The trend of a falling major party vote isn’t quite the same in Tasmania as it is on the mainland.
While the major parties maintained their dominance for longer in federal politics, and in most states, as far back as 1989 we saw the Greens poll 17% of the primary vote.
Ben was joined by Tasmanian political observer Mike Lester to look at the state of the campaign and the announcement of candidates for the Tasmanian state election. We particularly look into the Tasmanian Nationals and the shadow-boxing around who takes the blame for the calling of the election and who has the best prospect of forming a majority government.
The Australian Electoral Commission conducts a two-party-preferred vote in every seat, which is a count between Labor and the leading Liberal or Nationals candidate. In seats where the two-candidate-preferred vote is not Labor vs Coalition, they do the count later. With 35 seats now “non-classic”, the AEC needs to conduct those notional 2PP counts in more and more seats.
While my focus has been very much on the federal election, events have been developing in Tasmania, which culminated in a vote of no confidence on Thursday.