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.
From 1989 until 2021, the total size of the major party vote didn’t shift by that much. While the Greens have occasionally polled higher than their 1989 result, it remains one of their higher results. And the votes for the two major parties have usually stayed within the same range.
But for this post I want to focus a bit more on the vote for everyone else, and how it surged in 2024, finally pushing the combined major party vote down to a new low.
This first chart shows the vote for each of the main groups dating back to 1979.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
There was a noticeable decline in the primary vote for the major parties in the 1980s, with the others vote doing quite well in 1982 and the Greens then breaking through in 1989.
There has also been a noticeable drop at the other end of the chart, mostly in 2024. But in between, there wasn’t much change.
The other noticeable thing on this chart is that swings back and forth between the major parties don’t happen often, and when they do, they happen quickly. Labor went from being well behind the Liberals to far out in front from 1992 to 2002, and then from 2006 to 2014 collapsed back to an election-losing position. Those cross-over points were the ones that produced hung parliaments, but don’t have much correlation with the size of the Greens vote. The Greens had one of their worst performances in 1996 yet held the balance of power because the major parties were evenly matched.
It’s also noticeable that the swing against the Liberal Party in 2024 barely benefited Labor at all – a point we discussed at length after that election. Not much went to the Greens either, instead it went to everyone else. This next chart focuses on that yellow line.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
There has been past spikes in the ‘others’ vote.
The 1982 spike was due to two distinct campaigns. Firstly, the Australian Democrats contested every electorate and polled 5.4%. One Democrats member, Norm Sanders, had been elected at a by-election in 1980 (long story) and was re-elected in 1982. His mid-term resignation at the end of that year brought Bob Brown into parliament, who ran as an independent (and is lumped in with the Greens vote).
Secondly, two ex-Labor MHAs ran for re-election as independents. Former premier Doug Lowe had been replaced by his party in 1981, and quit to sit as an independent, as did fellow MP Mary Willey. The two polled 4.97% of the vote between them, and Lowe was re-elected as an independent.
There was another surge in 1996-1998. The Nationals polled 2% of the vote in 1996, and independents polled almost 3.5%. Two former Liberal MPs ran as independents, and Bruce Goodluck was elected. Goodluck was the first MP elected outside of Liberal, Labor or Greens since Doug Lowe and Norm Sanders in 1982.
The main ‘others’ vote-getter in 1998 was the Tasmania First party, founded to oppose gun laws. They polled over 5% of the vote.
The others vote again started to rise in 2014, and reached a new peak in 2021, although not quite as high as 1982. Kristie Johnston was the first independent to win a seat since Goodluck.
But 2024 was off the charts, with more than one fifth of voters electing someone outside of the three main parties. About a third of this vote went to the Jacqui Lambie Network, with three other parties polling about 4% between them, but almost 10% went to independents.
It is this shift which explains why Tasmanian politics has become so different now. Hung parliaments are no longer just a question of the major party vote being even, or of the Greens holding the sole balance of power. And both major parties are now so far away from the vote they’d need to win a majority that it is hard to imagine such an outcome.
It’s also interesting to examine this trend when you break up the five electorates.
This doesn’t take account of redistributions but they aren’t a big factor in Tasmania. While there have been tweaks to the boundaries, the core identities of the five seats have been consistent for a very long time.
!function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();
The five electorates have moved roughly in line, but previous spikes have usually been contained to certain electorates. The 1996 spike was almost entirely in Franklin, while the 1998 spike was mostly in Lyons and Bass. The 2010 spike was entirely in Denison, where Andrew Wilkie ran an unsuccessful effort that laid the groundwork for his victory later that year in the federal seat of the same name.
The 2014 and 2018 results saw much higher ‘others’ votes in Braddon and Lyons, and then in 2021 the surge in support for Kristie Johnston and Sue Hickey pushed the ‘others’ vote to a record high level in Clark, higher than a level seen in any electorate in 2024.
The difference in 2024 is that the others vote spiked everywhere, all at once. The lowest level was 18.75% in Lyons.
So how about 2025? The Lambie Network is departed, and it’s not clear if any of the successors to them (Pentland and the Nationals) can retain their vote. While there are fewer independent groups, those who did better in 2024 have put their hands up again. I also don’t have a lot of trust in the precise numbers from the polls in this regard. But the two polls we’ve seen so far point to a slight increase in the others vote above the 2024 peak.
The YouGov poll has the vote for minor parties and independents on 22%, while DemosAU has the number at 23.6%.
As long as these numbers are this high, I suspect we will see more hung parliaments elected. So the parties will probably need to find a way to deal with it.