8:00 – Polls have just opened for election day for Tasmania’s 2025 state election.
I won’t be blogging during the day today, but I will be covering the results tonight in a separate live blog. I’m also going to try posting some updates on Instagram during the night, so please give me a follow over then.
We are expecting a record number of pre-poll votes in a state that has lagged behind the rest of the country in the shift towards early voting. We don’t have the same granular data that we would get at a federal election, but the TEC reported on Thursday that over 100,000 people had already voted pre-poll, before the last two days (presumably the busiest). About 82,000 votes were cast at pre-poll in 2024, and the electoral roll has about 412,000 people on them, so we’re looking at over a quarter of the electorate casting a pre-poll vote.
It looks fairly unlikely the Liberals will be able to make enough gains for a more stable government (and fairly likely they either stay still or go backwards), while the loss of the JLN MPs will hurt them, with some or all of those seats quite possibly going to the left. Labor will likely be in what would usually be considered a very strong position to form government, but Dean Winter’s refusal to make a deal with the Greens may result in another precarious liberal minority government (off my numbers, 13 lib + 1 nat and 3 ind (O’Byrne, Johnston, and they need to convince Garland or George). Otherwise, Labor may be forced into governing in a coalition they might not like. Finally, if nothing works and there is a fresh election, I would imagine voters would be pretty furious at Labor, with the libs and greens both benefiting.
@clarinet doubtful Garland and Johnston are artitally repsonsible for the election having voted agsint Rockliff
@John I’d argue Labor’s responsible for refusing to govern despite a majority left-leaning parliament. I can see why you’d argue Johnston and Jenner, but Garland never agreed to any form of confidence and supply with the Liberals, he was opposed the whole time. You can’t blame someone for supporting a no confidence motion against a government they always opposed.