The Denison message

WITH the counting over and the vagaries of Hare-Clark demonstrated yet again, Tasmania has elected the status quo.

The only thing that has changed for some is the order in which they were elected. Much a case of we want you back, but we’d like to send a message too?

Analysis of Denison voting by polling booth alone has a message for anyone seeking election at any level of government.

The Greens’ Peg Putt topped 28 out of 49 booths on the day with her personal vote. Sitting member, extremely well known and most of these booths within the ever-Greening municipality of Hobart.

Cassy O’Connor, considered high profile, didn’t do so well. Why?

Compare this with Labor’s Lisa Singh. Only in the Greenest or some Blue-ribbon Liberal booths did Cassy outpoll Lisa.

From my knowledge of the two candidates, Lisa has been working Denison for much longer and building up a significant support base of goodwill from her numerous grassroots activities.

For the Greens it appeared a choice to either use Cassy to shore up support for Nick McKim in Franklin or try for two seats in Denison.

Lisa’s vote by comparison appears to demonstrate that voter trust takes time to build up.

Building up the voter goodwill

I watched Lisa not only spend her time building up the voter goodwill but make some very strategic alliances. Certainly being aligned with a local government personality who is greatly trusted and respected made a difference no amount of advertising money could buy.

Note how well Lisa did in “Terryland”. It appears distrust of politicians has yet to peak with local government members.

But what about the Liberals? Without Michael Hodgman running I suspect the Liberal vote would have sagged further into either Green or Labor —so poorly did the other candidates do.

Michael topped Rosetta, Montrose and Cosgrove, but was pipped by Fabian Dixon in Lower Sandy Bay and Sandy Bay Beach polling booths.

Peg Put outpolled him in the blue-ribbon booth of Sandy Bay! Even some Liberals wanted a change, preferring Fabian over Michael in two blue-ribbon seats.

But note again Lisa Singh outpolling the combined vote of the secondary Liberal candidates in 16 of 49 polling booths on the day.

And consistently outpolled in all but one blue-ribbon seat including absentee, mobile, postal, pre-poll and provisional, Liberal Elise Archer, who must have spent a small fortune in newspaper advertising in the six months leading up to the election. It appears that if the voters don’t personally know you by the time the election is called, don’t bother.

In summary, unless you have the luxury of sitting member status, the strong message appears to be to make a personal commitment to Denison now if you want to maximise the chances of election in four years’ time.

For the record, Eva is politically independent but will help a good candidate on request if their morals are worth it and a Hare-Clark junkie who just lives for the cut-ups at election time. She is an elected Alderman and Deputy Lord Mayor of Hobart City Council but the comment above is made personally and bears no inference whatsoever of council imprimatur or position.