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End of Saturday night
Labor leads by 6852 to 5875 in Dunstan, with upwards of 7500 votes to come — the Liberals will need about 56.5% of these to overhaul the Labor lead, the chance of which my system puts at 1%.
In Tasmania, contrary to the general assumption of a Liberal minority government, there are still live scenarios where Labor and the Greens get to sixteen with a natural ally in David O’Byrne making it seventeen, making the magic eighteen achievable through a deal with either independent Kristie Johnston or the Jacqui Lambie Network. But perhaps the most likely scenario is that the Liberals get to fifteen and the JLN gets to three, with the latter naturally gravitating to the option with the least moving parts in which the biggest party forms government. My read of the situation is that there is a bedrock thirteen seats for Liberal, ten for Labor, four for the Greens, two for the Jacqui Lambie Network and two independent, to which can be added a likely fourteenth Liberal and a third JLN. In greater doubt are two seats in Franklin, to go between Liberal, ex-Labor independent David O’Byrne and the Greens, and a seat in Clark that could go to Labor or the Greens.
Bass. Despite dropping 21.5% from a Peter Gutwein-fuelled 60.0% in 2021, the Liberals have clearly won three quotas with two for Labor and one for the Greens. Beyond that, the Jacqui Lambie Network has 0.63 quotas, though postals may reduce this, while I’m projecting a Labor surplus of 0.34 above their two quotas. That would seem promising with respect to Rebekah Pentland, the strongest performing JLN candidate. Michael Ferguson and newcomer Rob Fairs are clearly elected of the Liberals — the third incumbent, Simon Wood, holds only the slenderest of leads over controversial colleague Julie Sladden. The two Labor incumbents, Michelle O’Byrne and Janie Finlay, are both returned, and the Greens member will be Cecily Rosol.
Braddon. Other than the JLN gouging 11% out of the Liberals, this was a similar result to 2021. There is no doubt that the Liberals have won three seats, returning incumbents Jeremy Rockliff, Felix Ellis and Roger Jaensch; Labor has won two, returning incumbents Anita Dow and Shane Broad; and the Jacqui Lambie Network has won one, which could be either be Miriam Beswick or James Redgrave. To that the Liberals seem likely to win a fourth seat with a 0.69 quota surplus, barring some impressive preference-gathering from independent Craig Garland on 0.40 quotas or a late-count surprise for the Greens on 0.52.
Clark. The only division without the JLN running, the 4.4% drop in the Liberal vote is perhaps pointing to how the election might have looked in their absence. Also a bright spot for Labor in that their primary vote was up 9.7%, with the independent vote down despite a seemingly strong selection of contenders. The Liberals have a clear two quotas, ensuring re-election for Simon Behrakis and Madeleine Ogilvie, as does Labor, with Ella Haddad re-elected and Josh Willie moving successfully from the upper house, while Vica Bayley of the Greens has been re-elected. The contestants for the two final seats are independent incumbent Kristie Johnston, with 0.64 quotas; the Greens, with a surplus of 0.57 putting former Hobart Lord Mayor Helen Burnet in contention; and Labor, whose surplus of 0.54 gives newcomer Stuart Benson a chance. Johnston will presumably coast home as around 10% for various other independents are distributed, leaving the Greens and Labor vying for the last seat.
Franklin. Labor can also take something out of the result in the other Hobart electorate: the 6.2% drop in their vote doesn’t look so bad when David O’Byrne’s 9.0% is taken into account, and the 8.0% Liberal vote exceeded the JLN’s 4.9%. Eric Abetz and Jacquie Petrusma were closely matched on the Liberal ticket, and both will be elected; Dean Winter is returned for Labor and will likely be joined by Meg Brown; and Rosalie Woodruff was re-elected for the Greens with a quota in her own right. In the race for the last two seats, O’Byrne has 0.72 quotas, and I’m projecting the Liberals to have a 0.74 surplus over their second quota (keeping incumbent Nic Street in contention) and the Greens to have 0.57 over their first (Jade Darko being the leader out of the party’s minor candidates), with preferences likely to favour the Greens.
Lyons. The Liberal vote fell 13.5% here, in part because of John Tucker unproductively draining 3.3%. They nonetheless have a clear three quotas, re-electing Guy Barnett and Mark Shelton and facilitating Jane Howlett’s move from the upper house, while Rebecca White and Jen Butler are re-elected for Labor. For the remaining two seats, the Greens have 0.84 quotas, the Jacqui Lambie Network has 0.67, and Labor has 0.64 over the second quota. Preferences will presumably be unfavourable for Labor, so the situation is encouraging for Tabatha Badger of the Greens and one of two closely matched JLN candidates, Andrew Jenner and Troy Pfitzner.
Election night
9.22pm. I now have a bug-free Dunstan page — all two-candidate preferred numbers are in and it’s calling it for Labor.
9.13pm. Labor’s position in Tasmania, while not great, has looked less bad as the evening has progressed — I now have them holding steady on the primary vote, with the Liberals down by double-digits. The JLN hasn’t matched the polling, but it looks well placed in the three non-Hobart divisions.
9.01pm. Dunstan is looking a bit less dramatic with the latest update, which cuts my projection of the Labor swing from 7% to 3%. I believe my system isn’t making a probability determination because it isn’t sure the Greens won’t make the final count, but I suggest it should be. All the booths are in on the primary vote — the TCP booth results don’t seem to be firing in my results system, so my read is based on preference estimates, which are likely to be pretty accurate.
8.57pm. I’ve found the error that was causing my system to read a Liberal-Greens result in Dunstan. Now it’s pointing to an emphatic win for Labor, erasing the 0.5% Liberal margin with a 7% swing. The Greens are up 8.7% on my reckoning and having a good night in Tasmania, seemingly on track for two seats apiece in Clark and Franklin and one each in Bass and Lyons, while striking out in Braddon.
8.51pm. Franklin also looks three Liberal (Eric Abetz, Jacquie Petrusma and Nic Street, with incumbent Dan Young squeezed out), two Labor (Meg Brown likely joining Dean Winter), two Greens (Rosalie Woodruff plus a lottery for second) and one independent, the independent in this case being David O’Byrne.
8.47pm. Clark looks three apiece for Labor, Liberal and the Greens plus with incumbent Kristie Johnston returned, and none of the other independents in contention unless preferences behave in a manner I’m not anticipating.
8.43pm. Braddon looking like three Liberal, two Labor and one JLN, with the last going to either independent Craig Garland or a fourth Liberal. The three Liberal incumbents and two Labor incumbents are returned.
8.40pm. So then, some overdue commentary on what we’re seeing in Tasmania, starting with Bass. Three Liberal, two Labor, one Greens, one in doubt. Rob Fairs a clear second elected Liberal after Michael Ferguson, open race for the third. Labor’s two seats will stay with the incumbents. Cecily Rosol elected for the Greens. Presumably JLN to take the third, which candidate is unclear.
8.34pm. Continuing to bash away at technical issues, but it looks like a boilover in Dunstan. My projections are seemingly not to be relied upon in that they are pointing to a Liberal-Greens contest, but it seems what we’re actually looking at is a surge to the Greens, a drop in the Liberals and a win for Labor.
8.05pm. My Dunstan display at least seems to be going okay — looking like a big vote for the Greens. My projected TCP has the Liberals ahead, but it’s a bit speculative at this stage.
7.55pm. I’ve been trying and failing to fix an issue that is making the parties in the booth results table appear in the wrong order.
7.35pm The big swing against the Liberals in Bass looks to be extending to Launceston. Perhaps some of this reflects the loss of Peter Gutwein’s vote.
7.31pm. The booth results maps you can find on my Tasmanian election results pages are a good way of discerning regional patterns, and it doesn’t seem the booths around Burnie are doing anything special for the JLN. The main story in Braddon remains that Labor is down more than Liberal.
7.28pm. There are 11 booths and 3.7% of the enrolled vote in from Bass, and it suggests the Liberals have taken a big hit with the JLN in double figures. However, almost all of this is outside Launceston — there the JLN vote may be lower and less damaging to the Liberals as a result. Lara Alexander making little impression so far.
7.23pm. Early numbers are a bit unspectacular for the JLN in its presumed stronghold of Braddon, but it can’t be stressed enough that results will be heavily regionalised here and in Lyons — Burnie booths may bring them up. Similarly, it may be too early to read reach conclusions from John Tucker being outpolled by Shooters in Lyons.
7.18pm. Still a bit busy with bug-squashing, but both major parties looking well down in Lyons, Labor doing badly in Braddon, first numbers (very small in this case) in Franklin consistent with the trend except that the Jacqui Lambie Network is as expected weaker here.
7.08pm. So far, Tasmania looks consistent with the polls in that the Jacqui Lambie Network is on about 10% in the non-Hobart seats which has come at the expense of the Liberals — except in Lyons, where it’s come at the expense of Labor. A few more booths might establish if the latter is an early count anomaly.
7.01pm. I’ve ironed out my Lyons bug, and I believe the Dunstan feed is starting to work.
6.55pm. Not sure why the ABC has numbers for Lyons and I don’t. I do have numbers for Bass and Braddon though, which are obviously from very small rural booths.
6.45pm. For reasons I’m unlikely to be able to solve, my Tasmanian pages are sometimes loading properly but sometimes not, either failing to load the map or falling over altogether. So you will likely need to hit refresh a fair bit to follow them properly. So far I’m unable to upload the feed for Dunstan at all, but that may be because it isn’t live yet.
6.30pm. Polls have closed for South Australia’s Dunstan by-election, which on reflection I think would be best dealt with on the same post as this one.
6pm. Welcome to the Poll Bludger’s live coverage of the Tasmanian state election count. Polls are now closed and we should be getting the first results from small rural booths fairly shortly. Through the link above you will find live updated results throughout the night and beyond, inclusive of an effort to project party vote shares in each of the five divisions through booth-matched swings. Also note that coverage of South Australia’s Dunstan by-election will commence when polls close there in half an hour.
Anybody got the link to the TEC page?
“ALP aren’t on the nose”. Apparently.
https://www.tec.tas.gov.au/house-of-assembly/elections-2024/index.html
Thanks Pueo
Money is on Josh Willie as next Labor leader. You’ll never of heard of him, but he’s attempting to transfer from the upper house to the lower house in Clark.
I don’t really know if he’ll get it, people say bullshit all the time. Dean Winter is the other obvious choice.
“Money is on Josh Willie as next Labor leader. You’ll never of heard of him, but he’s attempting to transfer from the upper house to the lower house in Clark.”
He’s an ambitious guy, but doesn’t have that much of a profile. But neither does Dean Winter, outside of the political cognoscenti.
Eric Abetz may have one of the most irritating voices I have ever heard. He sounds like Jack Nicholsan putting on a bad British accent. Tasmanian Labor must be praying that he takes the leadership.
With no recent polls, it’s pretty difficult to make an informed prediction to this one. Could be just as the polls are predicting, could be a late swing to the Liberals or Labor or various crossbenchers, could be something totally wild and unexpected. We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.
MB, if I had any say in party strategy (I do not) I’d be looking for a northern leader. But I can’t see a leader in the 4 likely successful Labor candidates in Bass and Braddon.
My only guess re results will be poor for both major parties, ALP likely to do a little worse in primaries as a comparison.
Not Janie Finlay? Mayor of Launceston at 27, and thereby youngest ever female mayor in Australia?
I think she’s got some potential, but she probably doesn’t have the right connections in the party.
Polling results in Australia have been pretty good in the last few years in predicting election results. Surely we have to be up for a surprise soon? Especially in this case where the latest polling doesn’t appear to be in the last week.
I always hang on to the example of the 1991 Brisbane City Council where a surprise swing of nearly 20% booted the Liberals out.
First results – from a pretty small booth in Lyons – showing swings against the Liberals, Labor, and the Greens.
EDIT: Wait, no, seems a minor swing to the Greens.
Lambie currently on +10%.
On the apparently sizeable informal vote, Kevin Bonham shared this worrying news on his blog:
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2024/03/tasmanian-election-day-2024.html
On the ABC, I love the guy standing in the background photographing the panel with his phone. Live TV in a public space at its best.
Asha at 6.55 pm
Tucker is giving the field a head start in Lyons, running only just above Animal Justice after 3 booths.
FUBAR says:
“ALP aren’t on the nose”. Apparently
=====
Remind us why the Tasmanian minority Liberal government is going to the polls a year early.
Swing against Labor now down to just under 3%, whereas the swing against the Liberals is now nearly 12%.
Still very early days.
For her own sake, I hope Lambie has vetted her candidates properly, as it seems like a few are going to be elected.
The early votes in Bass were apparently from a single booth at Gladstone in the far North East. It’s real deliverance country where JLN should be expected to do well. And 10% informal !!
Regarding the alarmingly high informal vote, at least where I voted (Chalmers Hall in Launceston) there was a nice little sign in every booth telling the voter to number at least seven boxes.
The quota results on the main results change are very wrong (E.g. the Bass panel says the Libs have 5.03 quotas, Labor 3.56 and the Greens 1.39, totaling 9.98)
”
Ashasays:
Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 7:08 pm
Swing against Labor now down to just under 3%, whereas the swing against the Liberals is now nearly 12%.
Still very early days.
”
”
Oliver Suttonsays:
Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 7:07 pm
FUBAR says:
“ALP aren’t on the nose”. Apparently
=====
Remind us why the Tasmanian minority Liberal government is going to the polls a year early.
”
“LP aren’t on the nose”. Apparently. 🙂
Asha says:
‘Eric Abetz may have one of the most irritating voices I have ever heard.’
Gold in the Men’s competition.
And Michaelia ‘Mickey Mouth’ Cash in the Women’s.
Asha says:
“… I hope Lambie has vetted her candidates properly …”
And I’m hoping that my Lotto numbers will come up tonight.
Similar odds.
Asha at 7.09 pm
Don’t count the JLN chickens yet. The group vote is under 9% in their best seat, Braddon, whereas the polling aggregate from Dr Bonham had them around 15% in that seat.
Abetz does a remarkable impression of an AI generated voice.
I’ve been given completely incorrect voting instructions at booths twice before… And when I explained that doing what they said would invalidate my vote, they said “well it won’t matter anyway”, which I found a bit concerning. I did in that occasion report it to the AEC and tell Kevin via his blog, who said I wasn’t the first to report it to him.
I’m sure it happens more than people realise. A lot well-meaning older folk doing election day work for the AEC, but who didn’t seem to entirely understand how the voting works.
So do we reckon the “accidental informals” will hit one party in particular?
Expat: ‘A lot well-meaning older folk doing election day work for the AEC, but who didn’t seem to entirely understand how the voting works.’
Hey, I resemble that!
The old hands who turn out for polling day duties are generally well grounded in the process.
OS:
Oh, no doubt. We’re still very early in the count.
That was Dr D, Asha.
Jackie.. tells Eric he can shove it..
Libs are GORNE….
Eric concedes it’s a protest.. yes protest against the Libs..
JLN is not doing all that spectacularly well so far. Only 9.2 per cent in their heartland of Braddon, after 4 per cent of the vote counted.
Expat:
Do these people not recieve training?
Tucker (3.8%) outpolled by the crazy Shooters (6.8%) by 3% with 9 booths of 84 in. Tucker as MP is toast.
Oops, my B.
MB: ‘JLN is not doing all that spectacularly well so far. Only 9.2 per cent in their heartland of Braddon …’
So, almost three-quarters of the way to a quota?
Asha: ‘Do these people not recieve training?’
Indeed they do. Online and in person.
And, in AEC-run elections, they’re given a script to read on the back of the card in front of them at the issuing table.
And OICs duties include ensuring that staff are giving those instructions.
meher baba at 7.19 pm + Oliver Sutton at 7.21 pm
The two best JLN candidates in Bass are almost level. It could be their problem as Dr Bonham suggested.
Votes are for candidates, not directly for parties; if the vote is evenly spread and not high, it’s a problem.
I think that JLN are doing amazingly well from a standing start. They seem to be taking the swing from Lib, Lab and Green. Of course, getting the quota is the big challenge, but there are a lot of minor independents to be reallocated yet.
Early days in the count, but a Labor primary vote of 22% is awful, bye Rebecca White.
@Oliver
And yet… wrong information still does get through, more often than it should. As said – I’ve had to report mistakes, and I’m not alone.
Green vote in Lyons just above Dr Bonham’s polling aggregate, with mostly only rural booths counted, so looks likely that Greens will get a Lyons seat. Second Lib incumbent currently running 3rd of the Libs.
I don’t doubt your experience, Expat
But I’ve run polling places at three Federal elections, and I’ve been consistently impressed by the standard of my team members, old and young.
Note that Garland is outpolling JLN in Braddon and the JLN vote is split. Garland looks to be on a winner.
Did I just hear Antony say the opposite re Garland?
Your booth results map is top notch William – keep up the great work!
WB: “Did I just hear Antony say the opposite re Garland?”
Yes, but why? He’s outpolling the JLN at the moment. Sure, he won’t do as well in the big towns as he has up to now, but he has to be a chance.
Hey, FUBAR: Liberals are on the nose. Apparently.
Edit: ABC now reporting swing of -9.5%