Rockliff’s apples only with support in Tasmania

30 April 2024

Jeremy Rockliff should be counting his blessings now. He sent voters in Tasmania to a State election recently, in an attempt to regain a majority in State Parliament, which he lost a year earlier. But the result of the election was a majority for nobody. Rockliff was able to hold power only with support from crossbenchers. And it remains to be seen how long he survives.

The recent State election saw the Liberal Party hold power in Tasmania for a fourth consecutive term, which it’d never achieved before. It’d taken power at a State election in 2014, under Will Hodgman, who won another election in 2018 before stepping down in 2020. Succeeding Hodgman was Peter Gutwein, who won an election in 2021, but he suddenly quit in 2022, with Rockliff succeeding him.

The Labor Party, which had governed Tasmania for sixteen consecutive years before a big election loss in 2014, has striven for years to win back lost voters. But it was struggling to do so, even though its opponent confronted problems in pursuit of a fourth straight term in power.

When the election was called, questions loomed over whether more voters might end up switching to minor parties and Independents. The last election produced two Greens and one Independent, and with the number of seats in Parliament being increased, more crossbenchers were expected.

Certainly the Liberals, after ten years in power, faced problems. They’d governed Tasmania pretty well since 2014, but while the State economy performed strongly for much of the time, it’d become less healthy of late. Housing and health were also troubling issues, and there’d been some drama over plans for a new football stadium in central Hobart. The stadium was cited as one factor behind the departure of two Liberal MPs to the crossbench, and their actions seemingly frustrated Rockliff into calling a snap election – about a year before it needed to be called.

But Labor wasn’t really taking advantage of the issues harming the Liberals. Indeed it faced trouble of its own, mainly of an internal nature, and one MP went to the crossbench as a result.

Rockliff called a snap election in the hope of regaining the majority that he’d lost, but voters ended up electing more crossbenchers, including more Greens. The only advantage for the Liberals after the counting of votes was that they held more seats than Labor, as Labor couldn’t hope to get into power without an alliance with the Greens and other crossbenchers. But previously governing with the support of the Greens and then suffering a big election defeat after that, Labor seemed unwilling to go down that path again, while the Greens were never likely to support the Liberals. Fortunately for Rockliff, other crossbenchers gave him the necessary support to hold power.

The election saw thirty-five seats going up for grabs. The Liberals won fourteen seats, leaving them four seats short of a majority. Labor won ten seats, and the Greens won five seats. Three seats went to Independents, and three seats went to the party of Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie.

There were seven seats apiece available in five electorates covering the Apple Isle – which Tasmania often is described as. The Liberals won two seats in Clark, in the central Hobart area, and three seats each in the other electorates. Labor won two seats each in all electorates. The Greens won two seats in Clark and a seat in every other electorate except Braddon, in the State’s west. Ex-Labor MP David O’Byrne ran as an Independent and held his seat in Franklin, in the area surrounding Hobart. Clark MP Kirstie Johnston, the only Independent elected in 2021, held her seat, while Braddon saw another Independent elected. Braddon delivered one seat for Lambie’s party. Bass, in the State’s north-east, also saw Lambie’s party obtain a seat, and Lyons, in the State’s centre and east, did likewise.

I got several things wrong for the State election. The Liberals won most of the seats that I predicted, but won three seats in Braddon, instead of my prediction of four seats. Labor won many of the seats that I predicted, but won two seats per electorate, instead of my prediction of three seats in all seats except Braddon and Franklin. The Greens won seats in Bass and Clark and Franklin, like I predicted, but the result of two seats in Clark and one seat in Franklin was the reverse order of my prediction, and I didn’t predict a seat in Lyons. I predicted a seat in Clark for an Independent, and seats in both Braddon and Lyons for Lambie’s party, but not the Independent win in Braddon or the Independent win in Franklin, or the seat for Lambie’s party in Bass.

Opinion polls suggested a swing of 10 per cent or more against the Liberals. Ultimately, a statewide swing against the Liberals of 12 per cent was the result. But almost none of it went to Labor, whose vote barely changed, while the vote for the Greens went up a bit more. Looking back at this election, it was astounding that it featured a big swing against the Liberals while Labor’s vote hardly budged.

Tasmanians see the Liberals and Rockliff governing again, but only with crossbench support. Playing on an old saying, you might argue that Rockliff’s apples – but that’s only the case with support from others. Pundits might well look at Rockliff if only to see how long he, and perhaps political stability in Tasmania, can last.

Labor’s by-election loss perhaps being reversed

22 April 2024

The Labor Party faces a State election in Queensland later this year. It took power at an election early in 2015, and won another two elections after that. Now it seeks a fourth straight term in power, albeit under different leadership, with the long-serving Annastacia Palaszczuk having stepped down late last year, to be replaced by Steven Miles.

Palaszczuk originally became Premier with crossbench support after the 2015 election, and then she won a parliamentary majority at the next election, in 2017. After that, she increased her majority again in 2020. But her popularity eventually went into decline, and despite looking like she’d still be Premier for another election, she stepped down last year. Awkwardly, this meant that her successor had less than a year to win over voters. It added to the usual trouble normally facing governments which seek four straight terms in power.

Already this year, Miles and Labor have copped a big setback. There were large swings against Labor in two State by-elections, one of them resulting in defeat.

Labor was able to hold Inala, the western Brisbane seat that Palaszczuk used to hold. But Labor lost the other by-election, for Ipswich West, largely a regional seat which stretches into Ipswich’s suburban area. Ipswich West has arguably belonged to Labor for longer than most people remember. I recall Labor losing Ipswich West only twice over a number of years, in 1998 and 2012, but on both occasions the losses were only for one term.

However, because Ipswich West has generally been a safe seat for Labor over time, notwithstanding Labor’s recent by-election loss, I feel that it won’t be out of Labor’s hands for long.

While Labor might be in trouble ahead of the next general election, perhaps only a very large overall swing against Labor might stop the by-election loss from being reversed.

I recall times when one of the major parties lost a seat at a by-election to another of the major parties, only to win it back at the next general election.

One such instance involved Brendan Smyth, who had a brief stint in Federal Parliament before leading the Liberal Party in the Australian Capital Territory later on. When Smyth went into Federal Parliament, the event was a shock at the time.

In early 1995, Smyth won a by-election for the Federal seat of Canberra, which was usually a safe Labor seat. The by-election followed the resignation of former minister Ros Kelly, and happened when Labor was really on the nose with voters. By then, Labor had been in power for twelve years, initially under Bob Hawke and later under Paul Keating. Although never popular as Prime Minister, Keating managed to pull off a surprise election win in 1993. But after that, Keating became more and more unpopular, and the Canberra by-election loss came a year before he was thumped at the next election, in 1996.

However, although the Liberals celebrated a massive win in that election, Smyth was among a handful of Liberal MPs to lose. Labor regained Canberra after the by-election loss, so it looked as if Canberra voters had forgiven Labor by then.

A similar sequence of events took place in New South Wales years earlier. In 1986, with Neville Wran stepping down after a long stint as Labor leader and Premier, there was a by-election in his old seat, Bass Hill, in Sydney’s south-west. He’d led Labor into power at an election in 1976, and won another three elections after that. But when he stepped down, Labor was less popular with voters than before, and the safe Labor seat fell to the Liberals with a big swing in that by-election. When the next general election came, in 1988, the Liberals naturally won. However, the Liberals lost Bass Hill. The by-election result following the departure of Wran was reversed.

The events in Canberra and Bass Hill long ago come to mind in the wake of Labor’s by-election defeat in Ipswich West. Both Canberra and Bass Hill were safe Labor seats which fell in by-elections, before going back to Labor at the general elections which followed. Might Ipswich West go the same way?

We’ll see what happens in Ipswich West in the next election in Queensland. There the Liberal National Party looks to be a better position to win an election than it’s been for years. But while it needs more than ten extra seats to take power, Ipswich West wasn’t among its target seats before the by-election took place. We’ll soon see what Ipswich West voters think of the new MP from the by-election.

Meanwhile, the road ahead looks rough for Miles. He’ll have been Premier for less than a year when the election comes. Can he win back voters who appear headed for his rivals? The by-election defeat in Ipswich West might make or break him, though anything can happen over the remaining months until polling day.

Teal victim’s attempt to return with little support

20 April 2024

Tim Wilson aims to get back to Federal Parliament. He recently took his first step for that. But will this ultimately be enough for him to make it back?

He’s won preselection for the seat of Goldstein, in Melbourne’s south-east, which he won in 2016 and lost in 2022. His 2022 loss was due to unusual circumstances.

Goldstein was among several seats that the Liberal Party lost in a Federal election in 2022. But not one of these seats fell to the Labor Party, which won the election. Instead, Independents won these seats.

Only at the next election will we learn if the successes of the Independents in 2022 were one-off events.

The Independents won Liberal seats in generally wealthy regions, where voters cared more about things like environmental issues and integrity than the cost of getting by in life. The cost of food, electricity, water, and mortgages or rent arguably bothered these voters little. They were increasingly dissatisfied with the Liberals, particularly because of what they perceived as flipping and flopping by the Liberals over climate change. But despite their irritation with the Liberals over climate change, they could never bring themselves to support Labor, because they really distrusted Labor’s agenda over tax and wealth redistribution. This proved to be fertile ground for Independents, and they ousted the Liberals in seats which Labor could never win.

They became known as “teals”, in reference to a colour somewhere between the traditional Liberal colour of blue and the traditional environmental colour of green.

Aiding their causes was the unpopularity of Scott Morrison. After becoming Prime Minister amid Liberal leadership turmoil in 2018, Morrison pulled off an unexpected election win a year later. But he became very unpopular after that triumph. The teals won over many voters who might’ve otherwise stuck with the Liberals but found themselves unable to abide him. Now he’s left Parliament, but it’s far from clear whether his exit can help the Liberals win back lost voters, especially in seats now held by teals.

Seats like Goldstein will therefore be watched in that context. Goldstein candidate and ex-MP Wilson, who was among the teal “victims”, is hoping that Morrison’s absence wins voters back. But this alone mightn’t be the only issue – and ditto for climate change.

Critics argue that the Liberals under Morrison were indifferent to women’s issues, and indeed the teal winners from 2022 were all women. To the critics, choosing a man who previously lost to a teal seems less than logical. Meanwhile, another man and teal victim, Dave Sharma, is back in Parliament, having entered the Senate as a replacement for a Liberal woman, Marise Payne. Teal candidate Allegra Spender beat Sharma in Wentworth, in Sydney’s wealthy east, in 2022.

But people forget that a woman, Celia Hammond, was among the teal victims, losing to a teal in Curtin, in Perth’s west. Moreover, the Liberals selected a woman to stand against Independent MP Zali Steggall in Warringah, in Sydney’s north, but Steggall beat her by a bigger margin than she’d beaten the former Liberal leader Tony Abbott by in 2019. And more recently, one of Wilson’s Goldstein preselection rivals was a woman from a controversial think-tank known as the Institute of Public Affairs – I couldn’t imagine that woman winning Goldstein if the Liberals chose her, given the attitudes of voters in that seat.

Anyway, Wilson’s preselection win is a sign of a teal victim’s attempt to return to Parliament, but I feel that Wilson, to a degree, will be on his own. He might battle with less support from Liberal headquarters than might’ve normally been given to a once-treasured seat like Goldstein.

If anything, a recent by-election for the Labor seat of Dunkley might’ve prompted the Liberals to focus less on seats like Goldstein. Dunkley, in the Frankston area in Melbourne’s outer south-east, saw a swing of about 3-4 per cent to the Liberals, which wasn’t quite enough to for them to win, but some observers believe that they should’ve won. In fact, what might’ve prevented a bigger swing was local respect for popular Labor MP Peta Murphy, whose untimely death caused the by-election.

Labor now isn’t as popular as it once was, and even though it won the last election, there were swings against it in many seats then. The Liberals look like concentrating on seats like those. While Dunkley didn’t swing to the Liberals at the last election, it appears similar to seats that the Liberals will target.

Many people also consider Peter Dutton, who replaced Morrison as Liberal leader after the 2022 defeat, to be too much like Morrison. Voters in teal seats in particular might find Dutton too offensive.

But following the Dunkley by-election, Dutton might ignore the teal seats and just aim for seats similar to Dunkley, full of voters struggling to get by in life.

Meanwhile, Wilson faces a rematch with Zoe Daniel, his teal conqueror from 2022. His contest probably looks hard, especially if he gets relatively little support from Liberal headquarters, so he might well pray that Goldstein voters feel able to forgive the Liberals for the past.

Tasmania changing but staying the same

23 March 2024

Voters in Tasmania might see no change tonight, or even after a number of days. Then again, they might see change, despite some expectations to the contrary. It all depends on what comes out of a State election happening today.

After a period of instability, stemming from the exit of two people to the crossbench, the Liberal Party has sent Tasmanians to the polls for a snap election, more than a year earlier than due. It has governed in Tasmanian for ten years, and after scoring its third election win in a row in May 2021, it now seeks a fourth straight term in power. And the Labor Party, which last won an election sixteen years ago, seeks to stop it.

This election will see at least one different thing – an increase in the number of MPs.

Before this election, there were 25 MPs, but this tally will rise to 35. With MPs elected through winning only a proportion of votes in their electorates, rather than a majority, they will need about 12.5 per cent of votes to win seats, whereas until now they needed about 16.7 per cent of votes. This will likely get more crossbenchers elected.

In terms of election issues, the Liberals face difficulties. They’ve been governing quite well in Tasmania for most of the last ten years, but while the State economy performed strongly for much of that time, it’s not as healthy now. There’s also been a good deal of trouble in areas like health and housing. Additionally, there’s been drama over plans for a new football stadium close to central Hobart, with the Liberals firmly committing to it, despite doubts about whether most Tasmanians supported it. The Liberals look like they’ve lost many voters, especially outside Hobart, because of it, and two Liberal MPs cited it as a factor in their departures to the crossbench.

Regardless of issues, however, it’s long been typical for governments of any political colour to really battle when seeking a third straight term in power – or a fourth straight term. That’s what the Liberals face in Tasmania now.

But despite the challenges confronting the Liberals, Labor doesn’t look anywhere near able to take advantage of them. It’s been struggling with issues of its own, especially internal ones, which resulted in one MP going to the crossbench. As a result, it looks incapable of winning over enough voters to really threaten.

Its last years in office, before 2014, saw it governing only in an alliance with the Greens, and voters outside Hobart in particular ended up revolting against the alliance. They really resented the Greens, who were perceived to hate the jobs that they did. Labor really upset them when it got close to the Greens. It’s possible that they still remember that alliance. If so, it’ll be troublesome for Labor, but the Greens should still do pretty well around Hobart, and possibly Launceston.

As for others, meaning Independents and the party of feisty Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie, they look like drawing support from voters who’ve become really disillusioned with the Liberals and Labor. But that support mightn’t translate into many new seats, unless they’re really popular at a local level – and ideally beyond there. Lambie herself isn’t as popular as she seems, with good support only in parts of Tasmania, and unless she’s got candidates that voters really know and like, her party won’t win much.

Opinion polls suggest a swing of 10 per cent or higher against the Liberals, but Labor won’t gain too much of that swing, and the Greens won’t benefit much either. Others look like being the main beneficiaries, but the swing mightn’t equal lots of seats.

Tasmania has five electorates, with seven seats available in each. The electorates are Bass in the State’s north-east, Braddon in the State’s west, Clark in the central Hobart area, Franklin in the area surrounding Hobart, and Lyons in the State’s centre and east.

I predict the Liberals to win fifteen seats – two in Clark, four in Braddon, and three each in Bass and Franklin and Lyons. They should end up with more seats than anyone else, but not enough for a majority. I tip Labor to win thirteen seats – two in Braddon and two in Franklin and three each in the other electorates. The Greens should win four seats, with two of them in Franklin and one in Clark and one in Bass. An Independent should win in Clark, and Lambie’s party should win a seat each in Braddon and Lyons.

Liberal leader Jeremy Rockliff, who became Premier two years ago after the resignation of the immensely popular Peter Gutwein, looks to be in the best position for crossbench support to govern. However, I feel that Opposition Leader Rebecca White has a chance, because Labor usually wins crossbench support more easily than the Liberals, and the likely crossbenchers will probably favour Labor over the Liberals. This might be a case of “third time lucky” for White, who was Labor leader for the previous two elections.

This election sees Tasmania changing but possibly staying the same as a result. While the change will be extra MPs elected, the current position of nobody holding a majority will stay the same. Perhaps Tasmanian voters can only pray for stability.

Moore trouble for both parties in NSW

18 March 2024

This month marks an anniversary that the Labor Party would rather forget. But the Liberal Party would also rather forget it.

To some extent, it was quite a case of “people power” taking on, and beating, the major political parties and the powerful interests backing them.

I refer to a time twenty years ago, in March 2004, when Clover Moore ran for Lord Mayor of Sydney City Council – and won. Since then, despite attempts by the major political parties to get rid of her, she has won every mayoral election held. And with local council elections taking place in New South Wales this year, unless she decides to retire, it might be a given that she will win again. In fact, she might remain Lord Mayor if she chooses.

Despite the passing of time, I still recall what happened back then. And I dare say that many people, especially in inner Sydney, also recall.

In 2004, Labor was governing NSW, with Bob Carr as Premier. Early that year, Labor opted to sack both Sydney City Council and another council next door, and merge them into one large council. At the time, many observers perceived Labor as doing the bidding of big business, especially property developers, who appeared hungry to knock down many buildings in central Sydney in particular and build much higher towers, from which they could make massive profits. The sacking of these councils was seen as a kind of “power grab” for central Sydney.

Moore was then an Independent MP. She saw what was happening, and she ended up throwing her hat in the ring when an election for the new council came. As well, she formed her own team of candidates for the council election.

This probably wasn’t out of pure hostility to Labor. Moore wasn’t exactly a popular person among Liberals either. Her entry into Parliament, at a State election in 1988, came when she defeated Liberal incumbent Michael Yabsley in the inner suburban seat of Bligh. With the Liberals taking power in NSW under Nick Greiner, Yabsley would’ve become a minister if he hadn’t lost Bligh. In 1992, with Moore and other Independents holding the balance of power in Parliament, they took Greiner down as Premier after he got caught up in a corruption scandal regarding former minister Terry Metherell. If he hadn’t resigned, the Independents could’ve taken the Liberals from power altogether. The Liberals eventually lost the next election, which took place in 1995, and didn’t return to power until 2011.

Although Moore remained a State MP for many years after Greiner’s downfall, she was then free to run for her local council at the same time if she chose. With Labor controversially sacking those councils in 2004, to the great anger of many residents and ratepayers in inner Sydney, she contested the election there – the rest we know.

As well as being elected Lord Mayor, she saw several candidates on her team win seats on the new council, increasing her power.

The result in 2004 was an almighty kick in the guts for Labor, as its tactic of sacking and merging councils, perceivably to benefit powerful business interests, backfired spectacularly. But the Liberals could hardly draw comfort from this. They probably would’ve won more seats on the new council if not for Moore’s presence. Moore won another election four years later, and a third election four years after that.

By then, Labor had comprehensively lost a State election to the Liberals, who looked like trying to go after Moore as well by the time of the 2012 local council elections, the first to be held since the Liberals won that State election.

After the Liberals took power in NSW, laws were passed to stop people from serving as both State MPs and local councillors or mayors simultaneously. The laws were perceived as an attempt to “get” Moore – regardless of any merit. Moore contested the 2012 Sydney City election and won, though it ended her career as a State MP.

But there was a slap in the face for the Liberals. Moore’s enforced departure from State Parliament triggered a by-election for her former seat. And a key supporter, Alex Greenwich, won that by-election. He remains in Parliament today.

As for Moore, she went on to win one mayoral election after another. The major political parties, no matter what they tried, couldn’t rid inner Sydney of her.

Some of her council allies fell out with her over time, but she remains popular.

I suspect that long-held perceptions of Labor, as well as the Liberals for that matter, being beholden to property developers and big business still appear strong among inner Sydney residents. Many even suggest, rightly or wrongly, that they perceive Labor and the Liberals as corrupt.

As long as such perceptions exist, Moore is seen as inner Sydney’s bulwark against Labor and the Liberals, plus those powerful interests backing them.

The next local council elections take place in September. And we might see, again, the power of this one woman who fought and defeated the major political players around this time time twenty years ago. She was, and still is, trouble for both major parties. They look stuck with her in Sydney City Council until she chooses to depart.

Uneasy contest looming in the Top End

16 March 2024

Voters in the Northern Territory face an election in the coming months. The Labor Party has governed there since 2016, and is seeking a third straight term in power, while the Country Liberal Party has much ground to make up in winning an election for the first time in over a decade. And the road ahead looks uneasy, for both sides.

At first glance, even with election still months away, Labor should be facing a struggle of sorts. Governments usually struggle to win more than two terms in power, which makes Labor’s position instantly look vulnerable. Labor holds power with a pretty small majority, of three seats, and it’s got issues to deal with.

However, you’d be unwise to write off the next election. The CLP needs to virtually double its current tally of seats in order to take power. but it doesn’t exactly have many target seats within easy reach, and it’s holding some seats of its own on really small margins. The presence of several crossbenchers complicates the matter.

At the last election, in August 2020, Labor beat the CLP 14-8 on seats, with 25 seats available. A trio of crossbenchers held the remaining seats.

Since the election, both Labor and CLP have been through troubling times. During 2021, the CLP lost one of its seats, Daly, to Labor in a by-election. In any jurisdiction, it’s relatively common for the Government to lose one of its seats to the Opposition in a by-election – but not vice versa. It’s definitely a sign of something wrong with the Opposition if a by-election in one of its seats goes to the Government. As such, the CLP wouldn’t have looked in good shape when it lost Daly, a large seat covering an area to the south of Darwin. But one Labor MP, Mark Turner, has since departed for the crossbench. Turner was first elected in 2020, when he won the seat of Blain narrowly for Labor. On top of that, Michael Gunner stepped down as Chief Minister in 2022, after leading Labor to wins in 2016 and 2020, and it looks like Labor found itself in trouble following his departure.

The next election in the Top End, as the Northern Territory is often called, probably looks difficult for both the Government and the Opposition. But while Territorians might be losing faith in Labor, their willingness to turn to the CLP is unclear.

At this stage, I see the CLP picking up only a handful of seats at the election coming up in August. But a couple of such seats, Blain and Goyder, are in crossbench hands, while the Labor seat of Port Darwin is very marginal and its sitting member will retire at the election. The CLP needs to gain more than just these seats.

Blain, currently held by former Labor MP Turner, is based in Palmerston. I suspect that he might’ve been struggling if defending Blain as a Labor MP, after narrowly winning it in 2020. He won it by less than 20 votes. Goyder covers an area outside the Darwin-Palmerston region, and holding it is Kezia Purick, a former CLP MP who went to the crossbench many years ago. It should go back to the CLP with Purick retiring at the election.

But while Labor doesn’t have that many seats looking winnable for the CLP, several CLP seats are undoubtedly in Labor’s sights. In 2020, the CLP won the outback seat of Barkly by less than 10 votes, and the outback seat of Namatjira by about 20 votes, so Labor can easily win both seats – even in the face of an overall swing to the CLP.

There’s also no certainty of the CLP reversing its loss of Daly in the 2021 by-election.

You can see why there’s an uneasy contest looming in the Top End in August. Labor loses its majority if just two seats fall, but the CLP needs six seats to obtain a majority, and it’s got highly vulnerable seats of its own. For sure, with five months left before the election comes, anything can happen in politics during that time. Should more MPs decide to retire then, some other seats could suddenly be in play.

Territorians look to be in for an awkward election, with nobody really inspiring them on their way to the ballot box.

Tasmania voting under clouds of instability

25 February 2024

Tasmanians will go to the polls for a State election next month. The election is coming about a year early, because elections usually come every four years, and the last election happened three years ago, in May 2021. But with snap elections possible in Tasmania, in comparison with fixed parliamentary terms and election dates in other States around Australia, Premier Jeremy Rockliff has chosen the option of an early poll.

The election will see the Liberal Party seek a fourth straight term in power, which it’s never achieved in Tasmania. At first glance, this should be difficult, because governments usually struggle to win four elections in a row.

But the Labor Party, seeking a return to power after ten years out, looks uninspiring to voters.

Some might argue that the early poll isn’t a surprise. Rockliff, who became Premier in 2022 after the surprise resignation of Peter Gutwein, had a narrow majority of one seat back then, but he lost his majority last year. Two Liberal MPs fell out with him over issues such as plans for a new football stadium in Hobart, and they headed for the crossbench. Eventually things became too difficult, and this early poll is the result.

Rockliff and the Liberals will be hoping to regain their majority at this coming election, but this might be difficult – although they’re likely to be closer to a position of power.

Part of the difficulty relates to numbers. State elections in Tasmania are only for the Lower House, where governments are formed, and this coming election will see the Lower House increase from 25 seats to 35 seats. The Liberals won 13 seats last time – the bare minimum required for a majority. But defections saw the Liberals drop to 11 seats, though their tally was more than Labor’s tally. With the extra seats, 18 seats need to be won for a majority.

But I see nothing to indicate that Labor can win the coming election. It’s been facing trouble of its own, with no obvious issues on which it seems capable of unsettling the Liberals, while MP David O’Byrne now sits as an Independent after an internal disagreement.

Long memories also linger among many Tasmanians. This is troublesome for Labor, because it lost power in 2014 after governing in an alliance with the Greens. Many voters, especially outside Hobart, came to hate this alliance. They hated the Greens in particular, given that the Greens derided them for having jobs in logging and forestry, and anything which came across as “environmentally destructive”. Because of Labor’s alliance with the Greens, Labor looked hostile to jobs in logging and the like. Voters in regional Tasmania in particular were really resentful in 2014, and if they still have memories of what Labor did before, they might well think twice before turning to Labor – regardless of their feelings about the Liberals.

The increased size of the Lower House means that a candidate can win a seat with a smaller share of the vote. Last time, 16.7 per cent of the vote in any electorate would’ve guaranteed a seat for a candidate. This time, a candidate needs only 12.5 per cent of the vote for a seat.

Needing 12.5 per cent of vote should make it easier for the Greens and other minor players to win seats. Certainly the Greens should be able to increase their numbers in and around Hobart, where they’ve usually enjoyed solid support. But I’d be surprised if they win seats outside Hobart, even when needing a smaller share of the vote. As for other minor players, they need to be really popular across whatever electorates they run in.

That said, if the Greens and others manage to win a decent number of seats, they potentially could hold the balance of power. It’ll mean trouble for both the Liberals and Labor.

How might Tasmanians vote? Perhaps it’ll depend on how they feel about the Liberals and Labor. They might be disillusioned with them, but unless they see the Greens or any other minor players as worth voting for, there’s no telling where their votes might go.

It’s definitely possible that next month’s election might result in crossbenchers still holding the balance of power. Does this bother Tasmanians? Regardless of how disillusioned they might be with the major parties, might they be spooked into voting for them if they dislike the prospect of somebody governing only with crossbench support?

I point out again that general elections in Tasmania are for the Lower House only. Tasmania has two parliamentary chambers, but they operate differently. The Upper House has periodic elections in a handful of seats at a time, on a rotating basis, each May. As such, there’ll soon be elections in a few Upper House seats, with elections in others around the same time next year, and so on.

For now, people in Tasmania will find themselves voting under clouds of instability. Neither major party seems likely to win next month’s election outright – at least at this stage. Much can happen between now and polling day. Plenty of fingers will be crossed until then.

Cronulla’s last Labor representative

23 February 2024

The recent passing of Michael Egan brings back recollections of one of the more memorable election wins for the Labor Party in New South Wales. Naturally, the event in question was also really bad for the Liberal Party.

Egan had two separate stints in State Parliament. He entered Parliament in 1978, when he won a Lower House seat, and he retained the seat in 1981, before losing it in 1984. A few years later, he returned to Parliament, when he was chosen for an Upper House vacancy, and he sat in the Upper House for nearly two decades.

His second stint in Parliament was more memorable than his first. In that second stint, he was Treasurer in the Carr Labor Government for just under a decade.

But his first stint was noteworthy for winning a seat which Labor arguably would normally have little chance of winning at other times.

Interestingly, his parliamentary stints owed much to one man – Neville Wran.

While most people see Wran as a Labor icon with four election victories, which no leader in NSW has achieved since he left Parliament in 1986. But most people mightn’t know that when he became Premier after winning an election in 1976, his win was a very narrow one. It wasn’t until a number of days after the election that he was able to claim victory.

For Labor, the result was quite a tonic. The previous year, a constitutional crisis saw Gough Whitlam dismissed as Prime Minister and then there was a Federal election in which Labor was crushed. Admittedly, there were Labor governments in South Australia and Tasmania at that time, and they remained in power long after the Federal drubbing, but many Labor people probably didn’t see the party as capable of winning other elections for some time. However, the sight of Labor winning an election, especially in a major State like NSW, was uplifting.

Wran went on to be a formidable leader, and the next election, in 1978, turned out to be huge – a “Wranslide”. That election saw Labor win many Liberal seats, and even Opposition Leader Peter Coleman was among the Liberal MPs unseated at the time. Another Wranslide would follow at the election after that, in 1981.

But the 1978 election also saw Labor win seats in unlikely areas. Among the seats were Cronulla and Miranda, in Sydney’s outer south. And the candidate winning Cronulla for Labor was Egan. He was therefore a beneficiary of Wran’s popularity.

Other unlikely Labor gains in 1978 were Willoughby in Sydney’s north, and Manly and Wakehurst on the city’s northern beachside peninsula.

You read that right – Labor in 1978 won seats including Cronulla and Willoughby and Wakehurst. Could you imagine Labor winning any of these seats now?

When voters next went to the polls, in 1981, Labor retained most of these seats, with only Willoughby going back to the Liberals.

But the next election, in 1984, although Wran pulled off a comfortably win, Labor lost the aforementioned gains from the 1978 victory. Cronulla, Miranda, Manly, and Wakehurst all returned to the Liberal fold. And Egan was among the Labor casualties, losing Cronulla to Liberal candidate Malcolm Kerr. Since Kerr gained Cronulla, the Liberals have retained that seat to this day. Kerr departed in 2011, with his successor being Mark Speakman – who became Liberal leader last year.

Egan is therefore Cronulla’s last Labor representative in the Lower House.

But Egan wasn’t out of Parliament for very long. Two years after he lost Cronulla, he returned to Parliament – because, perhaps ironically, of Wran.

After ten years as Premier, Wran stepped down from the top job. His successor was Barrie Unsworth. But Unsworth was in the Upper House at the time, which meant that he had to leave that chamber and switch to the Lower House. This duly happened, but it almost didn’t pan out that way. Unsworth only narrowly won a by-election for the seat of Rockdale – one can only guess how awkward things would’ve been if he’d lost that by-election. Indeed Labor was becoming more unpopular as it aged during its time in power.

Meanwhile, Unsworth’s move to the Lower House meant that his Upper House seat was vacant. And Labor chose Egan to fill that vacancy.

Egan therefore entered Parliament originally through Wran’s massive popularity, left Parliament despite Wran’s popularity, and returned to Parliament as a result of Wran’s departure. This shows how Egan owed his time in Parliament to Wran.

The success of Wran in 1978 remains one of the most memorable Labor triumphs in NSW. But perhaps only Labor stalwarts and election enthusiasts would recall how he opened parliamentary doors for Egan, long before Egan went on to earn respect in his own right. His passing inevitably reminds Labor of past glories.

Liberal MP’s pair of taxing losses

22 January 2024

Much political attention currently centres on the Frankston area, in the outer south-east of Melbourne. This comes after the untimely death, late last year, of Federal MP Peta Murphy. Her passing means that a by-election will soon happen in her old seat of Dunkley, in the Frankston area. She won that seat in 2019 for the Labor Party, taking it out of the hands of the Liberal Party for the first time in more than twenty-years.

The Labor Party has lost its shine among voters since winning power in 2022, but the Liberal Party has yet to really convince voters that it deserves to come back into power. As such, both parties will put much effort into Dunkley.

Murphy held the seat by a fairly comfortable margin before she died. Voters know that this by-election has come about due to tragic circumstances, and this might make voters think more carefully about where their support goes in the by-election. The result might make the major parties rethink strategies ahead of the next Federal election.

However, another event late last year, outside Melbourne, could also have some impact on the election – although other factors could also be at play.

The event in question was the defeat of veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent in a preselection vote for Monash, a regional seat to the east of Melbourne.

Local Liberal voters opted to dump Broadbent as their candidate for Monash at the next election. Broadbent has been in Parliament three separate times over the past three-and-a-half decades. Twice he won a seat at one election and lost it at the next, before starting a third stint in 2004 and staying there.

After he won the seat of McMillan at an election in 2004, his next battle came in 2007, when voters were deserting the Liberals after eleven years in office under John Howard. When the election came, many Liberals lost their seats, including Howard. Despite serving as Prime Minister for more than a decade, Howard lost the confidence of voters, not just nationwide but also in his own seat. However, Broadbent managed to hold McMillan.

I recall predicting that Broadbent would lose McMillan, given that his earlier stints in Parliament were for single terms and were during anti-Liberal swings, so he couldn’t possibly hold McMillan. But he defied swings against Howard and the Liberals, and went on to hold McMillan for a long time.

McMillan was later abolished in an electoral redistribution in Victoria, which also saw Monash emerge as a new seat. Broadbent subsequently contested Monash and won it, and continues to hold it now.

Broadbent first became a Liberal MP in 1990, when he won Corinella, a new seat in those days. But he lost it in 1993. He then became a Liberal MP again in 1996, when he won McMillan. But he lost that seat as well after only one term, in 1998, before regaining it three years later and holding it for years.

Interestingly, his first two stints as a Liberal MP arguably ended in elections where tax was a major factor. Those elections were in 1993 and 1998, with the Liberals on both occasions proposing major tax reform.

Because Broadbent was among the Liberal MPs defeated in both tax-related elections, it could be argued that this Liberal MP’s career features an unlucky pair of taxing losses – if you’ll pardon the pun!

Certainly Howard did a better job as Liberal leader in 1998 than John Hewson did in 1993, in terms of convincing enough voters of a need for such reform.

You can probably guess that I refer to the imposition of a tax on goods and services – or a GST for short. Hewson failed to convince voters of the benefit of introducing a GST in 1993. Howard lost lots of Liberal MPs when he took the GST to the voters in 1998, but he just won the election, and he managed to get the GST legislated after that.

As for Broadbent, after losing his seat twice in GST elections, he subsequently came back and served for many years as a Liberal MP. But after losing Liberal preselection for Monash last year, he went to the crossbench.

The next election will show whether or not the Liberals can hold a hard seat without him. I’ve seen many seats change hands with the exits of incumbent MPs, even with overall swings to their parties. The Liberals might well battle to retain Monash without Broadbent. They find themselves with one less seat on election night in Victoria, without the veteran to contest.

Wall-to-wall Labor possible in 2024

20 January 2024

The Labor Party could be governing in every State and Territory in this coming year, albeit not for long. But it depends on events in one particular State.

There’ll be a fair bit of election activity around Australia in 2024. Three elections take place across the States and Territories before year’s end, but a fourth such election could also take place. And that fourth election, should it occur, would be in the only place where the Liberal Party currently governs.

Election pundits know that, apart from Tasmania, every State and Territory has fixed parliamentary terms. We know when they’re having elections, even when they’re not due for several years.

We should first look at the three elections definitely taking place in 2024.

The first of them will be in the Northern Territory. Labor has been in power there for nearly eight years, and will seek a third term in power in August. Normally, winning three terms is hard for incumbent governments, but if their opponents fail to look at least plausible, or if voters somehow fear change, they can win.

The second and third elections of 2024 will both happen in October.

The first to go then will be the Australian Capital Territory, where Labor has been in power continuously for twenty-three years, and is seeking a seventh straight term in power. Probably not many observers can remember governments which lasted that long in power. But here Labor could win that seventh straight term unless the Liberals come across as really inspiring. Despite the handicap of such a long time in power, Labor has the advantage of support from the Greens, who arguably won’t ever consider giving the Liberals their support, and this probably means that even looking plausible won’t be enough for the Liberals. They need to really blow the minds of the voters in order to convince them to ditch Labor.

The other October election will be in Queensland. Labor has been in power for nine years, and will seek a fourth straight term in power. As noted, governments often struggle to win three terms, so winning a fourth term will be even harder.

Labor therefore governs in the three jurisdictions going to the polls in 2024.

However, a fourth election might also happen in 2024 – in Tasmania. The only State in Australia without fixed parliamentary terms or election dates, meaning freedom for the Premier of the day to call an election whenever he or she sees fit, it’s also the only State where the Liberals now govern. Even without a fixed election date, it usually holds elections every four years, and the next election won’t be due until early next year. But a snap election remains possible.

When the Liberals head to the polls in Tasmania, they’ll be after a fourth straight term in power. But after only narrowly winning the last election, in 2021, they lost their majority last year when two MPs went to the crossbench. Those two MPs, unless they choose to support the Government for another twelve months, could be the difference between whether or not a snap election occurs.

Mind you, despite the problems afflicting the Liberals, Labor doesn’t particularly look appealing to Tasmanian voters at the moment. With Labor having its own trouble, as well as bad memories of an enforced alliance with the Greens during its last term in power from 2010 to 2014, one suspects that a snap election right now wouldn’t produce a clear result. This might be one of the few things giving the Liberals hope at the moment. But it doesn’t mean that Labor can’t win.

Therefore, because a Labor win in a snap election in Tasmania before year’s end isn’t entirely out of the question, Australia could end up with in a wall-to-wall Labor situation, in terms of governments, during the year. After all, Labor holds power in every State and Territory on the Australian mainland.

Could Australia have wall-to-wall Labor this year? I feel that it could, especially in the event of an election in Tasmania before August. Certainly Labor will battle to win two of three elections definitely happened, in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and defeat in one of those elections obviously stops wall-to-wall Labor from happening. But given what happens in politics, the Liberals holding power in Tasmania might end up lasting until early next year, when an election must occur place. Tasmania might stay the only non-Labor State for some time.