nationals 3%, Greens 12% and One Nation 4%, from a sample of 878. Again, this sits well with the most recent other poll from the state, conducted for the Liberal Party by Freshwater Strategy in July from a sample of 1000 and published in The West Australian, which had Labor leading 56-44 from primary votes of Labor 39%, Liberal 33%, Nationals 5% and Greens 12%.

• In the first poll result of any substance from the state since the March 2022 election, Labor leads 60-40 in South Australia from primary votes of Labor 41%, Liberal 28%, Greens 11% and One Nation 5%, from a sample of 856. The Liberal leadership change occurred in the first week of the poll’s three-week survey period.

• A Tasmanian sample of 786 finds both major parties down from the March election result, Liberal from 36.7% to 32% and Labor from 29.0% to 23%, with the Greens steady on 14% (13.9% at the election) and the Jacqui Lambie Network up from 6.7% to 11% – though most of the survey period predated the party’s recent implosion.

And the rest

• The University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre has results of polling conducted by YouGov in June concerning the US alliance and related matters of regional strategy, conducted in conjunction with polling in the US and Japan. Together with an Essential Research poll in July, it points to a softening in attitudes towards Donald Trump, with 26% now rating that Australia should withdraw from the alliance if he wins, down from 37% last year. However, 46% would be “very concerned about the state of US democracy. Twenty per cent of Australian respondents felt US handling of China was too aggressive, compared with only 9% in Japan and 10% in the US, and 40% agreed Australia should send military forces “to help the United States defend Taiwan … if China attacks”, down six from last year, with 32% disagreeing, up ten. Respondents in all three countries were asked if it were “a good idea for Australia to have nuclear-powered submarines”: 51% of Australians agreed while 19% disagreed, compared with 35% and 16% of Americans daring to venture an opinion one way or the other. The survey was conducted from June 17 to 25, from sample of a little over 1000 in each country.

• JWS Research has the results of its latest quarterly True Issues survey on issue salience. Cost of living remains by far the issue most frequently invoked as being among the “most important issues the Australian government should focus on”, despite a six-point drop since May. The survey also finds a net minus 22 rating for direction of the national economy, down two on May and the equal worst result going back to the series’ inception in 2013.

EMRS: Liberal 36, Labor 27, Greens 14 in Tasmania

The second Tasmanian state poll since the March election finds the situation largely unchanged on voting intention, although Jeremy Rockliff increases his lead as preferred premier.

The second quarterly EMRS poll since the Tasmanian state election in March is little changed on the first, which in turn showed no radical change on the election result: the Liberals are up a point to 36%, Labor is down one to 27% and the Greens are down one to 14% and the Jacqui Lambie Network (naturally the survey period preceded their recent implosion) up one to 8%. The results at the election were Liberal 36.7%, Labor 29.0%, Greens 13.9% and Jacqui Lambie Network (which ran in four of the five electorates) 6.7%. However, Jeremy Rockliff has improved his preferred premier lead over Dean Winter, which is out to 45-30 from 40-32 in the latter’s debut result in the May poll. The poll was conducted August 14 to 21 from a sample of 1000.

EMRS: Liberal 35, Labor 28, Greens 15 in Tasmania

The first Tasmanian poll of the Liberal government’s fourth term records little change on the March election result.

Tasmanian pollster EMRS has produced its first poll of state voting intention since the March 23 election, which suggests no fundamental change. It has the Liberals on 35%, compared with 36.7% at the election; Labor on 28%, compared with 29.0%; the Greens on 15%, compared with 13.9%; and the Jacqui Lambie Network on 7%, compared with 6.7%. The first preferred premier result with Dean Winter as Labor leader has Jeremy Rockliff on 40% and Winter on 32%, which compares with 41% for Rockliff and 38% for former Labor leader Rebecca White at the last poll in February. The poll was conducted May 16 to 23 from a sample of 1000.

Tasmanian upper house elections: Hobart, Prosser, Elwick

A minor sequel for Tasmania’s recent state election tomorrow, as former Greens and Labor leaders seek berths in the upper house.

Live commentary

Tuesday

4.30pm. The TEC has now declared all three results, with the others confirmed as expected. Cassy O’Connor did it very easily in Hobart, winning over independent John Kelly in the final round with a provisional 11,194 (59.67%) to 7,567 (40.33%). The result in Prosser was perhaps a little closer than I would have anticipated, Kerry Vincent winning for the Liberals with 11,186 (52.93%) to 9,949 (47.07%) for Labor’s Bryan Green.

Noon. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission is today conducting provisional preference distributions to establish what the final results are likely to be, the first of which has made it clear that independent Bec Thomas will win Elwick with a provisional lead at the final count over Labor candidate Tessa McLaughlin of 9758 (53.34%) to 8537 (46.66%). Barring a surprise result in Prosser, this means Labor will be reduced from four seats in the chamber to three. If the general assumption holds that Cassy O’Connor will win Hobart and Kerry Vincent will win Prosser, the overall make-up of the chamber will go from Liberal four, Labor four and independents seven to Liberal four, Labor three, Greens one and independents seven (with Elwick an independent gain and Hobart going from independent to Greens).

End of Saturday night

The counts as they presently stand are unlikely to be disturbed much by late counting, which will presumably amount to no more than 1000 postals per electorate plus very small numbers of provisionals and absents. That means the decisive unknown quantity in each case is preference flows:

Elwick. With independent Bec Thomas on 34.0% and Labor’s Tessa McLaughlin on 28.9%, this almost certainly comes down to whether Labor gets the 57-43 preference split they will need from independent Fabiano Cangelosi on 19.0% and Janet Shelley of the Greens on 18.2%, whose preferences are exceedingly unlikely to favour each other to the extent needed to put them in contention. This is very much an unknown quantity: Labor usually gets the lion’s share of Greens preferences even against independents, but independents typically favour each other.

Hobart. Cassy O’Connor of the Greens has 37.2% with independent John Kelly second on 22.1% and Labor’s John Kamara third on 18.2%. All other candidates being independents, there seems no chance of Kamara moving into second. With full preferences, Kelly would need a split of about 68.5-31.5 to close the gap, but the hurdle is in fact slightly higher because a certain number of votes will exhaust, since voters are required to number no more than three boxes. With Labor preferences in fact likely to favour O’Connor, her victory seems assured.

Prosser. Liberal candidate Kerry Vincent is on 38.7% to Labor candidate Bryan Green’s 28.5%, which would leave Green needing a 66-34 even without allowing for exhaustion (although in a five-horse race this is unlikely to amount to much), and no particularly reason to think he will manage even more than half.

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