We had a lot more counting today in all five electorates.
At this point Clark is entirely clear.
There are two seats where the winning party is not completely clear:
- In Braddon, there seems to be a real chance that the Greens or Craig Garland could defeat the fourth Liberal.
- In Franklin, third Liberal Nic Street seems likely to win, but the Greens are not ruled out yet.
As for intra-party contests, there’s still doubt about all three of the JLN members.
Simon Wood has increased his lead to win the third Liberal seat in Bass, but it’s not clear. Meg Brown looks likely to win the second Labor seat in Franklin, but her lead shrunk throughout Wednesday.
Bass
The only questions left undecided in Bass were who would win the JLN seat and the third Liberal seat.
All seven of the Liberal candidates remain in the count, and they will be decisive between Simon Wood and Julie Sladden. Wood increased his lead with Michael Ferguson’s surplus on Tuesday, but little changed on Wednesday.
The JLN contest will likely be decided when Ludwig Johnson’s preferences are distributed, but Rebekah Pentland’s lead narrowed slightly late in the day.
Braddon
The main change in Braddon on Wednesday was the distribution of preferences from most of the Greens candidates.
By the end of Wednesday, just two Greens candidates were still in the count. Quite a few of those Greens preferences leaked out of the ticket, reducing the total Greens ticket’s position from 0.53 quotas to 0.494 quotas. Meanwhile Craig Garland (who was a sole candidate so can’t suffer from leakage) increased his position from 0.41 quotas to 0.436 quotas.
At this point, it seems quite plausible that Garland could overtake the Greens.
Eventually either Greens candidate Darren Briggs or Craig Garland will be knocked out, and it is really unclear whether they will gain enough preferences to chase down the fourth Liberal. The total Liberal ticket has dropped from 3.65 quotas to 3.58 quotas, and will likely leak further as the three lowest-ranking Liberals distribute their preferences (currently worth 0.59 quotas).
So what else is left to distribute?
There’s 0.22 quotas behind the last standing Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate, 0.17 quotas behind independent candidate Peter Freshney, and 0.11 quotas behind the AJP candidate.
Labor and JLN currently have about 2 quotas and 1 quota each. Some votes will leak as the lower-ranking candidates are excluded, but the likely Labor and JLN winners probably will remain in the count until quite late, so will be able to attract loose preferences.
We haven’t learnt much new about who will win amongst the JLN candidates – Miriam Beswick had a lead of 0.198 quotas on primary votes, and it’s now 0.21.
Clark
The only uncertain element in Clark was who would win the second Liberal seat. Two Liberal candidates have been excluded, and both times Madeleine Ogilvie increased her lead over Marcus Vermey. She started out with a lead of 0.14 quotas, but that is now 0.18.
Franklin
The main focus in Franklin has been on whether the Greens can chase down the third Liberal.
Not much has changed on this front on Wednesday.
A large share of Rosalie Woodruff’s surplus leaked from the Greens ticket on Tuesday, but despite two other Greens being excluded on Wednesday, the party is almost back to the vote it started with (1.58 quotas). The Liberal Party is on 2.74 quotas. It seems very likely that Liberal minister Nic Street will win here.
Jade Darko is the second-highest polling Greens candidate, but almost all of their lead was wiped out with Rosalie Woodruff’s surplus favouring Gideon Cordover, who was the endorsed Greens second candidate. But Darko has slowly clawed back a slightly larger lead throughout Wednesday. Still, the lead is just 0.01 quotas, so either of them could find themselves in the position to be the main Greens standard-bearer.
The other question is which Labor candidate will win the party’s second seat. Meg Brown had a 0.078 quota lead on primary votes, but after the exclusion of two Labor candidates her lead was down to just 0.07. It seems likely she will win, but still uncalled.
Lyons
The only seat in any doubt was the race between JLN and the third Labor candidate. On primary votes, the JLN had a lead of 0.04 quotas, but that jumped to 0.185 with the distribution of Rebecca White’s surplus.
None of Labor’s candidates have been excluded yet, so there will be some leakage there.
There won’t be much in the way of Liberal or Greens preferences. The main sources of preferences will be John Tucker and the Shooters, who have half a quota between them. Those seem likely to favour the JLN.
The ABC has called this seat for the JLN, and I think that’s right.
As to who would win that JLN seat, Andrew Jenner increased his lead from 0.005 to 0.01 quotas over the course of Wednesday. Ultimately the split of preferences from the third JLN candidate will decide the seat, but I suspect they will split evenly, so Jenner has an advantage.
With Braddon I think you mean the fourth Liberal.
I feel like I have no bearings in this election. The key to who holds government must be in the alliances between the independents and parties. I’m presuming the Green Party and Labor go together. The Lambie party will be with the Libs? Where are those independents headed?
I don’t think the Greens or Craig Garland will win the final seat in Braddon. It will be a fourth Liberal seat.
Anyway, here’s the vote totals for the Liberals and a combined Labor/Greens total:
Bass: Labor/Greens 41.8%, Liberal 38.0%
Braddon: Liberal 45.6%, Labor/Greens 31.3%
Clark: Labor/Greens 51.4%, Liberal 27.1%
Franklin: Labor/Greens 47.1%, Liberal 34.0%
Lyons: Labor/Greens 43.7%, Liberal 37.6%
Statewide total: Labor 42.9%, Liberal 36.7%
So while the Liberal Party finished ahead of Labor in every seat except Clark, the combined Labor/Greens vote is higher than the Liberal vote in every seat except Braddon. This shows that the progressive vote is somewhat split in the main cities of Hobart and Launceston, with most of the progressive vote going to Labor with the remainder going to the Greens and independents. In contrast, conservative minor parties didn’t get many votes and therefore the Liberal vote wasn’t split (though I doubt it would be anyway given that One Nation, the UAP, the Libertarian Party (then the Liberal Democrats), etc didn’t do that well in Tassie at the last federal election).
How did the combined Labor/Greens vote get higher than the Liberal vote in four of the five seats? Because the Greens vote was over 10% everywhere except Braddon. The Greens only got 6.6% of the vote in Braddon. And it’s the most conservative seat, given it’s also the most rural seat. It’s the safest Liberal seat in Tasmania and it had the highest No vote in the entire state. The Greens won’t win a seat there.
The Greens will back ALP but that is only because it is death to back the Libs.
JLN are likely to back the Libs, on condition of changing the amount spent on the stadium and a lot put in housing.
The independents dont matter much as both major party needs at least one party helping.
I can see JLN backing the ALP and there being an ALP minority gov
The whole situation might become unworkable and Tasmanians may be back at the polls before the end of the year or at least very early in the term. Enough time for the JLN to implode.
It looks likely that Garland will be elected in Braddon, he seems to be hoovering up preferences from everywhere.
This will make life extremely difficult for the Libs, I can imagine they will offer the speakership to O’Byrne or Johnston.
They will need the JLN but its anyones guess as to whether that will work out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Tasmania goes back to the polls in the next year.
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