Legislative Council 2022: Pembroke By-Election

PEMBROKE (ALP vs Lib 8.65%)
Retiring Incumbent: Jo Siejka (ALP)

This is my guide page for the 2022 Legislative Council by-election in Pembroke.  I will be covering the by-election count live on the night of Saturday 10 September.  If time permits I may also update my analysis of Legislative Council voting patterns before the day.

Earlier this year Huon, which Labor had won in 2020, had its own by-election and was won by independent Dean Harriss.  This shifted the numbers in the Council to four Labor, four Liberal and seven independents.  Of the seven independents, three are left-wing and one is lately (like Labor) slightly left of centre, while three are either known, or in Harriss's case expected, to be somewhat right of centre.  

Both the Council's left-plus-centre majority, which has existed since Siejka won Pembroke in the 2017 by-election, and the combined major party majority, which has existed since 2020, are at risk in this by-election.  While the current left-plus-centre majority is not realised on anywhere near every issue, and indeed the government has had a fairly easy time of things upstairs lately, it would be a great result for the government if its own candidate won the seat.   For more detail see my latest assessment of Legislative Council voting patterns, which finds Labor and independent Ruth Forrest to have moved into the centre of council voting after previously being placed on the left.

The winner will serve until May 2025.

Seat Profile

Pembroke (see map) is a small suburban seat that falls entirely within the City of Clarence on Hobart's eastern shore.  The electorate extends from Tranmere in the south to Geilston Bay in the north.  At the 2021 state election, the Liberals polled 42.6% in on-the-day booth voting at Pembroke booths, Labor 36.1%, Greens 16.9%.  After adjusting for postal and prepoll booths, a reasonable estimate is 44% Liberal, 35.5% Labor, 16.3% Green, making Pembroke slightly more Liberal and slightly less Green than the division of Franklin overall.  

The two most distinctive booths in Pembroke are Warrane (blue-collar and strong for Labor) and Tranmere (wealthy and strong for the Liberals).  There was a swing to the Greens from both major parties in 2021, with the Greens polling 23% at Montagu Bay and around 20% at Bellerive and the Lindisfarne booths, but in Mornington they managed only 9.5%.

Pembroke is a swing seat that has been held by both major parties back and forth in the last 30 years, with a brief independent interruption.  In general the major parties have taken it in turns to hold Pembroke comfortably, suggesting that the personal appeal of specific major party candidates (Peter McKay and Vanessa Goodwin for the Liberals, Allison Ritchie and Jo Siejka for Labor) has had a lot to do with it.  

Four of the last five Pembroke MLCs have resigned during a term, meaning that this is Pembroke's fourth by-election since 1999 (in which time the remaining seats combined have had just two).  Pembroke is unsurprisingly the all-time leader in by-elections with eight.  Pembroke has also had more female MLCs than any other division (four in a row - two divisions, Derwent and Huon are still yet to elect their first.)

At federal level Pembroke is very strongly pro-Labor (see comments).  

Retiring Incumbent

Jo Siejka (ALP) has resigned mid-term to move interstate for family reasons.  Siejka's husband is an engineer specialising in skyscrapers, of which Tasmania has a notable lack.  

Siejka was herself elected in a by-election caused by the resignation of the late Vanessa Goodwin for health reasons.  This by-election was a three-cornered contest between Liberal James Walker, Siejka and local mayor Doug Chipman.  Siejka led on primaries with 32.4% of the vote in a field of seven.  The Liberals managed to just stay ahead of Chipman but the extraordinary age and lifestyle based attacks they had mounted on the independent ex-Liberal Mayor came home to roost as Chipman's preferences broke slightly in favour of Siejka.  In 2019 gym owner Kristy Johnson (not to be confused with Kristie Johnston) was the Liberal candidate and Siejka was re-elected with a swing to her and a two-party vote of 58.65%.

While generally low-profile outside her electorate, Siejka's convincing re-election despite a slightly adverse redistribution showed among other things that she was a popular local member.  Siejka most recently held shadow ministries for Disability, Ageing, Youth and Community Services and Development.

Candidates (5)

Differences in the length of candidate sections reflect differences in the amount of information available to me at the time of writing, and I hope to expand some sections and add more links as candidates advertise themselves later.  

Luke Edmunds (Twitter, councillor page) is the endorsed Labor candidate.  Edmunds is a first-term Clarence City Councillor, having been elected in ninth place with 4.2% of the primary vote in 2018.  Edmunds was a staffer for Labor leader Rebecca White at the time but was elected as an independent candidate.  He is a journalist (described as "freelance sports journalist" on a former Twitter profile).  In his Council campaign he focused on basic council issues including investment in playgrounds, more frequent recycling and improving footpaths.  Edmunds lives in the electorate and has highlighted his status as a renter in his advertising.  Edmunds' former Twitter account @ledmunds21 was a longstanding #politas presence but appears to have been deleted since early July.   

Gregory Brown (Facebook, candidacy announcement) is the endorsed Liberal candidate.  Brown owns and operates a sheep and cattle farm at Sandford and is a former barman, licensee and raceday controller.  He lives within the electorate. Brown states he was a Labor voter until about 2000.  Brown's candidacy was announced only on August 10 and I expect to add more information if I can find it.  It has been reported that he is related to Labor Senator Carol Brown.

Deborah Brewer (Facebook) is the endorsed Greens candidate.  Brewer ran in the 2019 Nelson election where the Greens finished fifth with 11.1%, their vote being much affected by competition from likeminded independents Vica Bayley, Richard Griggs and the eventual winner Meg Webb.    She was also a minor Greens candidate for Franklin in 2014.  Brewer has a background in social work and education and in 2019 completed a PhD described by the Mercury as "looking at youth-at-risk and ensuring young people have opportunities in education."  She is a long-term teacher at TasTAFE (currently the Warrane campus within the electorate) and has worked as a social worker in East Timor (as a volunteer), in the Northern Territory  for the Defence Department and on Christmas Island.  She is also an Australian Education Union member. Brewer now lives at Lindisfarne, within the electorate.

Hans Willink (linkedin, Twitter, candidacy announcement, Youtube) is the lone independent candidate. Willink is among Tasmania's most prolific serial candidates, having run once for Senate (for the Science Party), twice for Legislative Council, twice for House of Assembly (including as a Liberal back in 1996) and six times for Clarence Council (missing the final seat by a modest 120 votes in 2014). He contested Pembroke in 2017 but ran last with 2.3% and ducked the 2019 contest saying "the more people get to know me, the less they appear to like me."  

Willink, in the distant past a Liberal branch president, aroused the ire of the Liberal Party with his "Independent liberal" signs in Nelson 2013, resulting in a heavy-handed letter where the party tried to claim it owned the colour "Liberal Blue".  His "Like Wilkie? Try Willink" campaign for Denison 2014 also got a frosty reception from the more famous independent.  Willink is an IT consultant and former army bomb disposal officer who has also worked for the police, the public service and the HEC, and as an advisor for Tony Mulder. He was also Tasmania's first ever Uber driver.  As at the previous election, Willink lived at Acton Park, just outside the electorate. 

Carlo di Falco (Shooters, Fishers and Farmers) (announcement) is from Forcett in the adjacent electorate of Rumney and also ran for Pembroke in 2017 (3.1%) and 2019 (3.7%), and in several other elections for the party.  He is a target shooter, hunter and gun collector.  A previous bio said he had "been involved in the State National Service Rifle discipline for 6 years hosting a National event in the position of discipline chair in 2013." He has written op eds in the Mercury arguing against gun control and to raise concerns about restrictions being placed on gun owners because of thefts.  He has also appeared on Tasmania Talks.

At the previous election, di Falco has flagged support for "proscribed" (I think he meant prescribed) burnoffs in the wilderness World Heritage Area, strengthening whistleblower legislation and increasing funding for the Ombudsman and Integrity Commission. He also flagged an intention to work for better mental and preventative health services, and to better represent "rural voters".  (There are no rural voters in Pembroke, except possibly the Liberal candidate.)

Issues

Both major parties have been struggling lately with the Liberals facing an alarming exodus of MPs since the state election while Labor has had administrators appointed to resolve factional and campaign problems.  It is surprising this hasn't attracted more independent runners, with only Willink so far running on the issue of upper house independence.

Issues mentioned by various candidates on the campaign trail so far have included health, cost of living, housing, climate change, infrastructure, poker machines and public transport including the Derwent River ferry.  Cost of living and health are the two issues most raised by candidates.  Concerning the latter, parts of Pembroke have a high proportion of retirees. The ferry issue is interesting since this is the first election at which the very long-mooted ferry has actually existed, following a successful trial. The ferry was originally conceived of as a commute for workers to take the pressure off the road network but Brown has supported expanding it to service the western shore markets on Saturday.  This then became an announceable with the government declaring on Aug 28 that it would do exactly that.

Most of the mentions of specific issues I have seen from candidates so far have been in very general terms so hopefully we will get more specifics later - of course everyone wants more health services and the cost of living to go down, but how do they propose to accomplish it.  Brown has proposed that the federal government extend the 50% fuel excise cut, and the Liberals have said state Labor leader Rebecca White should ask the Albanese government to act to prevent petrol price rises.

Willink, via a flier modestly entitled "Cheapest Pamphlet From The Best Candidate" has raised political donation laws, independents in the upper house and road bypasses as policy issues, the latter ensuring that the Mornington roundabout is mentioned on the campaign trail for at least the sixth Pembroke election in a row.  

Power Prices: One exception to the lack of detail has been power prices - Edmunds has stated that if elected he will seek an inquiry into a recent 11.8% increase in power prices, which Labor links to Tasmania's involvement in the National Energy Market and a lack of price capping.  The Liberals claim Labor is scaremongering about power prices, citing previous falls.  However the Liberals have frequently supported delinking from the NEM in the past, eg in 2018 Guy Barnett saying "we are now in a position where between now and mid-July or mid-2021 we want to delinking to occur."  (See detailed discussion here.)

Waste Levy: The government's newly introduced waste levy ($20 per tonne of rubbish, to increase to $40 and $60 over later years) has been attacked by Labor as a "bin tax" with Labor claiming it will not reduce waste, will worsen cost of living issues, and calling for it to be scrapped.  However the Greens have supported the levy calling it a "gutsy policy".  The government says that funds raised will go directly to waste and pollution management.

Campaign

Labor got the jump on the Liberals in ground campaigning for Pembroke and were able to enjoy more than a week with nobody else running; they were also able to use MPs to campaign given that the lower house was prorogued because of an unrelated lower house vacancy.  This situation resulted in smoking press releases at twenty paces (serve by Dean Winter, return by Nic Street).  I understand Labor to be well ahead in the corflute and ground game wars in what seems to be a low-energy by-election.

The election comes at a time when many voters would have switched off politics following the federal election, but it will also be competing for attention with the upcoming council poll.  Because Pembroke is the core of the Clarence council area it often attracts a council-like style of campaigning and is often a magnet for Clarence Council alumni and aspirants.  

Without cues such as colour and party name it would be difficult to tell from the major parties' campaigns which candidate is which as Brown's messaging is quite working-class.  The Greens' social media activity level seems lower than normal.

Prospects

I would not take too much notice of Labor's large margin on paper.  The seat's recent history doesn't have that much to do with the to and fro of lower house voting patterns or previous results and seems to be more about specific candidates.  Edmunds' established profile as a councillor, albeit a first-term one, may be more of a factor, and this plus his headstart in campaigning suggests the Liberals' claim of underdog status has merit in a generally low-profile contest.  

Mostly Labor has performed strongly in Legislative Council elections in the south in recent years.  The loss of Huon this year was an exception, but it took an out-of-the-box candidate to win that seat in the first place. I think there will be much surprise if anyone but Edmunds wins.

The Greens don't have much of a track record in this seat, polling below 10% in 2017 when they last ran, but this is the first time for a long time they've had a candidate who lives in the electorate (Pembrokers view candidates from the other side of the Derwent River in about the same way as Western Australians view starlings.) The party did enjoy swings in the seat at the federal election, on top of good LegCo results earlier this year, and might benefit from the Labor vacancy, general anti-major-party sentiment and having the only female candidate.  All the same I'd be a bit surprised if they got into the 20s; even mid-teens would be respectable.  Willink and di Falco will probably do a little better than in the past given the smaller field and Willink being the only independent but neither is likely to make double figures.