Your Guide to the Tasmanian State Election 2021
Tasmania is having an election on the 1st of May 2021!
Are you prepared to vote?
What am I voting in?
There are two chambers to vote in: the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council. The government is formed in the House of Assembly whereas the Legislative Council is a council of review. Bills must pass in both chambers to become law, so who you vote for in both chambers matters!
The way they’re formed is a little different:
The lower house is the House of Assembly:
It has 25 seats – five people voted in from each of its five electorates (Franklin, Lyons, Bass, Braddon and Clark, which used to be Denison).
There is an election every four years for all the seats in the lower house.
The party or parties that win the majority of seats in the lower house form government.
The lower house passes legislation (laws), which then go to the upper house to be voted on.
The upper house is the Legislative Council
It has 15 seats – one person voted in from each of its 15 electorates (Derwent, Elwick, Hobart, Huon, Launceston, McIntyre, Mersey, Montgomery, Murchison, Nelson, Pembroke, Prosser, Rosevears, Rumney, Windemere).
There is never an election for all 15 seats at once. Instead, over a six year cycle, there is an election each year in May for two or three seats at a time.
The upper house is generally a place for independents, rather than party representatives.
What does the legislative council do?
The Legislative Council’s job is to review legislation (laws) passed by the government in the lower house.
When a piece of legislation comes to the Legislative Council, their job is to consider it carefully and decide whether it is a good law which will work well and do what it is meant to do.
The Legislative Council can then pass (approve) the legislation with a majority vote, or they can vote to make amendments (changes or additions) to the legislation, they might vote to reject the legislation, or they might vote to send the legislation to Committee. This means they think that further investigation or information is needed on the matter before the law is passed.
Members can also move a motion to debate important matters and ask questions of the Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council.
Reviewing legislation, debating matters, asking questions and the work of Committees are important ways that the Legislative Council scrutinises the Government of the day and acts as a check and balance on its power.
What does the House of Assembly do?
Most legislation is initiated in the House of Assembly.
The party or coalition with a majority of seats in the House of Assembly is invited by the Governor of Tasmania to form Government.
The leader of that party becomes the Premier of Tasmania, and his/her senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios. As Australian politicians traditionally vote along party lines, most legislation introduced by the governing party will be passed by the House of Assembly.
The House of Assembly is where a government comes face to face with the Opposition to debate and discuss to pass new legislation.
The Government has the opportunity in the House to explain its policies fully and the action it intends to take to implement them.
What makes the 2021 Election particularly interesting?
Normally elections for the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly are not at the same time. However, in 2021 they are both on May 1st with the whole of the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council electorates of Derwent, Mersey, and Windermere, up for election.
So now you know what you’re voting in, how do you vote?
Tasmania uses a system called “Robson Rotation.” This means that the order that parties appear on the House of Assembly ballot is consistent, but the order of the names are random between ballots. So one ballot can look completely different to another, thus encouraging people to vote for specific candidates they like.
This also discourages “donkey voting”, which is when someone just puts preferences in order of where candidates appear on a ballot. If names were in the same order on every ballot that means in a tight race if someone managed to be put near the start of the ballot they could get a slight boost in votes and win.
Tasmania uses partial preferential voting which means you can fill in only part of the ballot if you wish. For the House of Assembly there will likely be dozens of options – but you can fill in a minimum of 5 if you wish from 1 to 5. The ballot is divided into columns of parties, followed by randomised candidate names.
For the Legislative Council ballot you fill in a minimum of 3 boxes with preferences. If there are only 3 options you can fill in only 2 if you want, but that’s an unlikely scenario. It’s organised into one column where only one candidate per party is up for election.
And that’s the basics! Best of luck!
There’s a cut-off for enrolment before an election is called so if you’re not enrolled already then it’s too late. Make sure you enrol at www.AEC.gov.au (which you can do at age 16) so you’re prepared and ready for the next time an election is called!
The official source of information for Tasmanian elections is www.tec.tas.gov.au You can use it to find your electorate to know when it’s time for you to vote in the Legislative Council.