Forget the Pub, the Club, the Feast or the Footy. Or if you can’t, pack your laptop … and stay logged on to Tasmanian Times for minute-by-minute comment updates on the Legislative Council poll by Australia’s pre-eminent psephologist Dr Kevin Bonham … ( He is also commenting on Pollbludger )
• First booths in … and …
• 16. Hats off to the Electoral Commission – Launceston booth primaries counted inside 90 minutes! Brilliant work. McQuestin’s lead still way too small.
• Final for the night (but postals will still be added): 27.There is a bit of a feeling in these results that LegCo voters see the elections as glorified local council elections and don’t really think “state parliament” when they are voting. That’s my interpretation of the result. If things stay the way they look it’s not too bad a night for Labor – but a rather bad night for the Liberals.
The Green vote is down and while that is not unusual in LegCo elections it is worse than I expected. They are even running last in Derwent.
All seats are now final for night but postals will still be added. I don’t know at what stage preference distributions will first be attempted. In Rumney Thorp leads by 4.75 points over Mulder and is well placed. If the preference flow from Clark, Forster and Ann was strong enough there would actually be enough votes for Mason to overtake Mulder for second and win (!), but in the Legislative Council preferences do not flow that strongly, especially not with Thorp still in the mix receiving votes from these candidates too. Mason has actually done pretty well and another five points of primaries for him would have made things quite interesting.
• 37.Summary for night
Derwent will see preferences distributed for the first time in 56 years. There has been a 13 point swing against Labor compared to 2009 (partly because of a larger field) and Craig Farrell is lucky that no one conservative opponent has polled strongly. The three independents have just over half the primaries between them but preference flows in LegCo elections are too weak for them to win.
In Launceston Sam McQuestin leads on primaries but his primary vote is too low and his slender lead will be blown away on preferences tomorrow. Across most of the electorate McQuestin has polled OK but voters in Liberal strongholds have rejected either the candidate or the campaign style in droves and Rosemary Armitage will be the new MLC for Launceston.
In Rumney Lin Thorp has a modest lead and will probably just survive unless Paul Mason’s preferences flow very strongly to Tony Mulder and Green preferences fail to significantly favour her. The seat is too close to call at this stage.
• Tony Mulder, comment: Monday experts the lot of you!!! I offered the media my scrutineer positions; no-one accepted – a bit too hard guys!!! If the experts really want to know what’s happening inside, why not put a few ‘experts’ in to scrutinise. Personally I’m extremely chuffed to think its getting close to 50-50. Probably won’t get a seat in the Leg Co but the primary vote is a victory for ‘real’ liberalism (small ‘l’) over socialist,lefty trendy polciies. A real grassroots victory, not a media one. Consider column inches and electronic media time of Mason over Mulder and ask yourself whether the people or the media rule. Long live democracy. I’m not claiming it, think I might just lose, but given the result, the number of candidates and the position achieved, regardless of who actually wins its a real kick in the guts for both the Labor party and mainstream media.
First published: 2011-05-07 04:51 AM
