10:13pm – If you’ve appreciated my coverage of this election, now would be a good time to think about signing up as a patron. I’ll be covering this election further in the coming days, with maps breaking down what happened across the state, and of course there’ll be a lot more coverage of the three other elections coming up in two weeks’ time.
9:54pm – This is the ninth Tasmanian state election that the Greens have contested as a statewide party. Their worst ever result was one seat in 1998, with a vote of 10.2%. They are currently sitting on a statewide vote of 10.3%, with only one seat guaranteed.
9:29pm – I’ve got quite a bit of analysis at the Guardian but here is my summary of the current situation.
I see the Liberal Party on 13 seats (a majority) with a chance of two more. Labor is on 8, with the Greens winning at least one seat.
The three outstanding seats are:
- Labor vs Greens in Bass – Greens MP Andrea Dawkins is trailing a second Labor candidate.
- Labor vs Liberal in Braddon – there’s still a chance of a fourth Liberal in Braddon, although Labor is leading.
- Liberal vs Greens in Franklin – Greens MP Rosalie Woodruff is close to a quota, but only just ahead of the third Liberal quota. A very large proportion of the Liberal vote sits with Will Hodgman, which means they may struggle with some preferences leaking out of the Liberal ticket.
8:07pm – The Liberal Party looks likely to win at least two in Franklin (possibly a third), two in Denison, and at least three in the other electorates. That would be a majority.
7:31pm – The results are looking very good for the Liberal Party, particularly in the northern seats. It looks likely that they will win at least 13 seats, possibly more. It also looks quite possible that the Greens will lose a seat in Bass, dropping to two seats – their worst result since 1998.
6:00pm – Polls have just closed in the Tasmanian state election. I will drop in occasionally with commentary here, as well as contributing to the Guardian liveblog. We should expect to see voting figures before 7pm, until then you can take a look at the Tasmanian election guide.
Not a comment here yet but it was a predictable result as the Liberals have been governing Tasmania well. Labor should keep the anti pokies platform as pokies are a great evil; an instrument of “satin”.
While not winning any seats the JLN did well for a first attempt. Other minor parties, like the Greens, spent many elections, in the wilderness (pun), before winning any seats
The Greens didn’t spend any elections in the wilderness in Tasmania before winning seats. Bob Brown was elected on a countback in 1983, and a second independent Green was elected in 1986. In 1989 they ran as the “Green Independents” – basically a party for the first time – and won 5 seats.
Got me on that one !!
Ben,
I think that the greens originally ran under the banner of “united Tasmania Group” (or something like that) as early as 1972 and did not have success until the early 80s. Indeed I don’t think the greens formally formed a party until after 1990s. Someone with a better memory than me will correct me if I am wrong.
One observation (and I lived in Tassie in the 80s until the mid 90s) from watching the election victory/concession speeches on Saturday night was the way the leaders presented themselves. Premier Hodgman came across as very confident and comfortable in his skin. Opposition leader White a little inexperienced. And the greens leader – nasty.
I make this observation as in the 80s and early 90s the greens had very charismatic leaders (Brown, Bates (not leader but very good politician)) and even if you disagreed with them they were likeable people who you could respect. So this meant that the soft green voters could pretty easily vote for the party. I feel that O’Connor will appeal to the hard greens but will struggle to appeal outside the core constituency. Hence the declining vote.
Anyway – four more years of majority liberal government.
As an aside, I have always thought of the Tasmanian Liberals as Nationals but it is just a fluke of history that the branding is Liberal. The demographics of the National constituencies and Tasmania where the liberals do well are very common – low socio-economic in largely rural constituencies. Indeed, Premier Robin Grey supported “Joh for PM” over John Howard in the 80s.
Cheers,
Pollster
It is true that the UTG did contest the 1972 and 1976 elections but it did not have any formal link with the Tasmanian Greens.
They ran as a quasi-party the ‘Green Independents’ in 1989 and then formed an official party before the next election (well after they had taken a role in a governing alliance). By 1989, Bob Brown had been in parliament for about six years.
Jackie Lambie was on ABC Melbourne radio today with Lyn Allison and some Scandinavian folk musicians on the John Fayne last morning talk show.
Mostly Fayne talking or talking over his phone callers usually.
Jackie was quite clear she is interested in getting back into the Senate with one of her interests being the welfare of ADF veterans.
Fayne suggested that if she was not re-election to the Senate she should try a radio host career.
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