BEC’S BACK

SIX MONTHS ON, TASSIE’S GOT A NEW FAVOURITE …

LABOR leader Rebecca White is Tasmania’s preferred premier again after the Hodgman government suffered a massive hit in the latest opinion poll.

The EMRS poll showed support for the Liberal Party has dropped from 47 per cent in May to 36 per cent — the largest single poll-to-poll drop in decades.

Premier Will Hodgman, meanwhile, has seen his lead over Ms White as preferred premier disappear. In May, he was leading 47-41. He is now behind 38-46.

The new results are almost identical to poll results late last year, before Ms White, pictured, announced Labor’s policy to remove poker machines from all pubs and clubs across Tasmania.

The Liberal vote soared from 34 per cent in December to 46 per cent in February, and 50 per cent at the March election.

The poll of 1000 voters was taken late last week, meaning it followed a tough week in Parliament for the Hodgman Government as it was grilled over the Cricket Tasmania affair and the state’s health system.

It also came a week after the federal leadership challenge which saw Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull deposed by the federal Liberal party room.

But EMRS chief operations director Samuel Paske said the results were still striking.

“The fall in support for the Government from 47 per cent to 36 per cent is a significant movement in the last three months, returning their primary vote to that observed in late 2017 prior to the election campaign,” Mr Paske said.

“Nonetheless, it should be noted that, with support currently standing at 34 per cent for Labor, there was not a commensurate gain overall for the Opposition, nor for the Greens whose support at 16 per cent is up just two points since May.

“In fact, support for independents or other minor parties increased the most, up six points to 14 per cent since May 2018.

“These latest results reveal that Rebecca White currently holds a lead over Will Hodgman as preferred premier as she did in August and December of 2017 pre-election.”

The pair have exchanged the lead on the preferred premier measure three times since Ms White’s elevation to the Labor leadership early last year.

University of Tasmania Professor of Political Science Richard Eccleston said the results showed the Government’s honeymoon period after this year’s election win was over.

“The polling would suggest they are going to have a harder time in their second term than in their first,” Prof Eccleston said.

“I guess one interpretation is that the core support for both parties is fairly even and some of the support that the Liberals managed to secure in the last state election campaign has drifted back to independents and undecided voters.

“I think particularly in Tasmanian elections where people are concerned about minority government, rightly or wrongly, it’s really only in the few months leading up to an election that I guess that last 10 or 20 per cent of undecided voters make a decision about who’s best placed to govern.”

Prof Eccleston said he didn’t think the results were disastrous for the Liberals.

“I think they’d only start to be worried if they were consistently behind Labor for a long period of time,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s the end of the Hodgman Government or there are going to be leadership challenges or anything like that, but often opinion polls six or 12 months after an election, particularly for a second term government, often there is a softening of their support.”

BARRING a seriously unlikely party switch by a disgruntled government MP, there is no chance Labor leader Rebecca White will be premier of Tasmania before 2022 — no matter what the opinion polling might suggest between now and then.

That being said, the stunning turnaround in political fortunes revealed in the latest EMRS poll of 1000 voters will send shockwaves through Tasmanian political circles.

That the Liberals have all but surrendered an almost-20 percentage point lead over Labor on first preference voting intentions in just three months is remarkable. That we essentially have a tie again between the two major parties is a massive surprise. And the fact that Will Hodgman has surrendered a commanding lead over his rival in the question of preferred premier is a front page headline any day of the week — particularly considering his appeal is now the third-lowest of any he has recorded during his time in office. This is quite the opinion poll.

For sure there would be an element of timing involved. The poll was taken on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week — a week that began with a press conference by Health Minister Michael Ferguson memorably being interrupted by a surgeon warning of a health crisis and ended with an evasive Premier unforgettably being chased down the streets of Hobart by a media pack. It also came a week after a majority in the federal Liberal party room decided it would be a good idea to again overthrow a sitting prime minister.

But the poll is still an accurate representation of what Tasmanians are thinking. And it is not good news for the Hodgman Government, just six months after an

For Labor, the poll will deliver a massive confidence boost. It will strengthen Ms White’s authority ... and deliver renewed hope.

election that it won relatively easily on the back of a historic second-term primary vote of over 50 per cent.

The immediate real impact of this poll on the Liberal party room will likely be negligible. There is zero suggestion that Mr Hodgman’s authority is in any way challenged. But it should serve as a wake-up call to all those on the government benches that you cannot take the support of the Tasmanian people for granted. The Government has not exactly started its second term in office with a great deal of overt energy. It has very much been a business-as-usual approach as the new offices are bedded down. Perhaps this poll suggests it’s time to fire things up again, to recapture the imagination of the voters and start winning them back.

For Labor, however, the poll will deliver a massive confidence boost. It will instantly put to rest any suggestions — so far unproven — that David O’Byrne is plotting a challenge to Ms White’s leadership. It will strengthen her authority in the caucus. And it will deliver all Labor MPs and their staffers renewed hope.

There is no doubt the March election result (Labor attracted just 33 per cent of the vote) was a personal shock to Ms White. You could see this in the tone of her “concession” speech on election night, and in the way she handled her press conference the following day. But remember that Mr Hodgman also lived through that pain as opposition leader in 2010, and made similar mistakes on election night. He bounced back with two consecutive historic election wins.

What’s that Paul Keating famously said about roosters and feather dusters?

Responsibility for all editorial comment is taken by the Editor, Chris Jones, Level 1, 2 Salamanca Square, Hobart, TAS, 7000