What Happens If An Ineligible Candidate Wins In A Tasmanian State Election?

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage.  Link to main guide page including links to seat guides and voting advice.

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Something bubbling away in the state election campaign which I have so far avoided writing a full article on is the alleged controversy (and I don't believe the claims really have any merit) about Franklin Labor candidate Jessica Munday's eligibility to be elected.  However the appearance in today's Mercury (and also now Pulse) of a claim that the entire election might have to be voided and rerun over this is something that I think I should comment about.  Advance summary: no.  I also thought this was a good opportunity for a general article about ineligibility in Hare-Clark elections and what can be done about it if it occurs.  

The debate concerns Munday's unresigned membership at the time of nomination of the WorkCover Tasmania board.  The Liberal Party maintains that Munday is ineligible under Section 32  of the Constitution Act 1934 (effectively the Tasmanian Constitution) which states:

(1) Except as otherwise expressly provided, if any Member of either House shall accept

any pension payable, out of the Public Account, during the pleasure of the Crown or any

office of profit or emolument by the appointment of –

(a) the Governor or the Governor in Council; or

(b) a State instrumentality –

his seat shall thereupon become vacant.

(2) The provisions of subsection (1) do not apply to a person by reason only that he

holds the office of Minister of the Crown or Secretary to Cabinet for this State.

(3) No judge of the Supreme Court, and no person holding any office of profit or

emolument to which the provisions of subsection (1) apply, shall be capable of being

elected to, or of holding, a seat in either House.

There is no dispute so far that Munday is a person holding such an office.  Labor however say that Munday is eligible under the Constitution (State Employees) Act 1944 which at least to some degree otherwise expressly provided as follows:

2.   Employees in employ of State may be elected to Parliament

(1)  Nothing contained in subsection (3) of section 32 of the Constitution Act 1934 shall extend to any person otherwise qualified who holds any office of profit or emolument in the public service of the State, or in any business or undertaking carried on by any person, body, or authority on behalf of the State.

(2)  Any person to whom subsection (1) applies shall –

(a) forthwith on being elected to a seat in either House of Parliament cease to hold such office; and

(b) be entitled to leave of absence for a period not exceeding two months for the purpose of contesting a Parliamentary election, but shall not be entitled to any salary during his absence from duty for that purpose: Provided that this paragraph shall not affect any right of any such person to leave of absence under any Act or any regulations or by-laws thereunder.

Munday is not a state public servant under the provisions of what is now the State Services Act 2000.  She is a "crown servant" appointed by the Governor to serve the State on the advice of the relevant minister.  The question is whether her position is an "office of profit or emolument [..] in any business or undertaking carried on by any person, body, or authority on behalf of the State".  In the event that it is, as it would seem to very obviously be on a plain English reading of the clause in isolation, there is no problem at all and the entire thing is a massive beatup.    However the heading of the section suggests it refers to "employees".  The State Services Act 2000 itself has intepretations under which such boards are state authorities, however those interpretations are for the specific purposes of the State Services Act 2000.  The correct interpretation of the 1944 Act here is outside my expertise and I'm awaiting any qualified comments on it.  My assumption however is that Munday is eligible, pending any clear evidence otherwise.

The legal opinion that the Liberal Party has obtained from barrister Chris Gunson SC explains in detail how Munday meets the definition in Section 32 of the Constitution Act 1934 but unfortunately it does not comment at all about Labor's defence or even display an awareness that Labor has raised it.  I would have expected if the Liberals were seriously interested in proving Munday to be ineligible rather than spreading some FUD and getting a few headlines then they would have ensured the defence was addressed in the advice.  It would be interesting to see if the Liberal Party has any legal advice about Labor's defence or if for that matter Labor will release advice on the issue.  Munday herself has advice from a former Solicitor-General that she is eligible.  [Update: this advice is now covered here - the advice is by Michael O'Farrell SC.  O'Farrell specifically references the 1944 Act and says that he does not think "there can be any doubt that the WorkCover Board is engaged in an undertaking, and carries that out as a body or authority on behalf of the state".]  

The rest of this article isn't written to take seriously the idea that Munday is ineligible.  It's written because the general matter of what happens if someone is ineligibly elected in Hare-Clark is a matter that hasn't had much attention, and this is a good example to talk about as it involves a candidate who at this stage might or might not be elected.

Consequences of ineligibility: if candidate won

In federal elections the matter is well settled.  If a member of the House of Representatives is ineligibly elected then the solution is a by-election and the ineligible member can recontest if they are now eligible.  If a Senator is ineligibly elected then the solution is a special count at which the entire Senate count for the state or territory is redone without the ineligible Senator, typically electing the next candidate down on their party's ticket.  This excludes the disqualified Senator until the next election, unless they get appointed on somebody else's casual vacancy.  

However for state elections conducted under Hare-Clark the answer is complicated by a lack of precedents and court rulings.  This situation last arose in 1979 when various elected MHAs were accused of breaching spending caps that existed at the time, resulting in challenges initially against everyone elected in that election that were later narrowed down to challenges against three Labor MHAs in Denison (now Clark) and four in Bass.  Ultimately the three Labor MHAs in Denison (John Devine, John Green and Julian Amos) were found to have breached their spending caps and to have been ineligibly elected.

The result was a by-election for all seven seats in Denison, not because the court had directed such but because the Parliament had passed the Electoral Amendment Act (No 2) of 1979.  This Act held that if a single member in a division was ineligible to be elected, their seat would be vacant and a single-member by-election would be held for that seat.  But if more than one member of a division was disqualified, the entire division would be voided and a seven seat by-election held.  This led to the Denison by-election of 1980, at which Devine and Amos won their seats back but Green lost out to Democrat Norm Sanders. (One of the sitting Liberals also lost their seat to another Liberal). 

As Devine, Amos and Green were all seated in parliament while the challenge to their seats was heard, they were in fact able to vote (and did vote) on the legislation that made this solution possible, which the Liberal Opposition opposed.  The Government's argument was that for a member who had breached a salary provision to be excluded from parliament for up to four years with no prospect of recovering their seat was an unreasonable penalty.  They also argued that recounts of any kind were not a fair solution since in Bass if they lost four MPs they would run out of MPs to contest the recount and lose a seat, and of course a mult-seat by-election for just the voided seats would make it impossible for Labor to recover them all.  In the end only the three Denison seats were voided, not the four Bass seats.

The Electoral Amendment Act (No 2) of 1979 expired at the end of 1980 so there is now no enacted rule in place for dealing with a disqualification.  This all highlights that if an ineligible candidate ever does win again the Parliament (via legislation passed through both houses) has scope to determine how to fill the vacancy before the court makes a decision; the court is not necessarily going to just declare the whole seven-seat contest for that seat void.  Possible solutions would include:

1. a recount of the excluded member's seat as if it were a casual vacancy (but I would argue that this is a bad solution since it rewards the party that ran the ineligible candidate by ensuring they retain the seat)

2. a recount of the whole election with the excluded member removed from the count as if they had died between nomination day and polling day (the risk although small is this might unelect someone who was validly elected at the first election)

3. a single seat by-election, but this would be unfair if the vacating member was from a minor party

4. a whole-of-electorate by-election.

Even if left to its own devices, it is not obvious to me that the court would choose solution 4 as opposed to declaring a different candidate elected following solutions 1 or more likely 2 (the Court has no power to order solution 3 of its own volition, but could declare a vacancy that activated solution 3 if there was legislation allowing it to do so).  We already know that the High Court has so far chosen solution 2 over solution 4 when an ineligible Senator is elected, a situation that had not come before the High Court in 1979.  The 1979 decision by Parliament does not set any precedent that the Court would be required to follow, least of all because the Parliament specified solution 3 not solution 4 as the remedy for a single member being disqualified.

Consequences of ineligibility: if candidate lost

The opinion the Liberal Party has obtained also suggests that even if Munday is not elected but found to have been ineligible, the Court of Disputed Returns might invalidate the contest for Franklin and send all seven elected Franklin MPs to a by-election.  This in my view is very unlikely - but it could in an edge case depend on the mechanics of the count.  As I noted in comments re the NT case Hickey v. Tuxworth (1987) 47 NTR 39 there has been an example in Australia of a seat being voided because an ineligible candidate stood and was defeated.  However the High Court has since severely criticised the reasoning, especially on the grounds that voiding elections because somebody ineligible ran and lost would "play havoc with the electoral process". Ineligible candidates - dozens of whom run at every federal election as it is - could then run just to try to get a seat voided even if they had no chance of winning.  Perhaps a court would do something about an ineligible candidate losing in a case where reallocating their votes as if they had died between nomination and polling day resulted in a different list of winners to the actual election, but otherwise (and even in such a case) I doubt the court would go there.

Voiding of the whole election?

The opinion obtained by the Liberal Party raises the spectre of the entire 2025 election being voided and rerun if a prominent candidate was found to be ineligible, supposedly on the grounds that their presence and activity in the state campaign has somehow contaminated the choice of voters in other divisions regarding their own representatives.  The opinion suggests that whether or not this could be a thing would be determined by "necessary facts" as yet unknown - Munday's involvement in the campaign and analysis of the results in the other seats.  It is totally unclear to me - and no mechanism is cited - how any level of an ineligible candidate's involvement in the campaign in other seats, or any results in other seats, could result in a different seat being voided.  After all people who are not eligible to be, or even attempting to be, elected to any seat will campaign in seats all the time.

I am very confident that if this was even remotely a thing there would have been precedent by now as there have been so many cases involving ineligible MPs and there is not, at least not in Australia.   In 2016 the Liberal-National Coalition was narrowly returned with an ineligible Deputy Prime Minister but when his ineligibility was discovered (albeit long after the close of the window for public challenges to the results) there was no suggestion that the Parliament should refer at least all the other National Party members and Senators to the High Court. "Your Honours, the member for Gippsland was never eligibly elected because his win was infected with Barnaby's Kiwi germs!"  (The language of the Electoral Act 2004 may give the lay impression that the Court of Disputed Returns would consider voiding an entire state election but in this context an "election" is an election for one of the five divisions.)

The idea that the Court could void an entire state election on the grounds of a single candidate's eligibility is in my view beyond absurd.  There are very many cases where voters might vote for a party under impressions about which candidates running in different seats might be a member of that party's government, but those impressions might be wrong for any number of reasons that might or might not be the fault of the party that endorsed the candidates (including simply that the candidates might lose).  It's only two elections (which is only just over four years, sigh) ago that Adam Brooks resigned his Braddon seat hours after being (eligibly) elected following multiple scandals.  There were claims that the Liberal Party were not running Brooks as a serious candidate and were just running him as a profile-harvester, and never intended that he serve a full term.  Voters might vote for parties in a seat based on all kinds of other false pretences created by the party (broken promises for starters!); there is never any end to contentious judicial interference in elections if one thinks that other seat contests should be voided over this stuff.

I may add more comments later.

There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here: YouGov and DemosAU Tasmanian Polls

YouGov Liberal 31 Labor 34 Green 13 IND 18 other 4

DemosAU Liberal 34 Labor 26.3 Green 15.1 IND 19.3 other 5.3

IND vote likely overstated in both polls

Seat estimate if YouGov poll close to accurate 13-14-4-4 (Lib-ALP-Grn-IND)

Seat estimate for DemosAU 13-11-5-4, 2 unclear 

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian election coverage.  Link to main guide page containing link to other articles including electorate guides.  

At the 2024 Tasmanian election, voters elected a parliament where it wasn't easy to form a government at all, and the one that was formed didn't last for long.  Labor was unwilling to even try to form a government that would have involved the dreaded Greens, and the Liberals were only willing to form a government with what was left if it was basically a Liberal government with relatively minor concessions to others.  When that ceased to be a viable option upon the loss of the key vote of Andrew Jenner, the government was unable or unwilling to adjust to the fact that it was hanging by Craig Garland's fishing line, and here we are.

A new election offers the prospect that someone might break through and we might have some sort of a normal government - if not a majority (which needs a very hefty swing) then at least a stable minority government needing the support of two or three crossbenchers and able to find such numbers that they can work with.  But also, the quagmire might continue.  If neither major party appeals then we could even end up with a parliament where neither major party can govern without the Greens.  What happens if Labor wins the most seats but needs the Greens or needs, say, all of five other crossbenchers three of whom may as well be Greens?  What happens if we end up more or less back where we were?  (Only one state government in Australian history has ever pulled that off after losing a no-confidence vote).  

Tonight we got some public results from two polls, from YouGov and DemosAU.  The YouGov one is the more positive for Labor (the DemosAU one is horrible for them in the circustances) but at this stage neither shows either major party close to getting us out of the mess.  

YouGov

This poll was taken online from 12-24 June with a sample size of 1287 (Bass 253, Braddon 250, Clark 251, Franklin 266, Lyons 267).  Respondents were offered the choice of Liberal, Labor, Greens, Independent, or an Other (specify) option which I hear drew some predictably unavailable responses.  

These are the results from the YouGov website: 

The individual electorate samples of c. 250 shouldn't be taken very seriously.  Aside from them having a notional margin of error of over 6%, the real error margin is likely to be much higher because of weighting, targeting and sample pool effects (as with all single seat polling).  Nobody should believe the Greens with Rosalie Woodruff on top of the ticket are on only 9% in Franklin after polling 10.5% in the federal election with an ineligible candidate who had withdrawn from campaigning.   30% independent in Clark is also a major stretch.

At the 2024 election pollsters generally overestimated the independent vote despite the number and diversity of indies on offer.  It's not easy to put a number on this because some polls lumped independents and others or did other unusual things, and because full details of two media-reported Freshwater polls were frustratingly never obtained.  Polls with independent broken out averaged nearly 14% but independents only actually got 9.6%.  This is a problem with offering independent as a generic option - some voters think that Andrew Wilkie will be running in their state electorate and some also seem to confuse minor parties and independents.  There could well be a swing to independents this election with JLN not running, at least one new independent who could poll heftily (Peter George) and so on but 18% seems unlikely.  

Taking the poll numbers literally and assuming a fair degree of scatter in the independent vote, Bass would be 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 Independent (or 3-3-1-0), Braddon probably 3-3-0-1 though with some potential for a second independent, Clark 2-2-1-2, Franklin 2-3-1-1, Lyons 3-3-1-0.  That would be something like 13-13-4-5 (the scenario where either party needs the whole crossbench to get around the Greens) though there's a fair chance that Labor's 3% statewide primary vote lead would in reality be good for an extra seat somewhere.  Factor in the independent vote being likely to be overestimated and something like 13-14-4-4 looks like a better read.   I don't personally think the Greens are going to lose their second Clark seat to an independent anything like as easily as in this sample (if at all, which is not to say they won't lose it to Labor) but the numbers are the numbers and it's difficult to read this poll as "saying" anything different.

Other stuff in this poll includes a 43-36 lead for Jeremy Rockliff over Dean Winter as Preferred Premier.  Of course, I always prefer to see approval rating polling.  Preferred Premier polling skews to incumbents but this is at least hardly emphatic rejection territory for Rockliff.  The poll includes issue findings where voters are asked to choose between issues of health, debt, privatisation, the stadium and salmon farming.  Health comes out on top among these issues, especially in the north, and while voters tend to be against the stadium and privatisation, in neither case is this overwhelming.  Accounting especially for the cancelling out of for and against views, the stadium is significant, but its salience can be overestimated.  The government is running very hard on health announcements.  

DemosAU

I hope we see a lot more results from this poll, which was widely reported in field by people taking it via the EMRS survey portal.  At the moment what we have is a report in The Advocate regarding a poll taken for an "unnamed peak body" by a mix of robocall and panel methods and a very large sample size (4289) between June 19 and 26.  The poll has results of Liberal 34 Labor 26.3 Green 15.1 and "independents" 19.3, leaving 5.3 for others.  The Advocate has published the Braddon figures which are 44-25.2-9.3-15.6 leaving 5.9 for others.  The Advocate has interpreted these numbers as either 3-2-1-1 or perhaps 3-2-0-2 but a 15.6% independent vote in Braddon would most likely scatter between a number of candidates with only one (presumably Craig Garland) competitive.  Actually given their potential ability to spread votes between Gavin Pearce, Felix Ellis and Roger Jaensch, these numbers are not far short of four Liberals at the expense of the Greens or maybe Garland.  This makes sense given the Liberals almost got four last time with JLN taking a seat.

Neither poll shows anything promising for Tasmanian Nationals, who were named in the DemosAU poll.

I have seen some of the text of this poll and it tried to avoid the problem with generic independents by naming specific independents, however it did include some that are not running (eg Ben Lohberger was available as an option in Clark).  Even when knowing the candidates, naming the independents can also overestimate their vote in Hare-Clark because it means they are named while the major party candidates are not - this is one of the reasons Hare-Clark is so difficult to poll!

While this poll may be dismissable if there's a suggestion that the "peak body" was somebody adverse to Labor's interests, overall Labor would not want to see polls like this being talked about at all!  Polls that show them going backwards or even not going anywhere play into the government's narrative that Labor caused the election without knowing what they are doing and are still not ready to govern.  The YouGov poll on the other hand is more positive for them.

It's very difficult to interpret the DemosAU numbers in seat tally terms because of the very high independent vote, and for now without full breakdowns, but if Labor are going backwards on primary votes then even after accounting for the Independent overestimate they're probably not gaining many or perhaps any seats.   For the majors it seems something like the status quo.  Let's make it the status quo and say for now 14-10-5-6, with reservations about whether the 6 are independents, something else or maybe some don't even exist.   

I should add a cautionary note about this DemosAU in particular.  The EMRS online panel is an opt-in with a high percentage of political polls and a very high proportion of politics junkies are on it.  I suspect the EMRS online panel has the sort of skews towards high engagement voters that no degree of weighting will ever fix.  DemosAU polls in the federal election underestimated the combined major party vote, albeit in the case of their final poll only by 2.4% which isn't massive.  A degree of caution hence about the combined major party vote being quite as low as 61.3, especially with JLN not running and only three parties on the ballot in two electorates.  

I am aware of a third (private) poll which I may say more about that falls somewhere between these two, with a far lower but still quite high independent vote (around 12%) and the Liberals slightly ahead, with both majors in the low 30s.  Nobody anywhere near a majority in any of these, indeed no poll yet with a major party over 35.  

At some stage before the election I will again do the best I can to aggregate all these polls and others still to come.  I think it's a bit too early right now with the potential for more detail to emerge re DemosAU especially.

Tuesday: Some more detail on DemosAU; the Nats are on 2.3% statewide including 2.6% in Braddon and 3.7% in Lyons (that suggests they might be around 5% in Bass if they were only offered where running).  They trail SF+F both in Braddon and statewide.  In what are reported as if forced choices (but I am not sure about that yet and I would not recommend forced choice for the second question) voters are reported as preferring Rockliff to Winter 56-44 and being more likely to blame Winter than Rockliff for the early election 55-45.  

Wednesday: Pulse has published the full seat results with graphics and further details.  My take on Braddon is above.  For the remainder:

* Bass (33.5-27.5-18.8-IND 11.1-Nat 5.1-SFF 4.0): the Greens number looks too high, but Labor has not much over two quotas here.  A murky reading in terms of the potential for nobody much to have enough for a second seat; on these numbers 3-2-1 and the last one is possibly Pentland or a National, but Labor could be in the hunt if their non-Finlay vote split evenly between two candidates.  (Two Greens couldn't even be ruled out on those numbers but adverse preference flows would probably take care of that).  

* Clark (26.2-23.6-22.7-27.5) Although the Independent vote combined is over two quotas it is going to be overestimated and will include a lot of scatter as different indies get excluded, this is clearly 2-2-2-1

* Franklin (29.1-22.6-12.9-35.4) The Independent vote here is enormous and I can't take that seriously but anything remotely near that is going to be 2-2-1-2 with both O'Byrne and George elected.  The Liberals are too far short of three for even a perfect split between their candidates to save them as they will get killed by preferences.  

* Lyons (35.9-31.9-13.1-IND 8.4-SFF 7-Nat 3.7) this is 3-2-1 and of all things Labor vs SF+F for the final seat though the SF+F vote looks excessive; they only got 4.8% with 5 candidates in 2022 so let's say 3-3-1

My estimate of the total then for this poll is 13-11-5-4 (Liberal-ALP-Green-IND) with two unknown; Labor would not get to 18 without the Greens; the Liberals would need the whole or nearly the whole non-Green crossbench.  The poll also finds 61% wanting a majority government - which is about as many as it finds intending to vote for both major parties!

Can also (again from DemosAU via Pulse) add the excluded undecided votes: Bass 9.5 Braddon 12.9 Clark 9.8 Franklin 6.3 Lyons 13.7.  

Thursday 3 July: Something I should note re the very high Clark IND vote in both polls is that votes are not readily transferrable between different independents - there is some flow but it's not necessarily that strong.  If INDs were to get more than two quotas in Clark that could well put Kristie Johnston way over a quota.  However in that case her surplus would not necessarily flow much to Elise Archer (though they are adjacent on the ballot paper which helps).  This is all of course speculation anyway - Johnston got 0.61 quotas last time, down from 0.88 in current terms in 2021.

How To Best Use Your Vote In The 2025 Tasmanian Election

This piece is part of my Tasmanian 2025 election coverage - link to 2025 guide page including links to electorate guides and other articles.

This piece is written to explain to voters how to vote in the 2025 Tasmanian election so their vote will be most powerful.  It is not written for those who just want to do the bare minimum - if you just want to vote as quickly as possible and don't care how effective your vote is then this guide is not for you.  It is for those who care about voting as effectively as possible and are willing to put some time into understanding how to do so.  This is very near to being a carbon copy of my 2024 guide but I have put it out as a 2025 edition with some very minor changes tailored to this year's election.  

Please feel free to share or forward this guide or use points from it to educate confused voters.  If doing the latter, just make sure you've understood those points first!  I may edit in more sections later.

Please do not ask me what is the most effective way to vote for a specific party, candidate or set of goals as opposed to in general terms.

Oh, and one other thing.  Some people really agonise about their votes, spend many hours over them and get deeply worried about doing the wrong thing.  Voting well is worth some effort, but it's not worth that.  The chance that your vote will actually change the outcome is low.  

Effective Voting Matters!

I'll give a recent example of why effective voting matters.  In 2021 the final seat in Clark finished with 10145 votes for Liberal Madeleine Ogilvie, 9970 votes for independent Kristie Johnston and 8716 votes for independent Sue Hickey.  As there were no more candidates to exclude at this point Hickey finished sixth while Ogilvie and Johnston took the last two seats.  Had the two independents had 1606 more votes in the right combination, Ogilvie would have lost instead, and the Liberals would not have won a majority.  But during the count, 2701 votes had been transferred from Labor and Green candidates to "exhaust".  All these were voters who did not number any of Ogilvie, Johnston and Hickey.  Many would have voted 1-5 for Labor and Green candidates (mostly Labor) and then stopped.  There were enough votes that left the system because voters stopped numbering that the outcome could have been different.

That's not to say it would have been had everyone kept numbering - the voters would have had to somehow sense that Hickey needed preferences more than Johnston, or else the flow to the two independents would have had to be extremely strong (which wouldn't happen).  But it is possible for voters who choose to stop numbering to cause the election of parties they would not want to win.  And now we have seven seats per electorate, it's probably more of a risk than it was in the old five-seat system.

Some of these voters would have stopped because they didn't care about other candidates - but I suspect most really would have had a preference.  Most of those stopping most likely stopped because they didn't realise they had the potential to do more with their vote, or because they couldn't be bothered.  

There Is No Above The Line / Below The Line

Tasmania does not have above the line party boxes in state elections.  All voters vote for individual candidates and decide how many preferences (if any) to give beyond the required seven, and which parties or candidates if any to give their preferences to.  There are no how to vote cards.  Your most preferred party may recommend you put its candidates in a particular order but you don't have to follow that.  While a lot of voters will vote 1-7 all for the same party, plenty of voters vote across party lines for a mix of different candidates.  

Your Party Doesn't Direct Preferences

If you vote 1 to 7 for a party and stop, your party does not decide what your vote does next once all your party's candidates have either won or lost.  At this point your vote plays no further role in the election.  Your vote can only even potentially play a role between other parties if you make it do so.  The same applies if you vote for seven candidates across party lines, or for seven independent candidates.  Your vote can only do the work you tell it to do.  If you just vote for one party but think another party is OK while some other parties are terrible, your vote does not reflect that.  

There Is No Party Ticket 

Unlike the Senate, candidates do not appear in a specific order on the ballot; the parties appear in a specific order for each seat but the candidates within each party's column are rotated.  There is therefore no number 1 Liberal or Labor candidate in each seat.  The Greens put out recommended how to vote orders but these are only a recommendation and the voter can just as easily put the candidates in their own preferred order.  

You Cannot Waste Your Vote! (Sort-Of)

The idea that voting for minor parties or independents that won't get in or form government is a "wasted vote" is an evil and pervasive myth smuggled in from bad voting systems where it's actually true (like first past the post).  Some major party supporters spread this myth, including in Hare-Clark, to try to scare voters off voting for anyone else.   In Tasmanian elections if you vote for a candidate who is not elected, your vote flows at full value to the next on your list and so on.  You can't waste your primary vote except by not casting a formal vote - but you can waste your preferencing power by stopping early.  If your vote only numbers a limited number of candidates then once all those are excluded or elected, your vote might hit the exhaust pile and be a spectator for all the remaining choices.  If the candidate you like the most is from a minor party or is an independent, ignore anyone who tells you voting for that person is a "wasted vote".  They're wrong.

Make Sure Your Vote Counts - No Mistakes In First 7

A vote must include at least the numbers 1 through 7 without mistake because our politicians are not committed to protecting voters from losing their votes as a result of unintended errors. Do not use ticks or crosses.  If you number six boxes and think you just can't find a seventh candidate and stop, your vote won't count at all.  If you're one of those people who starts at the top then goes to the bottom to number all the boxes and works up, and you accidentally end up with two 6s, that will not count either.  When you have finished your vote check carefully to make sure you have the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 each once and once only.  (Also check that you have not doubled or omitted any later numbers, but that's less critical, as if you have your vote will still count up to the point of the mistake.)  If you make a mistake while voting at a booth you can ask for another ballot paper.  

Some voters try to number the candidates from each party column separately, so they rank the Labor candidates from 1-7, the Liberal candidates from 1-7, the Green candidates from 1-7 etc.  If you do this your vote does not count.  You are ranking all the candidates together.  Each number you use should appear once only on the whole ballot paper.

Voters for the Nationals in Lyons and the Martin independent group in Braddon should be especially careful here.  If you vote 1-5 for the Nationals in Lyons, or 1-6 for the Martin group in Braddon, and then stop, your vote will not be counted.

Be especially careful with keeping numbers in sequence when moving from one column to another as that is when mistakes often occur.  

The Gold Standard - Number Every Box

The most effective way to vote is to number every box.  That means that your vote has explained where you stand on every possible choice between two candidates and there is no way that your vote can ever leave the count while there are still choices to be made.  

But doesn't this help candidates you dislike?  This is a common myth about the system.  By numbering all the way through, if you've numbered a candidate you dislike and your vote reaches them, it can only help beat candidates you dislike even more!  The reason for this is that every candidate you put above the mildly disliked candidate must have already won or lost before your vote can get there.  If your vote reaches that point then one of the candidates you dislike is going to win no matter what you do.  You may as well make it the more bearable one and use your vote to speak for the lesser evil. 

In terms of the primary election you can stop when you've numbered every box but one, and it makes no difference.  But because of a weird quirk in the recount system, numbering every box could help your vote to have a say in a recount for your worst enemy's seat!  

Numbering every box takes some preparation - it is best to plan your vote before you go to the booth,  There are sometimes automatic tools to help with this and if I see any I'll link to them here.  

The Silver Standard - Number Everyone You Can Stand

If you don't want to number every box then a lower-effort alternative that is still better than numbering 1-7 and stopping is to number all the candidates/parties who you think are good or on balance OK and that you have some idea about. That at least means your vote will never leave the count while candidates or parties who you think are at least so-so are still fighting with the baddies.  

I Don't Care Who Wins But I Want Someone To Lose!

Then number all the boxes and put that party and/or person last.  You may also find the strategic voting section interesting in this case. You can never help a candidate to win by putting them last.

Minor Exceptions

An exception to the gold standard is if you reach a point where of the candidates you have not numbered, your response to any choice between them is that you absolutely do not care.  If you get to that point, and you've numbered at least 7, it's safe to stop. (That said I would keep going and randomise my remaining preferences at this point, for potential recount reasons.)

Another one is if you slightly prefer one party to another but are so disappointed with the first party that you want to send it a message by not preferencing it, in the hope it fights harder for your preference next time.  In that case you can also stop (if you've numbered at least 7 boxes), but in this case you should tell the first party that that's your view (anonymously if you prefer); otherwise they will have no idea you felt that way.

Who Are These People?

Numbering every box is hard work - who are all these people?  I write guides about elections and even I know nothing about lots of them!  If you've never heard of a candidate and they're not running for a party that you like, I'd recommend putting them between the candidates you dislike slightly and those you're sure you cannot stand.  Even if they're running for a party you like, it may be worth doing some research because sometimes parties preselect candidates they shouldn't.  Ultimately it is up to the candidates to make themselves known to you.  If they haven't done that, you are entitled to penalise them.

What Is Group B, Group E and So On?

Some independent candidates have registered their own columns so they stand out on the ballot paper, while others are just listed in the ungrouped column on the far right of the ballot.  In this year's election both these kinds of candidates have the same status, it's just that some of them have lodged 100 signatures either by themselves or as a group to stand out more.  If a candidate is a party candidate you will see their party name.  The group letter names for some independents just refer to their position on the ballot paper; the "Group B" independents in various electorates are not connected to each other just because they have the same group letter.  

Are These Candidates In This Group That Isn't A Party Connected?

There are two non-party groups running multiple candidates this year - the group including Adam Martin (Group B) in Braddon and the group including Peter George (Group C) in Franklin.  The Braddon group are a bunch of independents who have chosen to run together, who have some common viewpoints but may have quite different views on many things.  The Franklin group are not a formal party but are said to be much more tightly aligned to each other based on a set of common principles.  

Then there are the ungrouped columns on the right hand side of the paper. In general, the candidates in the ungrouped column are independents who do not have anything to do with each other (an exception is Gatty Burnett and Mellissa Wells in Braddon who are running together).  A few ungrouped independents are actually members of parties that are not registered to run in state elections.  Independents in the ungrouped column may have very different views to each other.

How Does Your Vote Work?  Why Your Number 1 Matters

This is not the place for a full account of how Hare-Clark voting works, there's one here.  There's a common misconception that when you vote for seven candidates the order doesn't matter much because your vote will help them all.  In fact, that's often not true and your vote only helps one candidate at a time, and helps them in the order you put them in.  Who you vote 1 for can be very important.  If your number 1 candidate is excluded then your vote flows on to the next candidate who is still fighting for a spot at that stage at full value.  If your number 1 candidate is elected straightaway with over 12.5% of the vote in their own right, part of your vote's value is used on helping them to win, and part flows on to other candidates you have numbered.  If your number 1 candidate doesn't win off the first ballot but never gets excluded, then all your vote's value goes to helping your number 1 candidate either eventually win or at least try to (if they finish eighth).  For this reason it's not just who you choose as your first seven that matters, but also the order that you put them in.

That ends the main part of this article, and the rest is something specialised I threw in because ... people do ask. 

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Special Sealed Section: Strategic Voting (Advanced Players Only!)

This section is an optional extra and is rated Wonk Factor 4/5.  If you read it and are not sure you understood it, pretend you never read it and certainly don't try explaining it to anyone else! 

Most voting systems are prone to tactical voting of some kind; indeed, in some it's necessary.  Under the first-past-the-post system in the UK it is often necessary for voters to vote tactically for their second or third preference party to ensure their vote isn't "wasted".  In the 2022 federal election, some left-wing voters voted 1 for teal independents because they were more likely to win from second than Labor or the Greens were.  Our preferential systems are much fairer than first-past-the-post, of course, but there are still ways of voting that can make your vote less than optimally powerful, and ways to get around that if you want.  

In this case I am not arguing that voters should vote tactically - I'm just explaining how they can do it if they want to.  The ethical decision involved (since voting tactically effectively reduces the value of other voters' votes) is up to them.  There's also a problem with tactical voting in that if everyone did it it would stop working and create bizarre outcomes.  (But no one should let that alone stop them, because that will not actually happen.  Immanuel Kant was wrong about everything.)

The scope for tactical voting in Hare-Clark is mainly around quotas and the way the system lets votes get stuck.  One simple principle of effective tactical voting for those who want to do it is to not vote 1 for any candidate who you know or strongly suspect will be elected straightaway.   

Suppose I am weighing up between these three candidates, whose surnames indicate their voting prospects: Morgan Megastar, Nico Nohoper and Lee Lineball.  And I decide they are my equal favourites.  Morgan always polls a bucketload of votes and will probably be elected in their own right, or at least will surely win.  Lee might get in off the first count, on a good day, but I don't really know if they'll win at all, and Nico has run in 17 elections and got two deposits back but I like them anyway.  Now in this situation I will vote 1 Nico 2 Lee 3 Morgan (and I will then number all the other boxes).  

Why?  Because I know Morgan doesn't need my #1 vote.  If they get it and they're elected at the first count, the value of their excess votes is one vote greater, but that vote won't all be mine.  A part of the value of my vote stays with them and the rest of it flows on to other candidates, but I've also slightly increased the value of all their other votes to make up the difference.  And these could be votes cast by Hung Parliament Club op-ed writers or other witless philistines. I'd rather have my vote flow on at full value!  Also, Morgan might not quite get quota on the first count, and in that case my vote never goes anywhere else, and I might be boosting whatever vote detritus does put them across the line (shudder!) There is even an extremely rare scenario here where by voting 1 for Morgan I could boost the votes of Lee's key opponents to the point that it actually harms Lee.

So I vote 1 for Nico Nohoper.  A few counts in Nico will be excluded, again, by this stage Morgan is already over the line, or will be soon, and now my vote flows at full value to Lee who may need it.  And if Lee eventually gets eliminated, it will flow on at full value to #4, and so on.   I do this sort of thing a lot - among my top five or six candidates I will often put them in order from least promising to most, so that my vote will hang around a while and might even be able to flow on past all those candidates at full value.  But it takes a lot of knowledge of who is likely to poll well (or not) to pull it off.  

One can get carried away with this idea and try to thread the needle in an order one doesn't support (eg candidates one dislikes above candidates one likes) to try to get one's vote still on the table at full value at #30 in Franklin trying to defeat You Know Who.  I call this "quota running" and I really don't recommend it.  It's too easy to fail to predict something that happens in the count and wind up with your vote doing something that you don't want.  Most likely your vote will never get that far anyway.  

And there's another thing worth knowing here.  Suppose I'm tossing up at some point between two similar candidates who I think will both be contenders, but I really do not have a view between them.  This could happen if I was a major party voter, but it could also be two leading indies.  Now in this case I could go for the one I think will poll less well.  Why?  Because this increases the chance that both of them stay in the count and can both beat a single candidate from some other force (aka the Ginninderra Effect).

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Tasmanian Nationals Are Lambie Chaos 2.0

This article is part of my 2025 Tasmanian state election coverage. (Link to main guide page with links to other articles here.)

I was going to write an article called "There Are Too Many Independents" but on seeing the full rollout of candidates for the state election I feel that higher duty calls.  There are too many independents this election (a record 44; some are competitive or at least entertaining but I'll be impressed if even ten get their deposits back) but that can wait.  I want to make some comments about the latest coming of the Tasmanian Nationals.

We've been here before.  In the leadup to the 2014 election there was a Tasmanian Nationals branch that was briefly part of the federal Nationals and was under the stewardship of former Labor MLC Allison Ritchie (never herself a candidate).  Initial enthusiasm for that run included Michael McCormack tweeting (above) that the appointment of Ritchie was "a coup for Christine Ferguson" (then Nationals Federal President).  Less than a month after McCormack's tweet the branch had been disowned by the federal party, who tried but were powerless to cancel the state party name registration.  The rogue branch's curious crew of candidates, including a legal dope advocate and a former Socialist Alliance member, polled a risibly tiny vote tally and the Nats name disappeared. 

There was a brief revival for the 2019 federal election after Steve Martin joined the party after taking the seat Jacqui Lambie briefly lost to Section 44.  The 2019 try did very well in Lyons after the Liberal candidate was disendorsed but Martin himself sank without trace and the party vanished again thereafter.  In the leadup to the 2024 election there was speculation that John Tucker (who has long seemed like a Nat from central casting) might run as a Nationals candidate although the party was not yet registered at state level, In the end he ran as an independent.  

In late 2024 the National Party of Australia - Tasmania made two separate signup attempts with the second one succeeding.  Christine Ferguson, on whose federal watch the 2014 damp squib squibbed or did whatever damp squibs do, is now the party's state secretary.

The Nationals might seem attractive to voters who don't like the proposed Macquarie Point stadium but don't want to vote for the Greens or independents.  They might also seem attractive to conservatives who think Jeremy Rockliff is too left.  But I think that if one is looking for any way out of the mess that the previous parliament has been, the Nationals are not the answer, they are more of the same.  Or maybe worse given they are running a candidate involved in one of the most infamous episodes in recent Tasmanian elections.

Incompatible incumbents

One of the obviously bizarre aspects of the Nationals' campaign is their endorsement of both Miriam Beswick and Andrew Jenner.  Beswick and Jenner were both elected for the Jacqui Lambie Network in March 2024 but their paths since have been very different.  Both of them initially signed a deal with the Rockliff government that was ridiculously restrictive and controlling.  The JLN parliamentary party collapsed partly because of this deal (which the government was also heavily to blame for even asking for).  Beswick and Rebekah Pentland were thrown out of JLN before they could quit, and Andrew Jenner remained.  The major cause of the breakdown was Lambie herself, threatening to rip up a deal she was not a signatory to and trying to control the state party's actions when she had suggested in the campaign that she wouldn't.  There was obvious bad feeling between Jenner and the other two, with Jenner backing in Lambie's declaration that Beswick and Pentland (who he has referred to disparagingly since as "the ladies") had betrayed the values the party failed to announce before the election.  

What happens if the Nationals win two seats and the winners are Beswick and Jenner?  Beswick who voted against the no confidence motion in Rockliff and Jenner who voted for it, and whose loss of confidence in the government through the term basically has caused this election? How is that supposed to work?  What on earth was Bridget McKenzie doing down here effectively endorsing both of them?  Had she been paying any attention to what had happened here?  At all?

What about the other ex-JLN candidates running for the Nats Angela Armstrong and Lesley Pyecroft?  Which side of the Jenner/Beswick divide were they on?  If elected would they be Jenner Nats, Beswick Nats, Tucker Nats or something else altogether?  How can anyone expect anyone to be loyal to a party when few of its candidates have been members for even a few months?  

(Tucker, Cooper and Rick Mandelson are the only Nats candidates out of nine who were on the December 2024 signup list of members - as oddly was Claudia Baldock who is running with the Adam Martin independent group!)

Speaking of Jenner, in a Facebook video update posted June 18 he talked about commenting about salmon (on which I suspect his position disagrees with the federal party) and said "I'll do the salmon one in a minute" because "that's an important one".  I'm still waiting for the salmon video.  

Contradictory comments

There is also the question of what the Tasmanian Nationals will actually do if they obtain the balance of power, and my strong impression so far is they really do not have a clue and are just hoping anti-stadium populism carries a few of them over the line.  A juicy initial source on this was a 6 News interview with Carl Cooper, candidate for Bass (and the longest standing of the group, having also run in the 2019 election):

"We need to be reasonable, we are prepared to negotiate in relation to the government that is formed.  We understand that our strength is in listening to people and following through on their discontent.  [..] We have no allegiances currently, we have no arrangements or agreements with any party [..] We'll basically listen to any incumbent who's prepared, or group who's prepared, to run as a government, and we will listen and support them if it's a reasonable arrangement.  So we will negotiate, basically, with whoever comes to parliament with the numbers, that will be done in a transparent and honest manner.":

Now firstly, this is a very confused statement.  A potential government that has the numbers doesn't need to negotiate with anybody else (potentially the Nationals could be in a position, jointly with other non-Green crossbenchers, to provide the numbers to either side, so they might have to make a choice). Also to nitpick a little while I'm at it, the negotiation is the phase before anybody comes to the parliament.  But overall this sounds pretty amicable - they'll try to do something for the people but they will work constructively.  

Then their later statement is rather different - John Tucker saying that they will make sending the stadium back to the drawing board a condition of their support if the Nationals hold the balance of power.  Which most likely means that if the Nationals get the sole balance of power, neither major party will be able to work with them without breaking core promises on one of the biggest issues, and it's quite possible the major parties will simply do a deal with each other to try to pass the stadium (on whatever terms the LegCo might let them) so that somebody can get on with governing.

And there's this ...

At the last moment one Andrew Roberts emerged as a previously undeclared extra Nationals candidate.  Will we see a profile of Roberts on their website? (They don't even have profiles for six of their other candidates up there yet. Voting starts this week!)  Roberts ran as a very obscure independent for Lyons at the previous election polling just 130 votes, and the Nats have now run him for Braddon though he is still based in Lyons.  At the previous election, Roberts was one of the candidates who signed a pledge for a so-called "Women's Forum Australia" committing to excluding trans women from all women's spaces (which would force them to use men's toilets placing them at obvious risk of sexual and other assaults).   His Facebook page is full of similar material, and not very much else.

It's bad enough that the Nationals would run a candidate with those views but the Examiner also reported that Roberts had run a few times before as an independent, and indeed there is an Andrew Roberts from the same town who attracted controversy over impounded anti-gay fliers advertising his candidacy and stated to be co-authored by him (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4 with link to flier).  As one of the links notes:

"The flyer also links homosexuality to drug abuse, calls for the re-criminalisation of homosexuality in Tasmania, and describes a vast homosexual conspiracy involving Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and “Hollywood”."

Not to mention the Bilderberg Group and the Rockefellers!   The fliers were co-authored by James Durston whose name also appeared on Roberts' "True Green" website (the email address on that website was an AEC-lodged contact detail for Roberts' Senate run), and it also used the name Three Wise Monkeys. Similar bizarre fliers circulated in the 2013 Nelson LegCo election.  Roberts also ran in the 2014 state election as an independent, then in the 2016 Senate election as a Family First candidate (in the latter case supporting this very nice and moderate chap who Tasmania almost elected to the Senate under Group Ticket Voting in 2013).   Images from Roberts' 2014 state run and the 2024 WFA endorsement confirm it's the same guy.  In a tweet from 26 August 2013 Alex Johnston (then working as a journalist) tweeted "Just had a call from 'True Green' Senate Candidate Andrew Roberts, he confirms he produced the anti-gay election flyer."  Durston and Roberts were charged over the fliers but charges were later dropped.  Durston was required to apologise for the Nelson fliers after an anti-discrimination complaint and eventually fined after not doing so.  Roberts also attempted to sue the subcontractor who alerted Australia Post to the contents of the flier! Interestingly, fellow Braddon candidate Vanessa Bleyer (Greens) was a lawyer for the subcontractor in this matter.  

This history was hardly obscure, I referred to some of it in my 2024 Lyons guide.  Did the Nationals do any vetting of this candidate at all?  

So what's the problem here?  Roberts presumably isn't going to win, Beswick has been an okay MP and one could always still vote for or preference Beswick and just leave Roberts off safely, right?  If only!  The problem is that because of the way Hare-Clark recounts work, any vote that helps elect Miriam Beswick could later result in Andrew Roberts becoming an MP.  If Beswick wins and then at any point resigns her seat, it is very likely her sole running mate will win the recount.  Any recount is of the departing member's votes when they were elected, and this almost always elects someone from the same party, even if they have no primary votes to speak of.  If Beswick is elected, Roberts will be a prospective MP in waiting for as long as the Parliament lasts.

The safest way for Braddon voters to reduce the risk of Roberts ever getting into parliament is now, alas for Beswick who may not have known anything about all this, to number all 38 (sigh) boxes and put the Nats totally last.   Or if not making that much effort, to at least not preference either Nat above anyone remotely competitive, and to give as many preferences as one can stand to others.  

The completely unnecessary preselection of a risky candidate with a long track record of not getting votes raises the question whether anyone in the Nationals has any idea what they are doing or whether they were so desperate they just took anyone without checking.  In this light Clark independent John Macgowan says  "The nationals even called me and asked me to run, even though I disagree with all their announced positions and sledge them regularly online. Candidate vetting is not their strong suit."  Did they think they had to have a running mate for Beswick or something?  Do they even think they could win two seats?

Chaos Party Of The Year

Every Tasmanian election these days seems to have at least one party that's as stable as a lump of sodium in a high school chem lab sink.  In 2014 as silly as the "Nationals" were, Palmer United were much sillier.  In 2018 it was the first Lambie Network run (and also whatever "Tasmanians 4 Tasmania" was). In 2021 it was the ALP (yes really), and in 2024 it was the policy-free zone of  JLN.  In 2025 it looks like the Tasmanian Nationals are it.  

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time but there should be some head scratching in the federal Coalition about how we have got to this point.  The junior Coalition partner's state branch is running two candidates who between them sent the country's oldest Liberal government to two premature elections, and who history may record as having caused its demise.  

Being against the stadium is one thing and an obviously popular one.  But if one is against the stadium in the name of budget repair then the cost of the stadium is trivial compared to the indirect costs of repeated premature elections.  And while the Government is very much itself to blame for its run of such elections (because of lousy people management), as a part of the solution we need reliable crossbench forces.  Not parties full of party-hoppers, splitters, populist opportunism and obvious internal tensions.  We need people who we can know what they stand for - who can even know what they stand for themselves - based on a history of loyalty to good ideas.  

Addendum (July 1): I have discovered that Roberts was a member of the Executive Council of the previous Tasmanian Nationals in 2019.  

2025 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Lyons

This is my Lyons electorate guide for the 2025 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2025 election preview page, including links to other electorates.)  If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate if you can afford to do so.  Note: if using a mobile you may need to use the view web version option at the bottom of the page to see the sidebar. 

Lyons (2024 result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN, at election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 Nat)

Most of the state

Rural, outer suburban and forested.  

Lots of tiny dispersed towns that take many years for an MP to work

Candidates

Note to candidates: As the number of candidates becomes large, continually changing link and bio details could consume a lot of my time.  It's up to you to get your act together and have your candidacy advertised on a good website that I can find easily well ahead of the election.  On emailed or Twitter/Bluesky request by July 12 at the latest I may make one free website link change per candidate at my discretion; fees will be charged beyond that.  Bio descriptions and other text will not be changed on request except to remove any material that is indisputably false.   

Where a link is available, a candidate's name is used as a hyperlink.  Emails from candidates who do not understand this will be ignored.  

I am not listing full portfolios for each MP, only the most notable positions.  Candidates are listed incumbent-first by cabinet position/seniority and then alphabetically, except if stated otherwise.

Liberal

Guy Barnett, incumbent, Deputy Premier,  Treasurer, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, former Senator

Mark Shelton, incumbent, backbencher, Speaker, former minister Police, Local Govt etc, former Meander Valley mayor

Jane Howlett, first-term Assembly incumbent (previously MLC for Prosser), Minister Primary Industries, Hospitality and Small Business, Racing

Stephanie Cameron, Deputy Mayor Meander Valley, farmer, deputy president of party, 2021 and 2024 candidate

Bree Groves, farmer, former electorate officer for Bridget Archer

Richard Hallett, prominent Hollow Tree farmer, chair Southern Highlands Irrigation Scheme committee, 2024 candidate

Judith "Poppy" Lyne, farmer (sheep, cattle and irrigated cropping), former councillor

Labor

Jen Butler, incumbent, Shadow Minister Police, Corrections, Veterans Affairs, Women etc

Casey Farrell, incumbent elected on recount in March,  previously CEO Enterprize Tasmania (business startups firm), also Neon Jungle (design/technology)

Edwin Batt, Mayor of Southern Midlands, 2021 and 2024 candidate, farmer

Shannon Campbell, first-term Sorell Councillor, Founder/CEO of Campbell Conveyancing & Campbell Attraction Marketing

Richard Goss, "high school teacher with a mechanical and construction trade background", Northern Midlands councillor and former Deputy Mayor, 2024 candidate

Brian Mitchell, federal MHR for Lyons 2016-2025, former journalist/editor/media consultant, more detail here

Saxon O'Donnell, young baritone singer and recent support Senate candidate

Brian Mitchell retired graciously as Lyons incumbent to make way for Rebecca White amid a widespread belief that Labor risked losing if they did not make the switch.  It turned out Labor won Lyons much more easily than expected!  The Liberals have sought to use Mitchell's old social media posts travails from the 2022 federal campaign (noted on the "more detail here" link above) against Labor but have been hamstrung in so doing by the Electoral Act which prohibits them using his name without consent in advertising, whatever that is.  

Greens

Greens candidates are listed in endorsed ticket order.  Link to Lyons Greens profiles

Tabatha Badger, first-term incumbent, past Wilderness Society convenor and Lake Pedder restoration campaigner

Alistair Allan, Antarctic and marine campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation, former Sea Shepherd captain, 2024 candidate, 2025 federal candidate 

Hannah Rubenach-Quinn, former Break O'Day councillor, chaplain, disability support worker, 2014 and 2024 candidate, 2016 federal candidate

Isabell Shapcott, museum and gallery professional at QVMAG, 2021 candidate

Mitch Houghton, social work student, climate campaigner with Bob Brown Foundation, past horticulture business owner/operator, 2021 Bass and 2024 Lyons candidate

Craig Brown, retired GP, 2024 candidate

Joey Cavanagh, "longtime Greens volunteer".  Apparently a speedcuber.  

Nationals 

Andrew Jenner, first-term incumbent elected for Jacqui Lambie Network, former UK Tory mayor and voluntary magistrate, former Liberal Party member

Francis Haddon-Cave, former barrister in Hong Kong

Rick Mandelson, Midlands-based tax agent, secretary/treasurer/director of companies in psychology, fencing, land and rail and quarrying

Lesley Pyecroft, Army veteran, registered nurse (schools and LGH)

John Tucker, Liberal MHA 2019-2023, defected to crossbench over stadium, lost seat in 2024 as independent, farmer, former councillor

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers

Carlo di Falco,  target shooter, hunter and gun collector, serial candidate making his 8th run for party, more detail here

Independents - Own Column

Angela Offord, Launceston vet, has been involved with Voices for Tasmania, ran in 2024 and for federal seat

Independents - Ungrouped

Phillip Bigg, tradesman, hunter, President Tasmania's Shooters Union Australia, former SF+F state secretary and frequent candidate, regular #politas contributor

Ray Broomhall,  esoteric lawyer, formerly of No5G Party and ran for Federation Party Senate 2022 then Trumpet of Patriots 2025 

Paul Dare, retired, farmer, army veteran (worked on electronics and helicopters), former senior Baptist pastor, hospitals board member

Michelle Dracoulis, Mayor of Derwent Valley, was preselected by Labor for seat in 2024 but withdrew, photographer

John Hawkins, prominent antiques dealer and Tasmanian Times writer, LegCo candidate for Western Tiers 2012, petitioned against election of Eric Abetz to Senate in 2010 to force Abetz to provide evidence of renouncing German citizenship

Jiri Lev, prominent architect and heritage and planning advisor who supplies build-it-yourself housing plans

Tennille Murtagh, Brighton Councillor, One Nation candidate for Lyons federal 2019 (polled 8.1%), works at Wilson Security (buses, Royal Hobart Hospital and Indigenous engagement)

The ballot paper order in Lyons is SF+F, Nationals, Greens, Offord, Labor, Liberal, ungrouped

Prospects for Lyons

Lyons often runs alongside the northern seats but a little behind them on the Liberal vote.  At the Liberals' previous three victories they would have won four seats in Lyons under the current system but in 2024 they could only manage three.  They polled 37.6% (3.00 quotas) to Labor's 32.8% (2.62), Greens 10.9% (0.86 Q), Lambie Network 8.3% (0.66), Shooters Fishers and Farmers 4.8% (0.38) and Tucker 3.1% (0.24 Q).  

This looked like a close race between Labor and JLN for the final seat but Labor dropped back on a very high leakage rate off Rebecca White's surplus and never recovered.  In fact, Andrew Jenner (JLN) overtook the Greens on preferences and was elected sixth.  

Labor will suffer from the absence of White who was a huge vote-getter.  However the silver lining is that they will be able to spread their vote better and reduce leakage, especially with Mitchell's presence effectively giving them three incumbents (albeit one of those, Farrell, having not been there for long). If things go badly for Labor Farrell could struggle against Butler and Mitchell after such a short time in parliament - MPs elected on mid-term recounts are often vulnerable and Farrell has had a very short time as an incumbent.  

Without the competition from the JLN banner and even without White it's pretty easy to see how Labor can manage three here if the election goes decently for them overall, the question being can the Liberals drop back to two, and if so who would it be to?  

The non-big-three vote appears scattered here between the Nationals, SF+F and independents and I'm struggling to put any of these over the line.  The Nationals have an incumbent and a recent incumbent on their ticket and the question is how much vote can be picked up there between Tucker's support base from 2024, whatever Jenner carries from those who voted JLN in 2024, and miscellaneous support for the Nationals attempt. .  The flow from whichever of Jenner or Tucker is excluded to the other may not be all that strong.  I'm not wildly convinced of the idea that the conservative anti-stadium vote is enough to elect this lot; if it is then why did Tucker bomb out in 2024?

Of the independents Dracoulis at least might poll substantially but being Mayor of a not especially large municipality population-wise is typically not near enough.  The SF+F vote in this seat is sometimes decent but I am expecting them to suffer from a modest effort and competition from the Nats.  Also the Shooters lineup has fractured with Bigg running as an indie; he seems to have more energy than the remaining party put together.    As for the Greens while being short of quota could make them at risk with some combinations of other party totals, I reckon that this time that's probably not going to be an issue, at least if their primary vote holds.

Outlook for Lyons:  3-3-1-0 (Liberal-Labor-Greens-others) is the early frontrunner, perhaps Nats still a chance despite poor early polling.  

2025 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Franklin

This is my Franklin electorate guide for the 2025 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2025 election preview page, including links to other electorates.)  If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate if you can afford to do so.  Note: if using a mobile you may need to use the view web version option at the bottom of the page to see the sidebar. 

Franklin (3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

Eastern shore Hobart (Clarence City), much of Kingborough, Huon Valley, D'Entrecasteaux Channel

Urban/outer urban/treechange/rural

Candidates

Note to candidates: As the number of candidates becomes large, continually changing link and bio details could consume a lot of my time.  It's up to you to get your act together and have your candidacy advertised on a good website that I can find easily well ahead of the election.  On emailed or Twitter/Bluesky request by July 12 at the latest I may make one free website link change per candidate at my discretion; fees will be charged beyond that.  Bio descriptions and other text will not be changed on request except to remove any material that is indisputably false.   

Where a link is available, a candidate's name is used as a hyperlink.  Emails from candidates who do not understand this will be ignored.  

I am not listing full portfolios for each MP, only the most notable positions.  Candidates are listed incumbent-first by cabinet position/seniority and then alphabetically, except if stated otherwise.

Liberal

Jacquie Petrusma, incumbent, earlier MHA 2010-22, minister Health, Aboriginal Affairs, Veterans Affairs

Eric Abetz, first term state incumbent, Liberal Senator for Tasmania 1994-2022, Senate Leader for Abbott Govt, famous uberconservative, Leader of the House, Minister for Business, Transport

Nic Street, incumbent, backbencher, former Minister Housing, Sport and Rec, etc

Josh Garvin, former President Tas and Vice-President Aus Young Liberals, former staffer for Madeleine Ogilvie, 2025 federal candidate for seat (more profile here)

Michele Howlett, owner of hair salon Gloss Hair Management

Natasha Miller, adviser to Petrusma and formerly Young, cancer charity fundraiser and former logistics firm manager

Dean Young, newsagent, advisor to Guy Barnett, MP for part of previous term after being elected on recount

Petrusma will be campaigning from home this election after a significant hamstring injury.

Labor

Dean Winter, incumbent, Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Minister Jobs, Trade, Tourism, former Mayor of Kingborough

Meg Brown, first-term incumbent, formerly Sorell Councillor and staffer for David O'Byrne, Shadow Minister Transport, Heritage, Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence

Kaspar Deane, Kingborough Councillor, public school teacher

Traycee Di Virgilio, board member in building and construction industry and WHS chair St Josephs Affordable Homes

Chris Hannan, National President Aus Association of Social Workers, relationship therapist (own business), recent former Jacqui Lambie Network secretary and 2024 Franklin and 2025 Senate JLN candidate

Amelia Meyers, teaching student, reportedly Australia's youngest 2025 Senate candidate

Jessica Munday, high-profile Secretary of Unions Tasmania, President Worker Assist legal service, superannuation board member

The Liberals are disputing Munday's eligibility to be elected on the grounds of her being on the WorkCover board.  I have written an article about this here.

Greens

Greens candidates are listed in endorsed ticket order.  Link to Franklin Greens profiles

Rosalie Woodruff, Greens Leader, incumbent, epidemiologist (Ph.D.) (lead candidate)

Owen Fitzgerald, staffer for Nick McKim, organised school climate strikes 2022, federal Franklin candidate 2025 (see below)

Gideon Cordover, Kingborough Councillor, IT marketing officer, former federal Greens adviser, NIDA graduate, past candidate including Huon 2022

Carly Allen, graphic designer, marketing and events manager, 2025 Pembroke candidate, more here

Adi Munshi, Manager, Tasmanian Travel and Information Centre, tourism operator

Mark Donnellon, software engineer, President of Streets People Love Hobart

Brian Chapman, retired Physical Education teacher, former Clarence councillor, recreation consultant, veteran of original United Tasmania Group (proto-Greens party)

Fitzgerald withdrew from campaigning for the 2025 federal election after I spotted that he was ineligible under Section 44, which the party's vetting process had missed despite it being very obvious.  The party nonetheless continued to endorse him on how-to-vote-cards and he still polled 10.5%.  Section 44 does not apply to state elections and he is eligible to be elected.  

Cordover briefly left the Greens last year for purely employment-related reasons but has now returned to the party.

Independents (Own Column)

David O'Byrne, incumbent, former prominent unionist, briefly Labor leader in 2021, elected as independent in 2024

For details re David O'Byrne's forced switch from Labor to Independent, essentially over a sexual harassment incident from before his parliamentary career, see my 2024 Franklin guide.  During this term O'Byrne has provided conditional confidence and supply support for the Rockliff Government but caused the resignation of Michael Ferguson from Cabinet by withdrawing it from Ferguson specifically.

Grouped Independents - Peter George group

Peter George, (ticlet leader) veteran former ABC foreign correspondent, reporter and producer, prominent anti-salmon-farm campaigner who made final two in seat in federal election, see more here

Support candidates in alphabetical order (profile page):

Rayne Allinson, writer, assistant publisher at Forty South, D Phil in History (Oxford), author of a book on the letters of Elizabeth I, lecturer

Kirsten Bacon, vocational teacher  (winner Tas VET Teacher/Trainer of the Year 2023), chef, food writer, cooking YouTube host, carer, Landcarer on Huon Island

Louise Cherrie, WHS consultant (Cherrie Consulting), former Environmental Protection Board member, former long-term Environment Superintendent at Nyrstar, also worked at Aurora, TasPorts

Anthony Houston, recently retired prominent salad farmer supplying Woolworths etc, spokesman Farmers for Climate Action, founder of Land Conservancy family fund, Tarkine protestor in 2021

Andrew T Jenner, former nurse/Bureau meteorologist working in "environmental monitoring, logistics, and field leadership" in Aus/Antarctica, including Lord Howe Island 

Chrissie Materia, health and wellbeing consultant, PhD (Utas) in rural health, sailor and sailing administrator and tours manager/facilitator

Although not a party and claiming not to be a proto-party the Peter George group have unifying "pillars" of "budget repair" (meaning no stadium, Marinus Link or porkbarrelling), "social repair" (health, education and housing), "island repair" (environmental goals re salmon, ending native forest logging and increased mining royalties) and "integrity repair" (stronger Integrity Commission and government transparency).  I am considering determining the difference between these goals and the Greens' as a possible subject for my next scanning electron microscope booking.  

Andrew T Jenner is not to be confused with Andrew Jenner, Lyons MHA.

Independents (Ungrouped)

Sarah Gibbens, domestic cleaner (own small business)

Hans Willink,  IT and project assurance consultant, background in army and police, serial candidate usually as an independent (distant past Liberal Party, Science Party)

Tamar Cordover was a declared independent candidate but withdrew.

The ballot order in Franklin is Labor, O'Byrne, Peter George group, Liberal, Greens, ungrouped.

Prospects for Franklin

Franklin is generally a better seat for the Liberals than Clark, but is stronger for the left than Bass, Braddon and Lyons and has a high Green vote.  The Liberals would have only won three seats here under the 35-seat system in 2018 and 2021 and only fairly narrowly did win three seats here under it in 2024.  At this election, Franklin is the most obviously "bases loaded" seat and is set for an explosive count; nine potential seat winners into seven doesn't go, and that's even before we talk about the second seat the Greens got close to last time.

In 2024 the Liberals polled 34.1% (2.72 quotas), Labor 27.3% (2.18), Greens 19.8% (1.58), David O'Byrne 8.7% (0.70), JLN 4.9 (0.38) and there were various minor preference sources.  This led to a rather interesting cut-up where the Greens benefited from preferences but the Liberals were helped by their votes being split fairly evenly between Street, Abetz and Petrusma. The Greens also suffered from a high rate of within-ticket leakage.  Eventually Street won the final seat by 2.2% (0.17 Q).

George in Franklin at the federal election polled a primary vote of 21.7%.  This doesn't mean he'll get anything like that in the state election, but even a third of that might be enough.  He had three advantages in the federal race: Climate 200 funding, the Liberal candidate being low-profile and incapable of winning, and the Green candidate withdrawing from the campaign over Section 44 issues.  I am not sure the Section 44 issue had all that much impact on the Greens' vote as I think George would have taken a big chunk out of it in any case.  What I expect to see here is that George takes the place of the second Green in the cutup and surges on Greens preferences if he needs them.  I am not sure George will win but he is at least a serious prospect.

The launch of a full George ticket surprised me (yes it makes it easy for people to in effect just vote for him but he could get a bit lost in the forest on preferences from other parties).  However his candidates while mostly low profile seem solid in terms of community standing and may get some votes that flow as preferences to George by association.  I'll be very surprised if there is enough vote there for two seats and in the perhaps unlikely events of George either polling over a quota himself or getting excluded, votes exhausting at 7 from his ticket would be good news for the Liberals. 

A two-party swing just above 3% would see Labor tie the Liberals on quotas but Labor will probably be disadvantaged by their vote being more concentrated with Winter.   On the Liberal side Abetz has had a successful term with the great entertainment value of his parliamentary performances winning over some critics who never expected they would like him on any level (and also some strong reviews of his performance as a minister).  It is possible therefore that Street will be defending the third seat. Abetz does tend to polarise opinions and will want to have a good primary vote after moving slowly on preferences in 2024.

Even if George wins, Labor could still take a seat at the Liberals' expense on the condition that O'Byrne loses.  A big part of the case for this is that unions that supported O'Byrne in 2024 now look to be getting behind Labor, with Munday's candidacy likely to help here.  Munday is herself a somewhat controversial pick because of past alleged links to O'Byrne, but it seems in general that the standard in Labor is that it's OK to have supported O'Byrne, it's just not convenient anymore to be him.   O'Byrne may also suffer in traditional Labor communities from supporting the Rockliff government - on the other hands he does stand out as an overtly pro-stadium non-major-party candidate, and his electorate work is generally considered strong.  The question will be how many loose votes he can pick up outside the Labor tent to make up for a loss of support within it.  Munday is clearly Labor's biggest push for a third seat here in an electorate where Labor absolutely has to win at least three.

At the wilder end of speculation, could Franklin turn into Clark with three crossbenchers winning?  I'm not sure that's impossible though I suspect only one independent will win.  

Outlook for Franklin: 2-3-1-1 (Liberal-Labor-Green-IND) perhaps with George replacing O'Byrne is an early frontrunner but the third Labor seat is far from certain.