Minority government the new normal in Tasmania as voters turn away from major parties

The Guardian

20-07-2025

Tasmania has just had its second state election in 16 months, the shortest gap between state polls in Australia since Queensland in 1957.
For some voters it was their fifth trip to the ballot box in less than two years.
The state's Labor opposition bore a heavy burden of explaining why voters were going through this just months after rewarding federal Labor with two extra seats in Tasmania.
In terms of its own vote share, state Labor clearly failed on Saturday. It had just 26% of the vote with almost 75% of the ballots counted.
The election was called after Labor moved a no-confidence motion in Jeremy Rockliff's Liberal minority government – citing issues with budget management, proposed asset sales and major projects delivery.
Yet on the campaign trail, Labor's budget repair proposals were modest and undermined by their support for spending on the much-disliked Macquarie Point stadium project.
Labor's anti-asset-sales position was also undercut by their intent to offload the state's share in the proposed Marinus Link Bass Strait connector.
Meanwhile, the Liberals switched from would-be privatisers to promising a government-owned insurance company, a concept blasted by experts and insurers but which tapped into small business concerns and distracted the news cycle for days.
The overall state vote share result is a swing of about 3% from Labor to the Liberals who recorded 40% of the vote. A record field of 44 independents gained, too, in the absence of the Jacqui Lambie Network.
The four most prominent independents (incumbents Kristie Johnston, Craig Garland and David O'Byrne, and anti-salmon-farming campaigner Peter George) polled strongly but almost all of the others flopped.
Another failure was the latest reappearance of the Tasmanian Nationals. Their endorsement of candidates who sent two Liberal governments to elections and generally ramshackle campaign should raise questions for the party at the federal level.
The Nationals were outpolled by the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party, whose campaign was barely visible, but are in serious contention for one seat and in a multi-way battle for another.
Tasmania uses the Hare-Clark proportional representation system where candidates compete against others from their own party as well as other parties – with each of the state's five federal electorates electing seven state members in the 35-seat House of Assembly.
The system makes majority government difficult, but voters have frequently routed around that by supporting whichever major party looks most likely to win.
Usually, minority governments are followed by majorities of the other side, but polling this time never showed either major party close.
With declining major party vote shares, non-majority parliaments look like the new normal in this system.
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Rockliff's government has gained a seat in Braddon, the north-west and western electorate that at the federal election fell to Labor with a massive swing.
It appears to have lost one narrowly in Franklin where George has taken a seat, and is still fighting for possible gains from its starting 14 seats in Bass and Lyons.
Dean Winter's opposition seems to have held its 10 seats and is in the mix for a possible gain in Bass through quirks of the Hare-Clark system.
Overall, Tasmania is pretty back much where it was. Labor could potentially govern, if willing to do so with support from the Greens and left-wing independents. Such an alliance could have 18 or 19 seats.
But Labor could have tried this approach after the 2024 election, or after the no-confidence motion in June, and made no visible attempt to do so.
If Labor were to form government after losing votes in an election they are blamed for, and performed badly in, it would look less legitimate than had it done so immediately after last year's election.
Rockliff, the premier, has stated his intention to ask the governor to renew his commission. By precedent, he must be granted this, whether or not he can prove he has 18 promised votes on confidence and supply.
Of course, it is better to have the appearance of stability, but if he cannot arrange enough support, he can at least go back to the parliament and defy it to vote him out.
Then, another no-confidence motion would be needed to install Winter as premier.
Labor would come to office with a shallow pool of MPs to draw on, a debt crisis requiring hard decisions that they did not campaign on, and a crossbench hungry to deliver for supporters on issues like native forest logging, salmon farms and the stadium. It's a sticky situation.