A post for Tasmanian Election updates.
From Tuesday 11 May I’ll be running update posts on the distribution of preferences. There is a post for each seat. Use the links below to access the pages.
Electorate Updates: Bass |Braddon | Clark | Franklin | Lyons
Friday 7pm Clark count is up by about 200 votes. The check count has also rejected a few hundred extra votes as informal. Liberal Party’s stronger position retained.
Thursday 6pm Updated figures boost Liberal chances slightly. The Liberal surplus beyond one seat is now 0.9122 but the two Independents have both slipped, Johnston now on 0.6635 quotas and Hickey 0.5908. Out of Division votes were not kind for either candidate.
Monday 7pm No new counting will be released until later in the week. Out of Division votes are currently being returned to home divisions for counting. At the moment the TEC is check counting all of Saturday night’s votes, making sure no informal votes have slipped through. This is especially important for Hare-Clark as an informal vote being discovered during the distribution of preferences could require the quota to be re-calculated and have implications for the count.
Monday 9am Premier Gutwein has this morning repeated his promise that he will resign if the Liberal Party doesn’t achieve a majority. No equivocation that he was talking about the Greens rather than Independents when he referred to minority. I guess that means the Liberal Party is confident of winning the second seat in Clark and achieving a majority.
Sunday 6pm the addition of Mobiles and the Kingston and Granton pre-polls moved the Liberal vote from 1.88 to 1.91 quotas, Labor unchanged on 1.32 , Greens down from 1.21 to 1.17, Kristie Johnston unchanged on 0.68 and Sue Hickey up from 0.59 to 0.61. This slightly improves the chances of the Liberals winning two seats.
Sunday 2 May 10am – a quick update before I have to catch a flight. In short the election comes down to whether the Liberal Party can win a second seat in Clark.
The ABC election site has links to overall party totals as well as results for each seat.
Seat by seat commentary follows.
Bass – the result will be 3 Liberal 2 Labor, the same party result as in 2018. The three sitting Liberal members, Peter Gutwein, Michael Ferguson and Sarah Courtney, will be re-elected on Gutwein’s surplus.
On the Labor ticket, Michelle O’Byrne will be re-elected and Janie Finlay will be elected in the place of Jennifer Houston.
At the end of Saturday night the Liberal total was 3.58 quotas, Labor 1.57 and the Greens 0.55. But Labor’s two lead candidates have 0.69 and 0.53 quotas. Once the other Labor candidates are excluded, both O’Byrne and Finlay will have a higher vote than the final Green and Liberal candidates which is why three Liberal two Labor is the likely result.
Braddon – the result will be 3 Liberal 2 Labor, the same party result as in 2018.
Liberal Jeremy Rockliff is elected with 1.63 quotas. His surplus will determine which two of Felix Ellis, Adam Brooks and Roger Jaensch are elected. Jaensch is the least likely of the three to win. Ellis and Jaensch are sitting members, Ellis holding the seat originally won by Brooks in 2018 before Brooks resigned from Parliament.
Labor has 1.60 quotas split across sitting members Shane Broad 0.53 and Anita Dow 0.49. Former Federal MP Justine Keay is Labor’s third candidate on 0.35 quotas.
Independent Craig Garland could increase his vote on preferences, but it looks unlikely he could get ahead of Broad or Dow once the other Labor candidates have been excluded.
Clark – With Glenorchy pre-poll added early this morning, the Liberals have 1.88 quotas, Labor 1.32, Greens 1.21, Kristie Johnston 0.68 and Sue Hickey 0.59.
Liberal Elise Archer, Labor’s Ella Haddad and Green Cassy O’Connor are re-elected. The second Liberal is a race between Labor turned Independent MHA turned Liberal candidate Madeleine Ogilvie and Liberal Simon Behrakis. The most likely outcome will be one of these being elected along with Independent Kristie Johnson.
There are enough preferences floating around, and likely leakage from the Liberal ticket, to make it possible both Johnston and ex-Liberal Independent Sue Hickey could be elected. Both need to catch the surplus beyond one quota of the second Liberal. While it is highly likely one of the Independents can do this, most probably Johnston, it is much harder for both to pass the second Liberal. Further counting today could clarify the situation.
Counting today will be the Granton and Kingston pre-polls, mobile polling places, out of division votes and maybe some extra postals. I’ll try and do an update after I’m back in Sydney this afternoon.
In what is Tasmania’s most left-wing electorate, Labor’s Clark result is dreadful, down more than 20 percentage points to just 22%.
Franklin – a straight forward result. The Liberal vote fell without Will Hodgman on the ticket, the Greens had a good result and there has been a change on the Labor ticket.
Liberals Jacquie Petrusma and Nic Street are re-elected, as is Green Rosalie Woodruff and Labor’s David O’Byrne. But O’Byrne has been outpolled for Labor by the late addition to the ticket in Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter. He has defeated Labor MHA Alison Standen.
Lyons – Little change. Sitting Liberals Guy Barnett, Mark Shelton and John Tucker will be re-elected, as will Labor Leader Rebecca White. Second Labor candidate Jen Butler is likely to be elected, but as in 2018, preferences will determine whether Butler or Janet Lambert win the second Labor seat.