Tasmania III

Huon

Huon is slightly more complicated than Rosevears. For one thing the incumbent is not standing again next election, opening up the field. For another, probably as a result of this, it has seven candidates running.

Voting history is not hugely informative here, with (as usual for the Tas LegCo) a mostly Independent history.

A few obvious differences from Rosevears are apparent. While both seats have only one (officially) party-affiliated candidate, Rosevears' was a Liberal while in Huon this was from Labor. For another, Huon's history dates back much further. And, while only two of these candidates are known to have lost the seat in an election (including the afore-mentioned Labor candidate) the older incumbents are harder to find information on. The candidates more than a century ago – a large number of which have names starting with J – are harder to research and may or may not have lost the seat. In more recent history, though, the incumbent of Huon has not lost since a few months after the introduction of decimal currency.

Although there is no incumbent and no useful trend, however, the history of the seat does prove quite a useful predictive tool. For the decade from 1976 to 1986, it was held by Peter Hodgeman. The less Tasmanian-electoral-history centred may recognise the name Hodgeman from the immediately preceding name on that chart; Michael Hodgeman held the seat from 1966, starting the incumbent victory line that continues today and a twenty-year Hodgeman dynasty over the seat.

The more in-tune with the Island state's political system will recognise the name of Peter Hodgeman's nephew Will – the current Premier of the state – and possibly Peter's father Bill – former President of the Tas LegCo.

The really Tas-pseph-fanatics will recognise Peter Hodgeman, however, as one of the candidates standing for the seat of Huon this year. By re-contesting the seat, especially without ever having lost it, Peter may well hold a semi-incumbent status. Combine this with name recognition, association with an apparently popular Premier, the ability to cash in on Liberal projects touted last month, and the entire Liberal volunteer base, Hodgeman has to be a strong contender this year. However, with a marginally ALP lean in seat history and forming part of the Labor-held (since 1993) federal seat of Franklin, there could be significant opposition if organised.

The most likely candidate to muster the support of the left is former Greens member Liz Smith. She bills herself as a progressive independent and has a strong history of performing well in local council elections, having won seats since 2002 and regularly coming second in Mayoral elections. Her political background is nowhere near as strong as Hodgeman's, though, as she has only contested the seat of Huon once in the past, receiving a 14% primary vote out of four candidates. That would be expected to drop lower out of seven, especially in a state that is apparently hankering for a bit of right-wing politics.

Another council-based politician this election is Robert Armstrong, who was elected in 1996 and became deputy mayor in 1999. By 2001 he had made Mayor, with a primary vote of 55%. The field of people contesting against him has never exceeded two, and his primary vote has never dropped below 40%. In the absence of Mr Hodgeman's candidacy, he would be well placed to be a front-runner. He is an independent and a centrist, but I suspect a lot of his support will be the first to flow to the Libs.

Rodney Dillon is a second possible candidate for the left to rally behind. Although I have not found any information on his political experiences, he is employed by Amnesty International and was short-listed for Tasmanian of the Year twice. Although I am not listing policies for this seat due to time constraints (but see below), one policy did catch my eye:

He feels strongly that Huonville District High School should be expanded to include Years 11 and 12 to enable all students in the area to successfully complete their education. He will work towards making this happen.

On the right, and likely to do poorly in the shade of Hodgeman and Armstrong, we have Jimmy Bell. Mr Bell has experience in the military, manages the Police Citizens Youth Club and is a prolific money-raiser for various charities and community projects. Policy information is lacking.

Helen Lane has a list of sporting administration achievements, as well as professional experiences regarding integration of computer skills in education. Again, policy is lacking.

Finally, there is Pavel Ruzicka, a saw-miller and “specialist timber” provider who advocates managing forests for multiple industries and interests. He is clearly marked out as an anti-greens candidate, but may struggle to gain traction on the crowded right of the stage.

Policies

There are several reasons I have abandoned the attempt to provide policies for the candidates. Firstly, most have no useful information on their websites, if they even have websites. On the other extreme, wading through all the Liberal policies linked to Mr Hodgeman's campaign could easily take a month. Besides, you can often learn more about independents from their long answers than their soundbites anyhow.

Furthermore, others have already composed a (heavily right-wing, pro-life, conservative) summary of the candidates. To quote directly from Tasmania's own Kevin Bonham on the Australian Christian Lobby's survey, while I “do not endorse the content of their questions, which are frequently loaded and misleading... they are one of the few forces that effectively prods candidates into taking positions on social issues, and their surveys are often a valuable insight into who will fence-sit and who will kowtow in an attempt to get votes.”

Their summary for Mr Armstrong, Mr Bell, Mr Hodgeman, Ms Lane and Ms Smith is here.

Information on Mr Ruzicka was not found. Mr Dillon's site is here.

For further information, an article by Ms Smith in the Tasmanian Times can be found here and a biography of Mr Armstrong is linked to from Dr Bonham's blog here.

Summary

Prediction for Rosevears: Kerry Finch (IND) Retain

Prediction for Huon: Peter Hodgeman (LIB) Win

Tasmania II

Having already relegated the Tasmanian House of Assembly elections to the back-burner this year, it would be remiss of me not to at least contemplate the upcoming election of the Tasmanian Legislative Council (although, Tasmania, this will happen if you keep trying to muscle in on SA's fixed-term elections). With no easily available polling, we'll be running without comparison to a baseline this time. Which worked pretty badly in WA last post...

Now, since the Tasmanian lower-house is elected like every other upper-house, it should be no surprise that the upper-house is elected like every other lower-house; the state is split into 15 divisions, which then elect a single member to the parliament. Unlike most single-candidate seats, the major parties rarely do well.

Current distribution of MLC's (Blue - LIB; Red - ALP; Grey - IND)

However, like most other houses of review, the whole house is not elected in one go. There are carry-over politicians and newly elected politicians. In most Australian jurisdictions there are two halves of the upper-house, with one half elected every three or four years. The US senate is divided into thirds and rotates over 6 year periods.

Tasmania, however, loves to be different – and loves elections – so one (approximate) sixth of the LegCo is elected at a time. Which means a new election every year.

Every.

Single.

Year.

This year we are looking down the barrel of elections in Huon and Rosevears, set for May 3.

This week we will be looking at Rosevears. Huon will be covered in detail next week.

Rosevears

Rosevears, like all Tasmanian LegCo divisions, have a strong history of Independent voters. Although it has only been held by two candidates in its history (and one of those, Ray Bailey, only held it by default since it's creation) it is chiefly derived from the older division of Cornwall, allowing us to look much further back in the seat's history:

Of the nine candidates to represent Rosevears/Cornwall, only three were beaten in elections (William Robinson, Geoffrey Foot and Robin McKendrick) – the rest resigning their seats. This is not unusual in Tasmanian LegCo elections where incumbency is a strong factor.

The 2002 election, after the retirement of Ray Bailey, saw nine contenders for the seat. Kerry Finch narrowly beat Rick Shegog on primary votes (27.23% to 23.86%) who both clearly out-stripped third place Rod Howell (17.55%). Unsurprisingly, given the power of incumbency in the Tas LegCo, Finch faced a single opponent in 2008 (Colin O'Brien) and won with over 70% of the primary vote.

This election Finch is again up against a lone opponent: Liberal candidate Don Morris a former parliamentary adviser.

There is little policy information available from the website of Don Morris however, it is a safe bet that Mr Morris will be attempting to help the Hodgman State Government pass as much of its proposed legislation as possible, including promoting jobs – particularly in eco-tourism. Morris is also critical of Mr Finch's perceived low attendance rate at Parliament.

Finch's website does provide some policies, although many are scant on detail and represent aspirations such as making housing more affordable. However, in accordance with Infographinomicon tradition, here are three policies:

Policy 1: Infrastructure and community facilities
The West Tamar needs safer roads, better water and sewerage services, child care, walking and cycling tracks, among many other things.

Policy 2: Health and Education
Like the rest of Australia, Rosevears needs more preventative health measures---let’s keep our community fit and health and out of hospitals. On education, we must encourage more skilled and dedicated teachers, and keep our schools better maintained and make them more pleasant places for kids.

Policy 3: Environment
We live in a wonderful environment, but it is under great pressure. Let’s plan to keep where we live beautiful and sustainable.

This last policy is of particular importance to My Finch, based on his previous record of involvement in protecting the Tamar Valley and opposition to a pulp mill in the area. The transcripts of numerous speeches by Mr Finch on this topic are to be found on his website, possibly to contradict the claims that he is not an active candidate.

My prediction for this seat – based on incumbency, seat history and general presentation of message to the electorate – is a comfortable retain for Mr Finch, though probably closer than last time.

The swing to the Libs in the lower house may superficially suggest Mr Morris would do well here. In Rosevears the Libs received over 50% of the primary vote in the lower house. But Morris is not running against the ALP/Green bloc this time. Instead, the choice is between a party-affiliated conservative and a non-party-affiliated centrist*. Tasmanians tend to like their independent house of review to remain, well, Independent.

The Liberal war-chest will not substantially help Mr Morris either, with strict spending limits on campaigns – although a little aid from the new government publicly spruking their policies may help the contender gain some traction on the sly.

Nonetheless, this is unlikely to be strong enough to unseat the incumbent, Mr Finch, who will poll strongly among ALP/Greens voters (34.7% of the primary vote in March) and any anti-pulp-mill voters in the Tamar Valley. I hear there are a few of those.

That said, our pseph on the ground for Tasmania – Dr K. Bonham – is predicting a tight (or at least hard to predict) race.

*Dr Bonham puts Finch as a left-wing candidate, however this is relative to other candidates in a typically conservative arena and is skewed by a few strong left positions mixed in a generally centrist policy point (or, to put that in reverse as Dr Bonham contends, “[a]lthough voting patterns show he is slightly more likely to vote with the conservatives than fellow "LegCo lefties" Valentine, Gaffney, Farrell and Forrest, he frequently makes up for this with the strength of his rhetoric on particular issues.”)

Post-WA

Results

So the good news is we only got one wrong. Aaand the good news is also the bad news. For the last week the expected results have been sitting at LIB: 3, ALP: 1, GRN: 1, PUP: 1. The last Liberal seat is looking pretty firm but could cave to the ALP. Initially close, the Palmer candidate for the penultimate seat is leading by almost 2% of the vote by count 35, so this is pretty certain now.

I could point to the sudden, meteoric rise of the PUP, which makes predictions difficult (especially based on past trends). Or I could indicate just how counter to the normal trend it is for WA to elect two candidates not from the two major parties. Or I could stress that the low voter turnout (as low as 69.82 in the division of Fremantle) means a lot of the less politically-engaged – a traditionally rich hunting ground for the major parties – skewed things a little. But I wont. Instead, I'll just mention that I could mention these things so that I don't look like I'm just making excuses and hope no-one notices that in the process I did mention them and I am just making excuses.

So, with only 6 seats we had no tossups to play with and each error is roughly 16% of the prediction. Since I matched the baseline we get no points there; instead we just have a rating of 84% which is quite poor in general. But Senate elections are a nightmare anyhow, so whatever. I don't need to get things 100% right to feel validated in the way I spend my spare time.

Stupid flippin' senate...

So, here's how the upper house looks now:

And here is how the Carbon Tax repeal is looking:

Also note, the MEP will – since they have so few policies of their own – be voting largely alongside the PUP, making the repeal look more like 40:35 with 1 unknown.

This is why Tony Abbot has declared the result a validation of his climate policy, even though there is a suggestion that as a referendum on the carbon tax, the results reflect an anti-repeal sentiment with the shift against the Libs and to the Greens. (Personally I think this is ridiculous, since the swing from the Liberals will be largely to PUP, while the swing to the Greens will come mostly from the ALP, but in the interests of a fuller coverage I bring you these opinions anyway.)

So, no mid-year double-disillusion election for us. Which is a little disappointing from a recreational psephological perspective, but probably a huge relief to the not-turning-up sector of WA who have had local, state, federal and federal re-run elections all in close succession.

What's up with PUP?

Curse you for foiling my predictions Mr Palmer. This is not the first time I have had occasion to say this, and it seems the Australian public is determined that it will not be the last. In February I typed that

'I personally think the PUP … was a joke vote... I think that this makes the Palmer brand into a one-hit wonder for two reasons: firstly, now that Palmer holds the federal seat of Fairfax he has begun to look like an almost credible voting option, and secondly, jokes are only funny the first time.'

However, I also observed that:

'That said, if the Internet has taught me anything (and I doubt it has) it is that people will keep running with a joke or meme for years after its peak.'

If I were to summarise my response to the Palmer victory in WA as a meme, it would be a cross between Picard Facepalm and First World Problems Woman and look something like this:

I'd also occasionally add the word 'face' between Clive's first and last names...

Now just to be clear, I don't object to Clive creating a political party or running for office. And I don't object to people exercising their right to vote for whomever they support.* And compared to some of the other groups that have run for – and won – seats, I don't even really object to his policies.

I also want to stress that, despite his media image, I do not think Mr Palmer is an idiot, an incompetent or a madman. He has, evidently, tapped into the zeitgeist of the modern political landscape. Sensing a growing dissatisfaction with both major parties and the diminishing view of the Greens as a protest vote, Palmer was not the only political aspirant to attempt to emerge as the new 'others' vote last year.

Most notably, Katter's Australia Party did almost as well as Palmer's United Party despite being eclipsed in the media by the latter. Had Palmer not been on the stage, the KAP would now be in the same position as the PUP today or better. Instead, Katter's party has largely fallen by the wayside, and Palmer's has gone on to more or less monopolise the votes of the uninterested and the fed-up. By being the harmless, blundering buffoon who rebuilds the Titanic and Jurassic Park, Clive has become the darling of the media, receiving huge swathes of media space and time -- and far less difficult and probing questions -- than other minor or major parties.

I have not seen anything to suggest that Palmer is a particularly savvy political operator. But I have seen enough to convince me he is taking advice from one.

Palmer is not an idiot; he is merely a man who understands the value of wearing the jester's hat. That will, I suspect, prove to be a difficult crown to wear. Too little exposure or odd-ball statements will see him fade from centre-stage as quickly as Katter and the other aspiring protest vote parties. Too much, and he will become as unpalatable as the major players.

Having demonstrated his appeal is closer to that of the enduring meme than the soon-forgotten bon mot of polite dinner conversation, Palmer could linger for some time.

But the reason I consider the rise of the PUP to be so unfortunate is that it demonstrates a persistent apathy and insincerity among voters. This is not another criticism of compulsory attendance. Well, it is, but it is not just another criticism of compulsory attendance. It's also a criticism of the quality of discourse between the major parties, and the level of informative reporting (on major and minor party policies) in the media, and political (particularly youth) engagement, and the appeal of an amusing candidate whose policies are largely unknown, and people unwilling to put in the time to find a minor party they support, and a thousand other ills niggling at the ballots. None big enough to undermine our political system, but all of them disappointing.

It is not the presence of Palmer in Canberra that concerns me. But I suspect his primary vote is probably larger than the number of people who know what he stands for, and that can never be a good sign.

* By support, however, I mean agree with the policies and positions of the party. Not just thinking 'Hahaha, Candidate. Welp, lets put a '1' in that box then...'

WA Senate, Take Two.

As the Tasmanian lower-house demonstrated recently, accurate predictions for a fully-transferable vote proportional representation system continue to elude me. The lack of detailed polling is a major factor, though understandable given the number of micro-parties that would either have to be included, or ignored to an extent that makes preference calculations wildly speculative.

As a result, we do not even have a recognised system of creating a baseline to measure our accuracy against. The highly inaccurate substitute we will be using for tomorrow is a simple matter of taking the state-wide federal polling and extrapolating quotas from that.

Baseline:

Senate quotas are calculated as:

Which is always roughly 14.3% of the vote for states where there are six vacancies to fill.
The most recent state-specific polling I could find was the newspoll quarterly, which has the results for WA at ALP 29%, LIB 46%, GRN 15% and Others 10% for the January-March period. Nationally, polling has been trending against the Coalition, so I suspect a slight right-leaning bias to this data. Nonetheless, the baseline gives us nice, clean, primary vote predictions. On first preferences alone, ALP gets two seats (remainder 0.4%), the Liberals get three (remainder 3.1%) and the Greens get one (remainder 0.7%). With all six seats allocated, there is no need to even consider preference flows.

 

Now to try to refine our own predictions:

Prediction:

Firstly, let’s look at past WA results. The initial plan was to go back to 1948 when the system was introduced, but 1987 (3 ALP, 3 Lib) was complicated by backdating seats, and there was an expansion of the senate in 1984 which saw seven candidates elected in WA, and after that I gave up.

So, the results from 1990 onwards are:

Consistently 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and one to whichever minor party holds the zeitgeist of the day. The baseline expectation seems pretty solid at this point.

The two counts from 2013 were: 3 Liberal, 1 Labor, 1 Greens and 1 Sports Party; and 3 Liberal, 2 Labor and 1 Palmer United. Either would have been counter-intuitive based on the previous results, though the latter less so if one accepts that Palmer was the valid 3^rd party that year instead of the Greens.

Palmer could do well in the conservative state and may chip into the Liberal vote. Their preferencing of the HEMP party over the majors has led to speculation that we may see a HEMP candidate in the last seat, but I suspect HEMP will bow out before the PUP. Of more concern is the influence of ‘preference whisperer’ Glenn Drurey, who got the Sports Party (arguably) over the line in 2013, as well as the Shooters and Fishers in NSW and again in the SA Legislative Council. Shooters and Fishers regularly pay Mr Drurey to act for them in negotiations as well, along with Family First and the Fishers & Lifestyle (although I understand F&L have since split due to naming confusion with the S&F).

Scott Ludlam’s recent high-profile will cost him nothing – his staunchest critics being devoted to the right anyhow – but will probably win him his seat from the undecided unaffiliated voters. This will cut into the ‘others’ vote but, with electoral fatigue setting in in a state that has recently had a state, local government and federal election in 2013, low turnout is expected (by compulsory attendance standards anyhow). This will predominantly be the apathetic, and may hurt the Labor-Liberal duopoly more than the smaller groups.

This, with the suspected right-lean bias in the polling, suggests to me that if a micro-party gets in it will be at the expense of a Liberal seat. However, realistically I can see nothing that suggests anything other than the baseline.

Prediction:

 

Ummm…

Now we have an interesting situation where the prediction matches the baseline. While it would be nice to have a divergent prediction so I have the option of doing better or worse, I’m not going to pick an obscure micro-party for the sake of being different. So the prediction-baseline comparison is not going to provide any meaningful information about the accuracy of my predictions. Instead, we’re going back to the old percentage-point system for this election. Because 90% is passable and 95% is required for a good prediction, we’re either going to do dismally (5/6 = 83.3%) or brilliantly (6/6 = 100%).
I guess that’s the price of siding with the baseline, but then the baseline itself is untested…