There is much to report from Tasmania, as all concerned scramble to get candidates in position for an election no one saw coming. After winning three seats last year and promptly falling to pieces, the Jacqui Lambie Network will not contest the election, while One Nation is not registered at state level. Stepping into the breach to some extent are the Nationals, who are placing themselves at odds with both major parties by opposing the AFL stadium deal, and have recruited two of the three incumbents who were elected under the JLN banner. I’m going to hold off publishing an election guide until the announcement of nominations on Friday week gives me all the information I require. For now, a summary of each of the five contests:
Bass. With recently defeated federal member Bridget Archer joining incumbents Michael Ferguson, Rob Fairs and Simon Wood, the Liberals have a fierce internal contest for their three seats with no guarantee that it won’t be reduced to two. Labor faces a very different situation, with Michelle O’Byrne’s retirement leaving Janie Finlay the only defending incumbent. Other candidates are yet to be announced. Greens incumbent Cecily Rosol is presumably well placed. Rebekah Pentland is the only one of three Jacqui Lambie Network members from 2024 who will seek re-election as an independent rather than with the Nationals, who will presumably field a candidate of their own.
Braddon. Here the Liberal ticket is even more crowded, with two former federal members joining a trio of incumbents that includes Premier Jeremy Rockliff together with Roger Jaensch and Felix Ellis. One is Gavin Pearce, who declined to recontest the federal seat of Braddon at the May election, at which former Senator Anne Urquhart gained it for Labor. The other is Stephen Parry, who served in the Senate from 2005 until the Section 44 crisis in 2017, and last month ran unsuccessfully for the upper house seat of Montgomery. Labor has two defending incumbents, Shane Broad and Anita Dow, and one further candidate announced in Central Coast councillor Amanda Diprose, whose 2.1% vote share at the 2024 election was the fourth highest out of seven Labor candidates. Miriam Beswick is running for the Nationals after winning a seat for the Jacqui Lambie Network in 2024 and parting company with the party shortly afterwards (together with Bass member Rebekah Pentland). Braddon is the only division currently unrepresented by the Greens, whose lead candidate is environmental lawyer Vanessa Bleyer.
Clark. Liberal (Simon Behrakis and Madeleine Ogilvie), Labor (Ella Haddad and Josh Willie) and the Greens (Vica Bayley and Helen Burnet) each have two defending incumbents. The two majors have each announced a third candidate: the Liberals have Marcus Vermey, a butcher from Sandy Bay who did well to poll 5.5% in 2024, while Labor has Luke Martin, an adviser to Dean Winter and former Glenorchy alderman. Kristie Johnston is seeking re-election as an independent, and a further high-profile independent has emerged in Elise Archer, who held a seat for the Liberals from 2010 to 2023 and served as Attorney-General under three Premiers (each of whom received unflattering assessments from her in text messages that were leaked to the media, precipitating her departure from parliament).
Franklin. The main development here is the candidacy of independent Peter George, who polled 21.7% as a candidate at the federal election with support from Climate 200, outpolling the Liberals and reaching the final preference count. This may complicate matters for the seat’s existing independent, estranged former Labor leader David O’Byrne. The Liberals have three defending incumbents in Jacquie Petrusma, Eric Abetz and Nic Street; Labor two with party leader Dean Winter and Meg Brown, who will be joined on the ticket by Unions Tasmania secretary Jess Munday, fresh from a surprise defeat in the preselection to fill Anne Urquhart’s Senate vacancy. Another party leader, Rosalie Woodruff, is presumably well placed to defend the Greens’ seat.
Lyons. Guy Barnett, Mark Shelton and Jane Howlett are seeking re-election for the Liberals. Labor has two incumbents in Jen Butler and Casey Farrell, but the latter has only been in parliament since March, when he won the recount to fill the vacancy created by Rebecca White’s successful move to the federal seat in May. The Mercury reports a Labor ticket to be announced today will include Brian Mitchell, who held the federal seat from 2016 until he agreed to make way for White. Incumbent Tabatha Badger is defending the Greens’ seat. Andrew Jenner, who was the only one of the three Jacqui Lambie Network members to remain with the party after its fracture in August 2024, will presumably be rubber-stamped as a Nationals candidate at a preselection on Saturday. Also seeking Nationals preselection is John Tucker, who held a seat as a Liberal from 2018 to 2023 and then as an independent until his defeat at the March 2024 election.
@ MI – Labor could have easily formed coalition or minority government.
I suspect they could have sewed up confidence and supply in exchange for a single promise – to listen to the voters and cancel the stadium.
Considering the need to negotiate legislation through the upper house, with broadly the same sorts of people, I’d suggest going further (giving more concessions for a Coalition Government bound to support all government legislation) would not have been in anyone’s interest
AFL would have backflipped immediately and given Tasmania the AFL team regardless. More teams = more sportsbet revenue, even if the stadium isn’t new.
Allowing the greens near power leads to an electoral wipe-out in any subsequent election. The greens either provide supply or don’t. That’s the only power they have. If they choose to oppose any governing party because they want to rule from a tiny minority, then there’s no use even talking to them.
You’d think after the last federal election they might have learned this. But they seem determined to make sure that any government doesn’t function if they don’t do what they say.
We’ll see where the numbers land Pi but the reality of the situation is that you can’t govern like you’re in majority if you only have a third of the seats in Parliament
The voters will decide what that Parliament will look like, the parties need to work with what the people decide
The greens doing it again, as always. Thinking that their 10% lets them speak for the 30+%. The greens can’t govern at all, probably because they collectively have a big problem counting. So we’ll muddle through until people realize that voting for greens leads to nothing but chaos and disfunction. The greens think that blackmail is their path to power. They will be asked a single question; Do you provide supply? If you don’t, oh well, that’s just more greens chaos and disfunction. If you do, that’s your part to play in its entirety.
Voice Endeavour, I dont, I’ve not got anything to add as I’ve said it all in earlier posts. My view is they could have formed government and the moment they tired to do anything it would have fallen apart. Like I say, would’ve evaporated faster than hydrogen 4.
MI: “MB, formal answer regarding your question. We’re not down to that level of policy question yet. Informal answer thanks for bringing it to our attention it’s now on the radar of the shadow minister as something to look at.”
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Thanks so much for doing that. I’m not overly optimistic that they will make any promises in regard to it. Bec White ran reasonably hard with it in 2018, and then was much quieter about the issue in 2021. I didn’t look too hard in 2024, but I don’t recall it being part of Labor’s campaign then. It’s sorely needed, so I’m hoping that, even if they don’t make a promise about it, they’ll still allow it to reopen anyway if they form government.
Interesting interview with Kevin Boneham on the Sunday Shot (starts at around 45 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/live/kqg2VOMJtnE
updated poll on Tas Stadium:
“The Tasmanian Parliament should renegotiate with the AFL to avoid building a new stadium”.
69% agreed
27% disagreed
The same percentage (69%) of women and men agreed
More Labor voters (71%) than Liberal voters (56%) agreed
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/whether-for-or-against-the-stadium-tasmanians-overwhelmingly-feel-dudded-by-the-afl-poll/
If those SA numbers were replicated in the Tassie election…..the ALP would probably be able to form majority government…… and their hatred of the Tassie Greens would be irrelevant.
Otherwise…..
The greens political party treats everyone as an enemy to be blackmailed at every opportunity, especially the ALP, and they wonder why they’re not trusted.
Thanks re the poll Mostly Interested, pretty consistent with what’s been published previously. Big question of course is how much it influences the voting on the 19th
Hopefully we get a poll on voting intention soon
p.s. apologies to Kevin for getting his name wrong in my last post
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/23/tasmanian-leaders-environment-laws-protect, chop it down, dam it close, dig it up
Here’s a gift link to the Australian article referenced in the Guardian article.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/tasmanian-labor-leader-dean-winter-urges-pm-to-adopt-radical-forestrystyle-plan-to-cut-green-tape/news-story/b886b7b8471e46ac6949b19415c2a2a9?giftid=dzey7wbuCV
Pi aren’t Labor doing the same thing as you allege the Greens Political Party are doing? A mere 29 percent of the vote and only 10 seats and they demanded that the Liberals change leader because…Reels of blackmail to me.
PS At the 2024 election the Greens Political Party scored 13.89 percent of the vote.
TW: “A mere 29 percent of the vote”
94 of the seats. Try to work out how a preferential voting system works and why that’s important to such a result. It will assist in your understanding.
Interesting timing with the announcement and that the inquiry is continuing during the campaign
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-25/cricket-tasmania-premier-strike-deal-for-afl-hobart-stadium-roof/105455648
Pi: “94 of the seats. ” This is the Tasmanian election thread. Paying attention to which thread you’re on is good for understanding too.
Looks like the record for the most independents to nominate (excluding the proto-Greens “Green Independents” in 1989-92), is going to fall as I have 32 on the books already including 12 in Braddon. 32 matches the record set in 1982 at a time when you needed a running mate to get your own column. Maybe not all of these will run but any not running are bound to be outnumbered by those who declare tonight or tomorrow or are only revealed when nominations are announced. (The number of nonames who escape even my radar is increasing in recent elections.)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-25/state-budget-pefo-treasury-debt-3billion-worse/105459198 …
Seems like PEFO confirms Tassie can’t afford the stadium
No predictions, especially without fresh polling, but it’ll be interesting to see how many of the record number of independents Kevin mentioned potentially running get elected
Feels like Tassie needs a circuit breaker
A Tasmanian team without a stadium would rack up approximately $15 million in debt a year. Who is going to pay for this? The revenue they will lose from not being able to host clubs like Collingwood and Carlton sets them up for failure before they even start.
The proposed stadium only holds 23,000 so an increase of a few thousand on the current grounds
Cant understand the polling about the stadium, most ppl I talk to across the state and from diferent political leanings mostly agree that the stadium will be fantastic for Tasmania. When we are already billions in debt what difference is 1 more billion going to do. This will create jobs and bring ppl to the state, Ive had so many from the mainland say they cant wait to come and watch a footy game in the new stadium and spend a weekend in Tassie. Im sure its just the noisy minority again. Yes Team Yes Stadium
@Yes Stadium,
“When we are already billions in debt what difference is 1 more billion going to do.”
It’s going to do about 50 million a year in additional interest payments that need to be repaid each and every year.
York Park fits 19 500 people. The new stadium will fit 22 500.
Clearly, York Park is a good enough place to play AFL football, because Hawthorn regularly play there in AFL matches.
That last 3 000 people will only be reliably filled when one of the “big four” Melbourne clubs play there, and in any finals, so lets be generous and say that’s five times a year.
Therefore, the new stadium will provide an additional fifteen thousand people at sixty bucks a ticket, or lets call it a million a year in additional revenue over playing at York Park.
It’ll be interesting to see what the experts think now the candidates are all announced and the ballot draws completed
Kevin Bonham has the full list on his blog plus comments on them all
Interesting points for me
Nats running in 3 seats, avoiding Hobart, with 4 candidates in Lyons
Independents with their own column in every seat including Peter George in Franklin with a full list of 7 candidates, probably gets him over the line, plus a stack of ungrouped independents all over
Labor, Libs and Greens with a full list of 35 candidates each
3 weeks to go
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2025/06/tasmanian-nationals-are-lambie-chaos-20.html
Tasmanian Nationals Are Lambie Chaos 2.0
Yes Stadium – the purpose of polling (if done well) is to find out what the people you don’t talk to are thinking! People tend to move in social circles where they encounter people with similar views, but also some people are prone to frame their opinions to fit in with those around them at a given time.
This time in 3 weeks we’ll be picking through the results after seeing what Tasmanians had decided the night before
It could be anything
Casey’s first election as well, he gets a fun one to kick things off
Larissa Waters visiting Tassie, I wonder which other party leaders will make an appearance?
Good to see some pushback starting from the club Presidents on the AFL, not sure they’ll all be on the same page but the AFL needs to cave or chip in more to help pay for it
https://www.nine.com.au/sport/afl/news-2025-tassie-devils-essendon-bombers-president-caroline-wilson-20250629-p5mb4z.html
https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2025/06/how-to-best-use-your-vote-in-2025.html
How To Best Use Your Vote In The 2025 Tasmanian Election
New thread.