Liberal weakness hidden by Labor’s numbers

26 September 2022

The Liberal Party has problems in Tasmania. Governing with a majority of only one seat, as it has been for more than four years now, can make mistakes look more serious than normal. One simple mishap or resignation would see the one-seat majority disappear.

But there are also problems for the Labor Party. It needs to pick up several seats before it can obtain power, which would be challenging enough. However, bad memories of the past make it harder.

With twenty-five seats up for grabs at election time in Tasmania, winning thirteen seats is the ultimate objective. Any extra seat won is a bonus.

However, what makes Tasmanian elections different from elsewhere is the spread of the twenty-five seats across five electorates – hence five seats per electorate. Ideally, you can get away with winning three seats apiece in three electorates and two seats apiece in the other two electorates.

When the Liberal Government first took power in 2014, it won fifteen seats. This tally dropped a little to thirteen seats in 2018. It stayed the same at the most recent election, in 2021. Currently, the tally for the Liberals shows three seats apiece across three electorates in regional Tasmania, and two seats apiece in two seats covering the Hobart region and its surrounds.

To some extent, the Liberals seem strong in regional Tasmania, but not as much in Hobart. When they took power in 2014, they actually finished with four out of five seats in a regional electorate, but they won only two out of five seats in a Hobart-based electorate, while taking three seats apiece elsewhere in the State. In 2018, they lost a seat in one regional electorate and one seat in the Hobart area. Their tally back then is the same as today.

Part of the reason for the 2014 result was a voter backlash, especially in regional Tasmania, over Labor having held power over preceding years through an alliance with the Greens. Back then, having taken power in 1998 and maintained a steady majority over many years, Labor lost its majority in 2010 and ended up forming an alliance with the Greens to hold power. The alliance somehow lasted until the next election was due, in 2014, but regional voters in particular came to hate this, and they punished both Labor and the Greens in that election. Going into the election with ten seats, the Liberals picked up four seats alone in the regional electorates, with Labor and the Greens losing two seats each, while the fifth Liberal gain was in the Hobart region.

The regional electorate of Braddon, in western Tasmania, was where the Liberals won four out of five seats. This was perhaps the clearest sign of voter resentment over Labor’s alliance with the Greens.

But the Liberals weren’t as popular in Hobart. Admittedly, the Liberal leader who triumphed in 2014, Will Hodgman, was in the Hobart-based electorate of Franklin, and maybe this was enough to enable the Liberals to win three out of five seats there. However, there were limits to this.

At the next election, in 2018, the Liberals lost one seat in Braddon, but perhaps this was no surprise, because winning four out of five seats in any electorate would have been really hard to achieve, and the resentment from 2014 was unlikely to linger as strongly by 2018.

Their other lost seat in 2018 was in Franklin, even with the local popularity of Hodgman.

After that, Hodgman resigned as Premier in 2020, having served for six years. His successor was Peter Gutwein, from the regional electorate of Bass. Gutwein called an election in 2021, a year before the election was actually due, and maintained the seat numbers from 2018. However, he resigned a year later, and now Jeremy Rockliff, from Braddon, is Premier.

With a regional MP leading, but with not that many seats in the State capital, the Liberals seem pretty solid among regional voters. However, they lack appeal among urban voters, and this must change.

But this disadvantage, to some extent, looks to be hidden. The Liberal weakness in Hobart is arguably hidden by Labor’s numbers, in terms of seats. While the Liberals hold a majority of a single seat, the difficulty for Labor is that it only holds nine seats, and it needs to gain four seats.

Beyond the issue of seat numbers, Tasmania also has elections every May in a handful of Upper House seats, on a rotating basis. This year, Labor and an Independent held seats where elections took place, while a separate by-election in a Labor-held seat resulted in an Independent win. The Liberals might have to wait until next year’s periodic elections to gain seats, and they show what voters, in a handful of parts of Tasmania, think of whoever governs them.

Having a narrow majority gives Rockliff and the Liberals enough trouble. They have a difficult period ahead as they try to govern with little room for error.

Coalition seats at risk with retirements

23 September 2022

The Coalition Government in New South Wales faces quite a challenge when it faces the voters in March next year. Part of the challenge lies in trying to win a fourth term in power, which governments don’t usually achieve. The Coalition won power in 2011 with a massive majority, which it lost a big chunk of in 2015. The most recent election, in 2019, saw it narrowly returned, but it has since lost its majority, and only governs with crossbench support. The date with destiny will happen in a matter of months.

Added to the challenge will be the departures of several Coalition MPs, without whom the Coalition will struggle to hold some of its seats.

Many Coalition MPs won seats off the Labor Party in the 2011 election landslide, and their ability to hold their seats at election after election has been incredible. Without them, the election win in 2019 in particular would never have happened.

Among the Coalition retirees at the coming election are Victor Dominello, Geoff Lee, and Kevin Conolly. Both Lee and Conolly won what might’ve been considered fairly safe Labor seats in 2011, while Dominello won a fairly safe Labor seat at a by-election a few years earlier. At the time of Dominello’s victory, Labor was imploding in power, where it’d been for more than a decade. The 2011 election saw Lee take Parramatta and Conolly take Riverstone. Parramatta hadn’t been out of Labor hands since 1991, and Riverstone hadn’t ever been out of Labor hands.

As for Ryde, which Dominello won, it’d changed hands a few times through its history, but it’d been in Labor hands since 1999.

Certainly I consider these Coalition seats to be risk with the retirements of Coalition people who took them off Labor years ago.

Other Coalition retirees include Jonathan O’Dea and Gabrielle Upton, who both hold seats that Labor has no real chance of winning. Like the retirees mentioned earlier, they bow out after more than ten years as MPs. But their seats, while arguably safe from Labor, could be vulnerable to challenges from Independents if they opt to run.

At this point, I’ve mentioned five Coalition retirees all from Sydney. But the Coalition will also lose MPs in regional NSW, including Chris Gulaptis and Melinda Pavey from the coastal north, though I don’t see either of them as leaving seats vulnerable.

More Coalition MPs might choose to retire before the election comes. But whether their seats become vulnerable will depend on who opts to depart.

Indeed with the Coalition having governed for more than a decade, many Coalition people became MPs in that 2011 election landslide. They have no idea what it means to be out of power, and it might be quite a shock to them.

Mind you, nobody in Coalition ranks understands the feeling of being out of power quite like Brad Hazzard, currently a senior minister. He was first elected in Wakehurst in 1991 – during the Coalition’s previous term in office!

He went from being in power to losing it, and endured over a decade in the political wilderness before coming to power again. He’s therefore been around for over thirty years, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s about to call it quits in March.

Meanwhile, despite the Coalition’s problems, Labor faces quite a challenge to emerge triumphant in the election. Because of a large crossbench, Labor needs lots of extra seats to win, and I’m still not convinced that it’s cutting through with voters.

The departures of several Coalition MPs make the Coalition’s hard road to the election even harder. But the Coalition can’t be rated as gone for the time being.