Braddon |
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ELECTORATE MAP
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PARTY VOTE AT 2014 ELECTION
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HISTORICAL VOTE RESULTS
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HISTORICAL SEAT RESULTS
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CANDIDATES
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The north-western electorate of Braddon gave the Liberals their biggest triumph of the 2014 landslide, delivering them four out of five seats. The electorate is dominated by Burnie and Devonport, and extends to the state's north-western coastal areas, encompassing Currie, Penguin, Savage River, Smithton, Stanley, Ulverstone, Waratah and Wynyard, along with King Island. This is an electorally mixed area, with conservative small towns and farming districts balancing timber and mining industries that have traditionally provided a solid base of working-class support for Labor.
Labor was dominant in Braddon for two decades prior to the early 1980s, when the decline in the area's industries combined with the Franklin Dam controversy to dramatically swing the pendulum to the Liberals. It would not swing back until the federal and state elections of 1998, which initiated a decade of Labor dominance that was tellingly interrupted at the federal election of 2004, when Mark Latham's conservationist forestry policy powered a 7.0% swing to the Liberals. This result also pointed to the area's weakness for the Greens, whose only win in the era of five-member regions came with Paul O'Halloran's election at the party's high-water mark in 2010. The two seats gained by the Liberals in 2014 were those of O'Halloran and Labor's Brenton Best, despite the efforts the latter had gone to to signal his distance from the Greens.
Liberal candidates
ADAM BROOKS FELIX ELLIS ROGER JAENSCH JEREMY ROCKLIFF JOAN RYLAH |
The four Liberals elected in 2014 included two incumbents who achieved full quotas in their own right, and two newcomers who recorded barely more than 4.0%. Adam Brooks was slightly the better performing of the two incumbents, having first taken a seat on the back of a highly visible campaign in 2010. This was achieved at the expense of Liberal incumbent Brett Whiteley, who would later hold the federal seat for a term from 2013. Brooks was made parliamentary secretary after the 2014 election victory, then promoted to cabinet when Paul Harriss resigned in February 2016, taking Harriss's mining portfolio along with the newly created building and construction and consumer affairs portfolios. However, he shortly found himself in hot water over his use of an email account from a mining services firm he was supposed to be divesting himself from. Four months into the job, Brooks resigned after acknowledging he was wrong to claim the address was no longer in use, which he had done three times before an estimates hearing. A promised audit of the email account to verify Brooks's claim that he was only using it for personal emails has been repeatedly delayed, ostensibly due to complications arising from Brooks's divorce.
Jeremy Rockliff was first elected at the age of 32 at the 2002 election, at which he was the highest polling out of a fresh slate of Liberal candidates following the retirement of the two incumbents. He has improved his vote at each election since, achieving quotas in his own right in 2010 and 2014, and maintained the deputy leadership under Will Hodgman since after the 2006 election. In government he has served as Minister for Education and Primary Industries. Rockliff is a factional moderate, and has family connections with the Sassafras farming region that reportedly go back 150 years.
The two newer members elected in 2014 were Roger Jaensch, former executive chairman of the Cradle Coast Authority, and Joan Rylah, founder of pro-development group Unlock Tasmania. Jaensch and Rylah respectively voted for and against a motion same-sex marriage in November 2015, seen as a litmus test for the party's moderate-conservative divide. The only non-incumbent on the Liberal ticket is Felix Ellis, a plumber.
Labor candidates
SHANE BROAD THEMBA BULLE ANITA DOW DANIELLE KIDD WAYNE ROBERTS |
With Bryan Green having retired from both the party leadership and from parliament in March 2017, Labor's only incumbent in Braddon is Shane Broad, who succeeded Green on the recount. Broad is an agricultural scientist, former Central Coast councillor and one-time staffer to Sid Sidebottom, the former federal member for Braddon. Broad finished third out of the Labor candidates in 2014 behind defeated incumbent Brenton Best, but received a substantially larger share of Green's preferences to win the recount ahead of Brenton Best, who lost his seat in 2014.
The other candidates on Labor's ticket are Themba Bulle, a Zimbabwe-born general practitioner from Burnie; Anita Dow, who was mayor of Burnie from October 2014 until she stood aside last October to focus on her election campaign; Danielle Kidd, the general manager of the University of Tasmania's Burnie campus, and a former staffer to premiers Michael Field and Jim Bacon, and in Victoria's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet; and Wayne Roberts, a Devonport high school teacher.
Other candidates
The lead Greens candidate is Scott Jordan, Save the Tarkine campaign co-ordinator and tourism project officer, who sought preselection to fill Christine Milne's Senate vacancy in 2015, but was defeated by Nick McKim.
The Jacqui Lambie Network has a field of five candidates, none with a particularly high profile, although Rodney Flowers is a former Circular Head councillor. Flowers has made headlines with his arrest for riding a quad bike in the Arthur-Pieman conservation area, which he has been campaigning to have reopened to four-wheel drives.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers has a ticket of four candidates, of whom the party's designated lead candidate is Brett Neal, a farmer from Yolla.
Another starter is former Labor MP Brenton Best, who is running as “independent Labor” candidate. Best has accused Labor of trying to “bully” him out of running, and has lately adopted the cause of opposition to its policy of phasing out poker machines in clubs and pubs. Best held a seat from 1996 until his defeat in 2014, and was noted in his final term for his fiercely critical attitude to Labor's governing alliance with the Greens.