Thrill of the grassroots tilt

CANDIDATE Ella Haddad and her team have knocked on 9000 doors, made 2000 phone calls, worn out two pairs of shoes and emptied uncounted bottles of sunscreen.

It will be a familiar tale for the dozens of hopefuls: from first-timers to electoral veterans, party stalwarts and single issue-independents now in peak campaign mode in Election 2018.

Ms Haddad, a Labor hopeful, says she’s thriving on the excitement and engagement of a determined grassroots campaign in Denison.

“I love doorknocking, I love talking to people, I love hearing about their lives, I love hearing their stories,” she said.

“We need politicians who will take those stories back and use them to form the policies which are going improve their lives.”

Ms Haddad has been rated as having an outsiders’ chance in Denison, a seat where attention is focused on the big names from the big parties: Bacon, Ogilvie, Archer, Hickie.

“I’m happy to take it,” she says of the assessment.

“It means people are noticing the value of grassroots campaigning.”

Ms Haddad says three main issues are on the minds of the people she talks to.

“Health is still the biggest issue — everybody is raising the health system as the biggest issue.

“Housing availability and affordability is the next biggest issue.”

The third issue, she says, is poker machines.

“I’ve been really surprised because it was a bold move to make as a party. I expected more pushback. I’ve doorknocked people who work in pubs and clubs and I’ve doorknocked people who have lost everything to gambling. All of those people are telling me this is the right thing to do.”

In Lyons, independent Kim Peart has a lot of ground to cover in his campaign. The electorate is large and rural.

“I live in Ross in the Midlands and there’s a lot of sheep,” he said.

It’s not his first outing, having run in Franklin and made tilts in council elections. He dares not venture a guess on his chances this time.

“It’s entirely unpredictable ... elections are funny things,” he said.

“One of the ideas I’m putting forward in this election was the idea for an Australian convict trail to run from Moreton Bay to Port Arthur.”

Mr Peart said Lyons was ideally situated to host part of the trail, stretching from near Devonport to Port Arthur.

“The other big idea I am running with is space,” he said.

“I’ve running an event in Ross on the 25th to look at what Tasmania can do with space and space development and how we can develop work, careers and employment and have Tasmanians engage in the space industry.” NEXT: The gym owner and the pop star LEAKED Liberal polling suggests Will Hodgman can hang on to majority government, but Labor is adamant Rebecca White remains preferred premier three weeks out from the State Election.

Liberal insiders increasingly believe voters are buying their message of a choice between majority government and a Labor-Green alliance.

Polling conducted for the Liberals by Media Reach this week and obtained by the Mercury, gives the party 46.5 per cent of the vote to Labor’s 30.

The result represents a swing of nearly 5 percentage points away from the Government, compared with its performance at the 2014 election.

But electorate-by-electorate figures have the Government on track to win at least 13 seats and as many as its current 15.

Labor said its internal polling puts Ms White ahead as preferred premier, with 44.2 per cent to 42.8. More than 13 per cent are yet to decide.

EMRS polling in December gave Ms White a 48-35 lead over Mr Hodgman as preferred premier.

“Our internal polling shows that Rebecca White is still preferred premier across the state and there is a strong dissatisfaction with the record of the Hodgman Government,” Labor state secretary Stuart Benson said.

“Labor is very competitive and Labor’s response to the health crisis is resonating in the community. Labor can win majority government.”

Labor has been using campaign guru Eamonn Fitzpatrick, who worked for two Labor prime ministers and recently as Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s chief strategist.

Mr Fitzpatrick, who also worked on the recent West Australian and Queensland elections, has been on a fly-in fly-out mission in Tasmania since late last month.

“He is a campaign volun- teer,” Mr Benson said. “He’s appalled by Hodgman’s health cuts and is here to help Tasmanians.”

Independent surveys had put the major parties neck and neck, and experts had tipped a hung parliament.

Media Reach polled 1500 voters — 300 in each of the five electorates — on each of Monday and Thursday this week. The Liberals polled 46 and 47 per cent statewide, ahead of Labor’s 29 and 31.

The Greens averaged 12 per cent and the Jacqui Lambie Network 5 per cent across the two nights.

Liberal-commissioned polling has been at odds with recent independent surveys that put the contest much closer and suggest minority government is more likely.

EMRS’s December poll had the Liberals and Labor levelpegging on 34 per cent.

The internal poll showed the Liberals strongest in Bass and Braddon, sources said, ensuring them at least three members in each electorate.

The party also expects to hang on to three members in Lyons, with Labor to win one and the fifth to be fought out by the major parties, with highprofile JLN candidate Michael Kent an outside chance.

The Liberals would win two in Franklin, Labor and the Greens one each, with the fifth to be another contest between the majors.

Liberal and Labor are equal in Denison with the Greens also polling strongly, meaning a 2-2-1 result is almost certain.

The Liberals hold 15 seats in the House of Assembly to Labor’s seven and the Greens’ three.

THE Liberals put forward a positive narrative around energy this week in an effort to put to bed any lingering worries from the energy crisis.

Today Hydro storages are a healthy 39.7 per cent, new wind farms are being built and the gas-powered Tamar Valley Power Station remains in place as a backup energy source.

The biggest drama of the Liberals’ first term now seems a distant memory.

However, not wanting to leave any room for doubt about energy prices and security, the Government kicked off week two of the election campaign announcing a plan to withdraw the state from the National Electricity Market (NEM) by mid-2021.

The Government says unlinking Tasmania from Victorian wholesale prices will lead to an electricity price drop of up to 10 per cent.

Labor supported the withdrawal in principle but said the Government’s plan was severely lacking in detail.

Also this week the Liberals pledged to cap power price rises to CPI until 2021.

They announced a program to help farmers save money on energy and followed the lead of the Greens and Labor with policies encouraging the uptake of solar panels.

While the Government’s energy promises have been welcomed by stakeholders keen to see cost-of-living relief, the Liberals are also wanting to erase voters’ bad memories of the energy crisis that almost brought the state to its knees in the summer and autumn of 2015-16.

Governments always attribute good fortune to their own genius and blame outside circumstances when things go badly.

The Liberals have wasted no opportunity over the past two years to point out external factors led to the crisis (the weather and the failure of Basslink), while crediting their excellent management for keeping the lights on.

But the Liberals’ political opponents, and some of the state’s major industrial energy users, say the Government exacerbated the crisis by allowing Hydro Tasmania to prepare to sell the main turbine from the Tamar Valley Power Station.

This meant the back-up station was not in use and not ready to go when Basslink went down during a drought.

Timing is everything in politics, and the Liberals are extremely lucky the energy crisis happened midterm to give them a chance to restore voters’ confidence in energy security before asking us to give them a second term.

The retirement of former Energy Minister Matthew Groom has probably aided the government in willing us to forget the whole saga by putting new Minister Guy Barnett’s face to energy policy.

THE

Government has been a bit quiet on the “mandate” front so far in the campaign, however the Treasurer this week made another pitch on a state takeover of TasWater.

Peter Gutwein said the sweetened deal would involve further compensation to councils and would result in cheaper water bills for Tasmanians.

But the pledge is likely to go nowhere with the takeover thrown out 10 votes to four in the Legislative Council last year when Labor and independents refused to believe the Liberals’ arguments about faster upgrades and cheaper bills.

As Upper House MPs are on their own six-year election cycles, any such legislation under a new government will face a similar fate.

The Liberals also promised to seek fresh mandates at this election for defeated forestry and tough-on-crime laws.