Tasmania Archive

1

Data update – Tasmanian upper house dataset

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 16, 2017

A few months ago I published a limited data repository, containing booth lists, candidate lists and election results at the booth level for a variety of state and local elections. At the time I talked about how most state electoral commissions fell short of the AEC when it comes to publishing complete and easy-to-use election datasets.

I’ve been most frustrated by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, on two fronts. Firstly, they publish the booth-level vote data in a very unfriendly manner: upper house results are published as PNG image files. Lower house primary votes are published as PDF files, and distributions of preferences as image files. The image files look very nice, unless you want to copy them into a spreadsheet and perform deeper analysis.

Secondly, the TEC is terrible at publishing booth lists which can be matched to the results. They publish a list of premises used for each election, including the suburb, but often there are more than one booth in a suburb. The results data contains a unique booth name, but for at least a decade now the TEC has rarely if ever published the booth data in the correct format allowing the matching of those addresses to the actual vote data.

For three years from 2013 to 2015 I published guides to the Tasmanian upper house elections, which are held every May for a small part of the state. This included the tedious task of tracking down the complete data to match addresses to vote data. I’ve decided to finish this task, and have been able to put together a booth list with unique booth names for the last ten years of upper house elections from 2007 to 2016. This can then be matched to the vote data at the booth level. The booth list also includes latitude and longitude for every ordinary booth.

Download the data here.

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4

Council elections in Tasmania and SA

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on October 2, 2014

Two Australian states are in the process of electing their local councils for the next four years. Unfortunately due to the large volume of state elections currently taking place, I won’t be able to provide any coverage of these elections, but others have produced some useful coverage elsewhere.

South Australian elections take place every four years. All SA council elections are conducted by postal ballot – ballot papers will be sent out over the week of 20-24 October, and voting closes on November 7. SA councils are elected by a mixture of single-member and multi-member wards, as well as directly-elected Mayors in most (or possibly all?) councils.

Until this year, half of each Tasmanian council was elected every two years for a four year term. This year is the first time that entire councils have been up for election at the same time. Tasmanian councils have no wards – so this means that all councils are proportionally elected, and the quotas will drop significantly. Mayors in Tasmania tend to be directly-elected. Tasmanian ballot papers will be posted between the 14th and the 17th of October, and must be returned by the 28th of October.

The shift in Tasmania towards conducting all council elections on one day every four years means that only one Australian state now conducts staggered council elections. In Western Australia, councillors are elected every two years for four year terms. The next WA council elections are due in late 2015.

Queensland’s next council elections are due in early 2016, while both New South Wales and Victoria are both due around the time of the next federal election in late 2016.

Tasmanian psephologist Kevin Bonham has completed an in-depth profile of the Hobart City Council election, including analysis of how sitting councillors’ have voted and lists of candidates. I recommend it for those eager for more elections news.

Radio AdelaideĀ programĀ The Scrutineers, by Casey Briggs and Dianne Janes, has produced a special episode focusing on South Australia’s local government elections. You can listen to the show online, as well as subscribe to the podcast and download old episodes of the show.

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27

Tasmanian council results

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on October 28, 2009

Local government election results have now been posted on the website of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, showing primary vote figures from election night. I don’t know about most of the races, but a few key points of interest:

  • Mayor of Hobart Rob Valentine has been reelected with over 80% of the vote.
  • Greens councillor Helen Burnet was 80 votes ahead on the election night preference count for Deputy Mayor of Hobart. Burnet polled 41% of the primary vote to 38% for Peter Sexton, and she polled 50.22% after preferences. I don’t know if that is the final result.
  • The four Greens council candidates collectively polled 1.67 quotas in Hobart, with 1.37 quotas received by Burnet herself.
  • In Burnie, incumbent mayor Alvwyn Boyd has survived a challenge from Steve Kons of the ALP, with Boyd polled 51.26% after preferences.
  • In Dorset, incumbent mayor Peter Partridge only managed 13% of the primary vote, with Barry Jarvis polling almost 57%.

Post any other interesting results you have seen in the comments thread below.

Update: The Greens haven’t made any major gains in terms of council representation, although the election of Helen Burnet as Deputy Mayor of Hobart is an achievement for the party. Five incumbent councillors elected in 2005 were up for election: in Clarence, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough and Southern Midlands. Four of these seats have been retained, whilst the Greens have lost their seat on Southern Midlands council. So far the party has won no extra seats, but is in with a good chance of electing a second Green on Hobart council and outside chances of a second councillor in Kingborough and a councillor in Launceston. The Greens polled much less in Launceston than in 2007, despite narrowly missing out on the Deputy Mayoralty. If the Greens win a second seat in Hobart it will give them a total of 4 seats and the Deputy Mayoralty, which puts them in a strong overall position on that council. As it currently stands, the party should win 11-14 seats, compared to 12 since the 2007 elections.

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19

Tasmanian local council elections

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on October 6, 2009

Tasmania goes to the polls in October to elect local councillors across the state. Tasmania is broken up into twenty-nine LGAs. Tasmanian councils are not elected using wards: instead half of each council is elected every two years representing the entire council area, with councillors serving a four year term. Each council’s Mayor and Deputy Mayor are also directly elected by the voters at every council election for a two-year term.

Nominations have now closed for this year’s council elections, where each council will elect a Mayor and half a council. Voting is by postal ballot and will take place for two weeks from 13 October to 27 October.

I don’t have any particular information about this year’s council elections, although there has been coverage at the Tasmanian Politics blog. I have reviewed my Tasmanian LGA map, which was originally a very large file and difficult to use on slower computers. It should now run smoothly for anyone interested in following Tasmania’s council elections. Consider this post an opportunity to comment on any interesting council races.

taslga

Tasmania’s local government areas

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6

Pembroke by-election

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on July 15, 2009

There will be a by-election in the Tasmanian Legislative Council electorate of Pembroke on August 1. Pembroke covers the eastern shore of the Derwent River, and is one of the seats covering the Hobart area. The seat was held by Labor MLC Alison Ritchie since 2001. Ritchie won re-election in 2007 and briefly served as a Minister in 2008 before resigning due to ill-health.

Ritchie resigned last month over a scandal involving the employment of her mother and other family members in her parliamentary office. Ritchie was one of four Labor MLCs in the Legislative Council.

pembroke

Labor generally is more aggressive in Legislative Council elections, with the Liberal Party rarely running for seats. Interestingly, Pembroke was previously held by a Liberal, with Peter McKay, a conservative independent MLC since 1979, joining the Liberal Party in 1991 and serving until 1999, which included a spell as a minister.

In a surprising twist, the Liberal Party have nominated Vanessa Goodwin for the seat. Goodwin came close to winning a second seat for the Liberals in Franklin at the 2006 state election and performed strongly for the party in the 2007 federal election in the same seat. She was expected to win a second seat for the party at the next state lower house election in Franklin.

Labor are not running a candidate, however a number of pro-Labor independents are standing, most interestingly Honey Bacon, the widow of former Labor premier Jim Bacon. The Greens are also standing a candidate.

Elsewhere: Coverage from Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics, Poll Bludger, Mumble, and Malcolm Mackerras.

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