That a Tasmanian state election will be held on March 20 is not exactly news — Premier David Bartlett has been making clear for the past year that the state would again go to the polls on the same day as South Australia, to the chagrin of election watchers across the land. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting Bartlett’s visit to the Governor on Friday, marking the official start of what promises to be a tough five-week campaign for the government.

Like a number of its mainland counterparts, the Tasmanian Labor government has suddenly begun feeling its age. After successive landslide wins, it now faces an election for the first time without the electoral asset of a conservative government in Canberra. The Liberals have found in Will Hodgman their most convincing leader in many years, and are presenting a relatively united front despite occasional public eruptions of factional hostility.

Labor will no longer benefit from the perception of being the stronger horse, which in the past has attracted large numbers of voters hostile to minority government — a fact Bartlett has acknowledged in distancing himself from Labor’s long-standing position that it would not govern with Greens support.

The most recent poll in the state, an EMRS survey of 1000 voters conducted in early November, had Labor’s vote plunging to 33%, with the Liberals on 44% and the Greens on 21% (compared with 49.3%, 31.8% and 16.6% at the 2006 election). Liberal leader Will Hodgman had also opened up a commanding 40-28 lead as preferred premier, a dramatic reversal on earlier polling which suggested Bartlett had righted the ship after taking the reins from Paul Lennon. If this is even remotely accurate, Tasmania is all but certain to emerge with a minority government for the first time since the number of members per electoral divisions was cut from seven to five in 1998.

Labor would need to limit its losses to one seat to maintain its majority, and it can practically chalk up one loss to the Liberals already in Franklin. Labor won its third seat in Franklin by the skin of its teeth in 2006, and two of the three elected members have since quit parliament, leaving the seats to be defended by little-known newcomers.

The swings required for the Liberals to make gains from Labor in Lyons and Denison are somewhat greater, but still in the eminently achievable range of 5 to 6 per cent. If Labor experiences any appreciable decline in Braddon, they will only be able to hold their third seat if a substantial lift in the Liberal vote freezes out the Greens. Should that lift be too substantial – in the order of 12 per cent – Labor would then be at risk of losing the seat to the Liberals instead. Only in Bass, where Labor is defending two seats rather than three, can they be truly confident of holding the line.

A majority for the Liberals would involve the enormous achievement of six seats gained from five electorates, requiring an increase in the primary vote far beyond even the most optimistic readings of the polls. The Greens on the other hand need only hold their ground to assume a balance-of-power position that has eluded them since 1998, and their record when faced by unpopular Labor governments suggests this will not be a problem for them. They would be hopeful of winning an extra seat in the only division that currently denies them, Braddon, and are perhaps fantasising once again about winning a second seat in Denison.