Back to the drawing board in Tasmania

State politicians usually deny that federal issues are responsible for their successes, and certainly Tasmanian voters seem well able to distinguish between the two. Nonetheless, federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley has reason to be pleased with the result of Saturday’s Tasmanian election: her party’s first outing since she took charge went rather better than expected.

Counting is still continuing, but so far the Liberal vote is up 3.2% to 39.9%, more than 15 points better than in May’s federal election. The Labor vote is down by the same amount to 25.8%, more than ten points below the 36.6% that it won federally. The Greens are sitting on 14.4% (up 0.5%), while independents have jumped 5.8% to 15.4%. The disappearance of the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN), which had 6.7% last time, has also given some boost to the Shooters, Fishers & Farmers (up 0.6% to 2.9%) and the National Party (debuting with 1.6%).

In terms of seats, however, it’s very much status quo. The Liberals and the Shooters have each won one of the previous JLN seats, with the third still undecided, and a new independent – Peter George in Franklin – has taken a seat from the Liberals. That leaves Liberals, Labor and Greens all unchanged on 14, ten and five respectively, with four independents and a Shooter, plus one seat in doubt: the final seat in Bass, which is a four- or even five-way lottery between all four parties and conceivably another independent.

As I explained in Friday’s preview, the big picture of who forms government doesn’t depend on the detail of the result. Despite the Liberals’ good showing, the majority of the electorate is still broadly left-wing, and the numbers are there for a left-of-centre government: Labor, Greens and three progressive independents will have 18 and possibly 19 seats between them.

But those numbers were already there six and a half weeks ago when the House of Assembly voted no confidence 18-17 in the Liberal government. If Labor leader Dean Winter wanted to make the attempt to form a government, he should have done it then. If he tries now (and he’s certainly making noises to that effect), he’s going to face the insistent question, “Why then did we have to have this unnecessary election?”

If he succeeds in forming government and it performs well – as ramshackle-looking constructions sometimes do – that won’t much matter; people will eventually forget its origins. But the deep policy divisions between Labor and the Greens and independents make it a daunting task. And the Liberals have the advantage of incumbency: premier Jeremy Rockliff doesn’t have to actually muster 18 MPs in support, he just has to be able to beat any motion of no-confidence moved against him.

Kevin Bonham headed his wrap on Saturday night “Tasmania remains ungovernable”, and it’s hard to beat the summary of the situation in his opening paragraph:

After the 2024 election, Labor (with ten seats) could have sought to form government with the crossbench, but did not. After bringing down the Rockliff government with a no-confidence motion this June, Labor could again have sought to form government, but did not. And so we had an election, and they’ve again won about ten seats. In the process they’ve further embarrassed themselves with what is likely to end up as their lowest primary vote since 1903. Now maybe they can take government if they want it, but they will do so with a weaker mandate than had they done so last time.

With all that said, the last seat in Bass could still be important. If Labor or the Greens manage to win it, it will make a joint effort between them look just a bit more solid; if it goes to the Liberals or the Shooters (as seems a little more likely), Rockliff’s claims of a renewed mandate will sound just slightly more plausible. And we probably won’t know the result before the end of next week, so the state may stay in limbo till then.

Tasmania is distinctive in many ways, but the moral is one we’ve seen apply across the country. Voters are sick of the two major parties and want to deal the other players a hand, but neither Labor nor Liberal is ready for the shift in attitude required to make that work.