Tasmanian Election

This post is intended for info rather than to start a political debate... I've tried to be as unbiased as possible with my comments. Info is from the ABC coverage up to 8:30pm tonight.

Counting so far strongly suggests that:

Labor to retain majority government with at least 13 (of 25) seats and potentially up to 15 seats. The previous Deputy Premier has announced that he will not recontest the position though no word on who will. Paul Lennon is expected to remain as Premier.

Liberals proabably 7 seats and no more than 8. Liberal train wreck number 3 with the leader having only 0.8 of a quota (though will likely be elected on prferences). The deputy leader has polled significantly higher than the leader with widespread speculation (this has been going on for some time) that he will become leader.

Greens vote has dropped but still sufficient to be a legit "major" party in Tasmania. They will not gain their hoped-for role in a minority government however. The Greens are blaming pro-Labor advertising by business groups etc for their loss. It's worth noting that the Liberals were also, albeit indirectly, promoting a majority Labor government (as opposed to a minority with the Greens) via their campaigning since the Liberals were never expected to gain a majority themselves.

So no major change in the Tas government it seems. In terms of the actual voting, Labor and Greens both down slightly, Liberals up slightly but the losses / gains have been in the right seats to keep Labor in government.

This has implications for GNS in the near term (since the Greens absolutely oppose their activities and would likely have pushed this very strongly in the event of a Labor-Green government - it was the primary basis of their campaign) and in the longer term ZFX (since the Greens have a policy of driving up electricity prices, especially to the likes of ZFX which would render their Hobart operations unviable).

Most significant points of the outcome IMO are the Greens' loss of support despite having a major campaign issue with the Gunns pulp mill proposal and that Labor has received as many votes as it has despite various blunders from the Premier and the hospitals issue being a dominant feature of the campaign. Nothing surprising IMO about the Liberal result as even the party itself didn't seem to seriously expect to form government.

Victory in SA also-get rid of the fat finger pointer (Beazley)

Election result. Labor has won majority government. Liberals have conceeded defeat. Greens declined to conceed defeat but Labor has majority. Details are posted in the GNS thread since it's very relevant to that stock.

So here we are in 2018. No results out yet.

Feel a swing back to ALP and an increase in Green votes could see a change.

Labor are about to concede defeat - literally right now.

Smurf1976 said:

Labor are about to concede defeat - literally right now.

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How did labor go?
Apart from losing.

Pokies was the obvious difference between the two major parties in terms of policy.

I think Labor seriously underestimated the $ and effort that would flow into the Liberal campaign, much of it seemingly via indirect means, when they took on that industry.

Regardless of which party you prefer, there’s no denying that the Liberal campaign left anything else for dead. Every other state and the federal government take note - that’s how you run a campaign. Key point being that the party itself wasn’t actually running quite a bit of it.

I’ll post more when I’m not typing it on a phone.

Polling had the Libs well in front................wonder if the take away will be don't mess with big money although I hear the Labor leader is quite young

IFocus said:

Polling had the Libs well in front................wonder if the take away will be don't mess with big money although I hear the Labor leader is quite young

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Or maybe the majority don't like Labor, no it couldn't be that.

Apparently the clubs on the mainland ran a campaign. They were worried it might catch on

sptrawler said:

Or maybe the majority don't like Labor, no it couldn't be that.

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There was some twit they were interviewing on ABC who came across as very simplistic, rather unrefined and very much a poor loser. If that was the face of the ALP campaign, no wonder they lost.

moXJO said:

Apparently the clubs on the mainland ran a campaign. They were worried it might catch on

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Presumably it was completely unintentional on their part but Labor's anti-pokie policy unleashed an outright flood of private funding, which appears to have come from interstate, for the Liberal campaign. Even better was that those with the $ ran the actual campaign themselves rather than simply handing $ to the Liberal party to run it. As such, it wasn't a political donation and nobody other than those involved will ever know how much was spent but it would be quite a lot.

That said, my personal view is that Labor aren't yet ready to be in government, they need more time in opposition, so all things considered the Liberals being re-elected probably isn't a bad outcome. I won't go into detail but suffice to say there are certain others who will be keeping the Liberal government on an extremely short leash in regard to certain matters. Thou shalt not even attempt to meddle.

The real elephant in the room however is the budget and that is the primary issue (nope, it's got nothing to do with energy) which has long seen me lean toward Labor so far as state politics is concerned. It is a fact that every single time Tasmania has had a majority Liberal government, without exception, they have run large deficits. As various professional economists and accountants have noted publicly via the mainstream media, the same is true this time. Read the budget papers thoroughly and there's a rather large deficit, that headline "surplus" being a product of creative accounting and money shuffling.

I don't deny that the state's economy is doing well at the moment, unemployment at 5.3% is lower than Qld, Vic, SA, WA or the national average, but the budget is an issue which will need to be addressed sooner or later and history has shown, without exception, that the Liberals aren't at all strong in that area. Things could get interesting.

FWIW - Re-elected Liberal Guy Barnett was shoveling coal yesterday afternoon. Now there's something you won't likely find any Greens doing!

Looks like the end for Jackie Lambie, both state and Federally.

It looks as though Tasmania is going to join the other states and territory's in becoming a Labour state again, and like the otherstates, so many of the Libs wounds are self inflicted.
from Evil Murdoch press

Australia’s only Liberal Premier is suffering an exodus of senior staff, unrest over his chief of staff and doubts about his future and that of his minority government.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has in recent months lost at least six senior staff, including his head of communications, his principal tourism and trade adviser, senior health adviser, deputy chief of staff and principal adviser.

Staff and some MPs are unhappy with chief of staff Vanessa Field, a former Labor staffer.

The government was plunged into minority government in May when two Liberal MPs quit for the crossbench in disgust at Mr Rockliff’s handling of plans for a Hobart AFL stadium.

The Australian understands there is internal concern that the stadium debate is crowding out other policies, generating fatigue and frustration.

As well, MPs and staff are uncertain whether Mr Rockliff plans to dig in and continue to govern until the next state election due in May 2025, or quit as leader or call an early election.

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Tasmania had a labour government for 45 of the 47 years between 1935 and 1988, then had a period of minority government for the next three years, and led for 16 years between 1998 and 2014, so it might seem that it is very much a Labour State.
methinks it will return to its natural state.
mick

mullokintyre said:

It looks as though Tasmania is going to join the other states and territory's in becoming a Labour state again, and like the otherstates, so many of the Libs wounds are self inflicted.
from Evil Murdoch press

Tasmania had a labour government for 45 of the 47 years between 1935 and 1988, then had a period of minority government for the next three years, and led for 16 years between 1998 and 2014, so it might seem that it is very much a Labour State.
methinks it will return to its natural state.
mick

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The Libs can be proud of their legacy.
Unfortunately the architects of this have largely retired. I think the Libs will be back reasonably soon.

mullokintyre said:

Tasmania had a labour government for 45 of the 47 years between 1935 and 1988

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Labor constantly 1934 - 1969

The state's first ever Liberal government (in terms of the modern Liberal Party) 1969 - 1972

Labor 1972 - 1982

Liberal 1982 - 1989

Labor - Green Accord 1989 - 1992

Liberal 1992 - 1996

Liberal minority with Greens support 1996 - 1998

Labor 1998 - 2014

Liberal 2014 - present

A key difference in Tasmanian state politics versus the rest of the country being the political alignment of unions and the business lobby since neither are "rusted on" to either side and nor are they consistently opposed to each other.

Nor are the Tasmanian branches of Labor and Liberal willing to toe the party line with their federal counterparts. There's been quite a few incidents where both parties have told their federal counterparts where to shove it over various issues.

mullokintyre said:

It looks as though Tasmania is going to join the other states and territory's in becoming a Labour state again, and like the otherstates, so many of the Libs wounds are self inflicted.
from Evil Murdoch press

Tasmania had a labour government for 45 of the 47 years between 1935 and 1988, then had a period of minority government for the next three years, and led for 16 years between 1998 and 2014, so it might seem that it is very much a Labour State.
methinks it will return to its natural state.
mick

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Didn’t know surprised Labor had such a run as an outsider though the Libs under the bloke who retired had done a pretty decent job

Tasmania's Liberal minority government just keeps getting into bigger and deeper holes.
The fiasco that the replacement for Tasmanias roll on/roll off ferries has become such a balls up that short of securing world peace, its unlikely the government will survive.
Even the business community, their natural friends, have deserted them.
From Evil Murdoch press

In what is labelled “Australia’s biggest infrastructure stuff up”, two new $900m ferries will be leased out or stored for up to two years because their new berth is not ready.

Tasmania’s ferries fiasco deepened on Thursday after the state government revealed the two new Spirit of Tasmania Bass Strait passenger and car ferries may not have a suitable berth built until February 2027.

The delay, on top of estimated $500m-plus budget blowouts and years of previous delays, led the state’s business community to suggest it had lost trust in the state’s Liberal government.

“This is a dark day for Tasmania,” said Michael Bailey, chief executive of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “This is even worse than we first thought.

“The economic costs will be felt by businesses and taxpayers for years to come, our brand has been damaged and it has impacted on business confidence…It will be very difficult to trust this government again because of this.”

It is estimated each year of delay in deploying the new larger capacity Finnish-built vessels on the busy Geelong-Devonport run will cost the state $350m in lost revenue.

The extraordinary failure to build a wharf capable of accommodating the new ships, despite years of notice, has already cost Treasurer Michael Ferguson and two ferry bosses their jobs.

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There is nothing that can excuse such a complete balls up.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

Tasmania's Liberal minority government just keeps getting into bigger and deeper holes.
The fiasco that the replacement for Tasmanias roll on/roll off ferries has become such a balls up that short of securing world peace, its unlikely the government will survive.
Even the business community, their natural friends, have deserted them.

Click to expand...

My view of the Tasmanian Liberal Party is "good riddance" and long overdue.

They've had a shocking attitude toward technical, scientific, engineering etc things since the day they came to office and that being so, it always was a question of when, not if, a major stuff up would occur and what it would involve. This isn't the first one by the way, just the first where the media and public seem to have joined the dots.

It'll take a long time for Labor to sort the mess out. The infrastructure department in particular has been largely stripped of technical ability, to the point it no loner even exists as a separate department. The former expertise has mostly either retired early, moved interstate or gone into some unrelated form of work or business so it'd be a major rebuilding task from this point.

As for the business community deserting them, that isn't unprecedented in Tasmanian state politics where things that would be impossible elsewhere have tended to happen. Indeed looking at the past 90 years, the concept of business and unions both backing the same party has occurred fairly often, it's not a particularly unusual thing in Tas.

mullokintyre said:

Tasmania's Liberal minority government just keeps getting into bigger and deeper holes.
The fiasco that the replacement for Tasmanias roll on/roll off ferries has become such a balls up that short of securing world peace, its unlikely the government will survive.
Even the business community, their natural friends, have deserted them.
From Evil Murdoch press

There is nothing that can excuse such a complete balls up.
Mick

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Quite a detailed article from "our ABC".
So much has gone wrong, the original German builder went broke.

The new boats are longer and deeper and the government looked at whether the existing port could be used temporarily but it was deemed unsafe. The transport ministers name is very familiar, Eric Abetz.