Snap State Election Called, First Test Of ALP Support In 2024

The Australian state of Tasmania will hold a snap state election on 23 March following the refusal of two independent members of the state legislature to negotiate a new governing agreement with the incumbent minority Liberal adminstration of Premier Jeremy Rockliff. This will be the first state election since New South Wales voted in March 2023 to oust the incumbent centre-right Liberal-National coalition in favour of a minority centre-left Labor administration. While Tasmania sits as Australia's smallest state in terms of population and size, with Queensland voting later in 2024 and the next federal election due by Oct 2025 at the latest, the Tasmanian vote could be used as a bellwether for broader gov't support.

• The latest state-level opinion polling, from YouGov, shows the Liberals on 31% (down from 48.7% in 2021), while Labor sit on 27% (down from 28.2%) with the left-wing environmentalist Greens on 15% (from 12.4%). The major change has been the strong polling support for the big-tent, social conservative Jacquie Lambie Network (JLN), on 20% support.
• Australian PM Anthony Albanese's Australian Labor Party trail Peter Dutton's Liberal-National coalition in party polling, but lead in two-party preferred vote polling.
• The federal gov't has made changes to its proposed income tax cut plans in recent weeks, but polling from Guardian Essential shows public opposition to the broader tax reform programme remains in place.