So after a week of speculation and rumour, Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings acted today to move Tasmania towards the next state election.

Giddings met with the Governor this morning, and then proceeded to sack the two Greens ministers from her cabinet and announce an election date of March 15.

Parliament will be recalled to consider legislation in regard to the Tamar Valley pulp mill in late January, which has caused Greens MP Kim Booth to announce plans to move a motion of no confidence.

While Giddings now leads a government without necessarily commanding the support of a majority of the House of Assembly, the impending election makes that status largely irrelevant.

If a motion of no confidence was to pass before the planned date for the issuing of writs on February 19, then Giddings would have the choice of either advising the Governor to ask another member of Parliament to attempt to form a government, or to call an election. Since an election is already planned for March, it would not be unreasonable for the Governor to stick with the planned date of March 15.

March 15 is the closest date to the four-year anniversary of the 2010 election, but many election observers had hoped that Tasmania would vote on a different date, to avoid a clash with the South Australian state election. This will be the third successive election to be held on the same date as the South Australian election.

South Australian elections are fixed to be held on the third Saturday of March. While plans for fixed terms in Tasmania were floated prior to the last election, nothing has come about on this regard. The choice of March 15 keeps open the possibility that Tasmania will eventually fix its election date to the same date as South Australia.

Giddings’ decision to drop the Greens from the ministry is unexpected, but rings hollow so close to the election. After governing with minimal discord in an effective coalition since 2010, she has decided to make a change at a point when her government has run out of time. Giddings has claimed that she would not form a government in the future which would include Greens ministers, but such promises have been made before and could well be forgotten if the numbers require Greens’ support.

The most likely outcome remains the Liberal Party gaining the three seats they need to form a majority, with their best chances being in Bass, Braddon and Lyons. Having said that, there remains the possibility of the Liberal Party failing to win a majority, at which point one of the two major parties will need Greens’ support to form government.

The Tally Room guide covers all five electorates, and conversations have started about the campaigns in each electorate.

Read the Tally Room guide to the Tasmanian election.

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Franklin covers southern Tasmania, including the eastern suburbs of Hobart and the Huon Valley.

The seat produced a result of 3-2 in favour of the ALP at the 1998 election. In 2002, the Liberal Party lost one of their seats to the Greens, and the 3-1-1 split was repeated in 2006.

In 2010, the ALP lost their third seat to the Liberal Party.

The electorate is home to all three party leaders: Lara Giddings, Will Hodgman and Nick McKim. The electorate is also represented by the ALP’s David O’Byrne and Liberal MP Jacquie Petrusma.

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Tree damage

We estimate that Cyclone Monica damaged or destroyed 140 million trees across a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of woodland savanna, the dominant biome of north Australia. This region experiences a wet-dry tropical climate, with a six-month dry season that results in fuel curing. We wanted to examine the impact that the massive increase in fuel load (vegetation debris) following Cyclone Monica would have on the region’s fire regime and resultant greenhouse-gas emissions.

Remote sensing, combined with previously published observations describing the cyclone’s wind field and tree damage extent, enabled us to map the damage zone. We then used remote-sensing data for six years prior to and six years following the cyclone (MODIS gross primary productivity and fire detection data) to discover the following.

• There was a significant decline in the region’s productivity (directly proportional to its capacity to sequester carbon) relative to pre-cyclone rates, and this reduced productivity persisted for four years post-cyclone.
• Fire frequencies were extreme in the year following the cyclone, consequently unleashing increased amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. However, fire frequencies more or less returned to pre-cyclone conditions in the years that followed – an unexpected result.
• On-ground fuel loads were estimated to potentially release 51.2 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent, equating to around 10% of Australia’s accountable greenhouse-gas emissions.

Modelling suggests that the frequency of mega-cyclones may increase as a result of climate change, although there is much debate about this. While this trend is not evident in observational data to date, our research highlights the immediate importance of understanding how climate variability and disturbance affects savanna dynamics if landscapes in this region are to be used as enhanced carbon sinks in emission offset schemes.

The team reported their findings as part of the ERL Focus on Extreme Events and the Carbon Cycle.

Related links

• Impacts of an extreme cyclone event on landscape-scale savanna fire, productivity and greenhouse gas emissions L B Hutley et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 045023
• ERL Focus on Extreme Events and the Carbon Cycle
• Lindsay Hutley, Charles Darwin University School of Environment

About the author

Lindsay Hutley is a lecturer in environmental science at Charles Darwin University School of Environment, Australia. His research focuses on tropical savannas and how vegetation has adapted to the physical environment imposed by a wet-dry tropical climate as experienced in northern Australia. He works on carbon and water cycling in tropical and temperate Eucalypt-dominated ecosystems and, in particular, studies the impact of fire, grazing and weed invasion on these processes.

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