If you happen to find yourself driving around Tasmania right at the moment, you’ll encounter an interesting sight. From Hobart in the south to Stanley in the far north-west of the state, there are large signs introducing a political candidate to the voters.
This candidate’s name is Eric Abetz and, according to his signage, he “puts Tasmania first”.
People who follow federal politics closely might scratch their heads at this, because engaged voters will already know this fellow. Abetz is a Liberal senator for Tasmania. He’s been in the chamber since 1994. He’s spanned the Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. He’s been a cabinet minister and leader of the government in the Senate.
But the Abetz of the roadside signs has no visible party affiliation. Perhaps the navy blue text provides a suggestion. A glancing hint. But on the signs I’ve seen over the past week, there’s zero Liberal party branding. If you are a disengaged, low information voter, it’s possible you could conclude that Abetz is another fledgling political independent rather than a stalwart of the Liberal party who has kicked around major party politics since his youth, when he was a national president of the Australian Liberal Students Federation.
I’m not from Tasmania, so forgive me if there’s an inflection or a nuance here that I’m missing, but locals tell me there’s a distinct north-south identity in the state – which is a microcosm of the north-south identity of the mainland.
Northern Tasmanians say the veteran Liberal senator isn’t as well known in their communities as he is in Hobart. It’s also pretty clear, if you talk to people, that a lot of voters in the north feel very removed from all the shenanigans in Canberra. There is also palpable disaffection with the major parties from Launceston right through to the remote north-west. Being branded a Liberal isn’t necessarily a plus.
Having mapped the what, let’s move to the why – why is Abetz grinning at passing motorists in what appears to be a guerrilla political campaign a couple of weeks out from the official federal election contest?
The backstory is simple. The conservative stalwart was expected to take the prized No 1 spot on the Liberal Senate ticket for the coming election even though he’s no longer on the frontbench. It was widely speculated that Abetz and “Jonno” Duniam (currently a junior minister in the Morrison government) would take the top two positions on the ticket, with Wendy Askew in third.
But there was an upset. Abetz was relegated to the third spot after Duniam and Askew. It’s not impossible to win from that position, but it is hard.
People who know Abetz say he has no intention of bowing out quietly. So he’s running a below-the-line campaign to maximise his chances of remaining in the Senate. I’ve heard this week he is telling people this political offensive is very much a community-driven thing – his supporters are rallying to his cause. But if Ericmentum is organic, it has clear institutional tendencies. Abetz signage is currently dotted at regular intervals in prominent locations on people’s properties right along Tasmania’s main roads.
Readers on the mainland may not be aware that Tasmanians like to vote below the line. Some have a tendency to get behind grassroots insurrections rather than accede to the will of the faceless men and women who preselect major party candidates.
Most recently, when Liberal Richard Colbeck was demoted to fifth on the Liberal ticket, and the Labor senator Lisa Singh was demoted to sixth on her party’s ticket, both ran below-the-line campaigns. Singh triumphed in the double-dissolution election of 2016, becoming the first candidate to be elected on below-the-line votes since the above and below the line system was introduced in 1984. Colbeck also picked up a significant chunk of the vote, but lost in 2016. He returned to the Senate in 2017 after his colleague Stephen Parry exited during the section 44 fracas.
The ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, says 27% of Tasmanians voted below the line at the last federal election – that’s about four times the rate as the rest of the country. “They’ve had 110 years of experience with Hare Clark, where you can pick and choose the candidates,” Green says, adding with a chuckle, “that’s why parties are always very cautious about demoting candidates in Tasmania”.
I’m not sure whether a capital E establishment figure like Abetz has the necessary qualities to appeal to that outlaw spirit, but in any case, there will be fierce competition for the final Senate spot in Tasmania this time around.
Jacqui Lambie – who has a high profile and name recognition in the north of the state, isn’t up for re-election in 2022. But the Jacqui Lambie Network is throwing most of its resources at the looming Senate contest. Lambie wants Tammy Tyrrell – a woman who has worked behind the scenes with her for years – to join her in the chamber in Canberra.
Political strategists tell me Clive Palmer has now grabbed every available billboard in Tasmania, but Lambie has managed to nab the biggest one in the state – a whopper near a Bunnings store in Glenorchy on one of the main roads into Hobart.
From their Hobart perch, Lambie and Tyrrell grin down at passing motorists as traffic flows into the city. Their faces also adorn trailers that can be moved around to catch passing commuters. The implicit message is these two women are two peas in a pod: if you like Jacqui (who you know) you’ll like Tammy, even though you don’t know her. Tyrrell thinks she’s in with a shot. “I don’t want to be cocky, but I think I’m doing OK,” she told me this week in Devonport. “I think we’ve done enough to show people there’s an alternative and Jacqui is not the only loud girl in town.”
This Abetz versus Tyrrell vignette from Australia’s most southern state is just one of the really interesting Senate battles that will play out around the country between now and the middle of May.
I should be clear that it’s not just Abetz and Tyrrell slugging it out in Tasmania. Leanne Minshull is running for the Local party. Some strategists also think the One Nation Senate candidate Steve Mav could be in the mix for the final spot because he has reasonable name recognition.
Despite Tasmania’s high vaccination rates, there is some controversy in the community about mandates, and anti-vaxxers are looking for somewhere to park their votes. One person who knows the Tasmanian political scene well told me this week it was possible everybody was underestimating the United Australia party vote in the state because of that residual anger. We encountered one visual marker of this while driving past Oatlands. There’s a famous roadside bushranger sculpture in that part of the world. In the display, the bushranger is confronted by law enforcement. The enforcer at the moment is carrying a mocked-up syringe rather than a weapon.
Lambie has pitted herself against the anti-vaxxers, which creates a point of distinction between the Jacqui Lambie Network, Palmer and One Nation. It’s hard to say whether or not some of her base will punish her for that stance. It’s likely to be swings and roundabouts. Anti-vaxxers may park their votes elsewhere but it’s possible the network picks up votes from disaffected major party voters who affirm that position.
Looking elsewhere, Palmer is making a run for the Senate in Queensland. Given the enormous resources the mining magnate has at his disposal, you’d have to consider him a chance.
Nick Xenophon is also returning to the fray in South Australia after a bruising state election tilt in 2018 where his political operation crashed and burned. It’s entirely possible Xenophon is now yesterday’s man, but he has high name recognition with South Australian voters, and I suspect his attempted comeback will be welcome news to Lambie and Tyrrell in the event their Senate tilt succeeds.
Political reporters have a tendency during elections to focus obsessively on various pathways to victory through marginal House of Representative seats because governments are formed in the lower house. But micro parties in the Senate all want the opportunity to be kingmakers because this maximises rates of the return to their constituents. In this context, the Senate battle is always interesting.
Viewing the contest through that micro-party lens, several scenarios are possible. Perhaps One Nation emerges with a critical bloc, with Palmer hovering in the background. Perhaps there’s a Lambie bloc with a returned Xenophon hovering in the background.
Given we are now only weeks away from the faux campaign transitioning to the real one, given the 2022 contest is already well under way on the ground right around the country, it pays to remember that the makeup of the next Senate matters.
The House contest determines who governs.
But the Senate always shapes what happens next.
