Legislative Council 2025: Nelson

Slightly delayed by a three-week bump to avoid a clash with the federal election, the Tasmanian Legislative Council elections will be upon us soon enough and I'll be chipping away at guides to these alongside articles about the federal election.  Recently I released my usual survey of the Council's voting patterns.  Link to Pembroke is here, link to Montgomery will be posted here when written but I am starting with Nelson as it is the most consequential and also as interest in the seat in 2019 was through the roof.  However, at this stage we don't seem to have the Melbourne Cup field that we had for the 2019 vacancy!  Nominations close on May 1.  There will be live coverage of all three seats here on the night of May 24 and as required through the postcount.

The current numbers in the Council are four Liberal, three Labor, one Green and seven independents, with the independents ranging fairly evenly across the political spectrum.  Labor gives up one vote on the floor and in the committee stages because it holds the Presidency, and as a result there are currently fine balances between major party and other MLCs (6-8 on the floor) and party and non-party MLCs (7-7 on the floor).  The balance between the major parties could be interesting if Labor actually opposes anything, but in the last year that happened only twice, leading me to classify the party's voting pattern as "Right" for the first time ever.

This year sees a vacancy for the retirement of Leonie Hiscutt (Liberal), the first defence for Labor's Luke Edmunds, and the subject of this article, the first defence for left-wing independent Meg Webb.

Seat Profile

The now rather oddly-shaped Nelson (see map) is an urban and urban-fringe electorate in Hobart's south.  Nelson includes the Hobart suburbs/neighbourhoods of Sandy Bay, Mt Nelson,  Waimea Heights, Taroona and parts of Dynnyrne, and the Kingborough suburbs/neighbourhoods of Kingston, Maranoa Heights and part of Blackmans Bay.

Historically, the winners of this seat and its main predecessor Queenborough were conservative independents, some of them in name only and linked to the Liberal Party.  That's no surprise as Nelson used to be a rather conservative seat, albeit one with a high Green vote - but this has now really changed.  At the recent state election the Liberals polled just 34.8% (1.9 points below their state average) at booths in or bordering Nelson, Labor 24.9% (4.1 points below), Greens 22.6% (8.7 points above) and independents running in either Clark or Franklin 14.3% (4.7 points above).  This includes the Kingston prepolls which would attract some non-Nelson voters.

Nelson has some historically very "blue" areas (a mix of affluence and retirees around Lower Sandy Bay and bible belt at Maranoa Heights).  But it also has some very Green booths, notably Taroona, and also Dynnyrne, Mt Nelson and increasingly Kingston Beach.  

Incumbent

Independent Meg Webb (Facebook, Twitter, linkedin) is seeking a second term.  Prior to her election, Webb was head of Anglicare’s Social Action and Research Centre and a prominent campaigner for poker machine reform. She had also worked for the Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCoSS) and in community aged care for the Salvation Army.  

Webb became just the fourth candidate to be elected from third place in Legislative Council history in the 2019 contest for the seat, surviving exclusion by 290 votes ahead of now Clark Liberal MHA Madeleine Ogilvie to overtake now Clark Greens MHA Vica Bayley and use his preferences to trounce now Franklin Liberal MHA Nic Street!  

Since her election I have consistently ranked Webb one of the most left-wing Councillors, alongside Hobart MLCs Rob Valentine and Cassy O'Connor.  In the last four years this has become especially stark with Webb voting with the Liberal Government on just 6% of contested divisions.  Issues where Webb has been particularly prominent include poker machines, the Commission of Inquiry into government responses to child sexual abuse, the proposed Macquarie Point stadium and electoral funding reform.  In 2021 Webb gave the longest speech in the Council for decades, nearly six and a half hours on poker machine reform.

It would be no exaggeration to say that with the dramatic rise of "Laborial" voting in the upper house, Webb has been for years a member of the real Council opposition.  Political differences of opinion aside, the only real controversy involving Webb came when she named public servants who had provided "procedual fairness responses" to the Commission.  The claimed significance of these responses and the fairness of naming the public servants was strongly disputed by the Government.  

Webb's frequent opposition to the Government has led to Fontcast host and on-off Liberal campaign strategist and Brad Stansfield espousing an informal Meg Webb test in which if Webb opposes something the government is doing, this means the government is on the right track.  Webb lived outside the electorate in West Hobart prior to being elected but now rents in Mt Nelson, within the electorate.

Declared Challengers (2)

Marcus Vermey (Facebook, Instagram, candidacy announcement) is the endorsed Liberal challenger for the seat.  Vermey is best known as proprietor of Vermey's Quality Meats, a butcher shop operating on a prominent corner of Sandy Bay Road.  He is also a rowing coach and administrator.

Vermey ran for the Liberals in the 2024 state election for Clark polling 3513 primary votes, an impressive first attempt but the Liberals were not in the hunt for three seats and their two incumbents were comfortably ahead of him.  Vermey polled strongly in the Nelson booths, topping the Liberal ticket in all of them except Mt Nelson and the Kingston booths.  He also topped the Liberal ticket in West Hobart, the reason being that he lived there, outside (but not far outside) the electorate.  I am awaiting confirmation of whether this is still the case.  

During the election I found it difficult to get any sense of where Vermey would be placed on the conservative/moderate spectrum within the party, as he didn't say anything controversial and at the time of writing still hasn't; he generally projects as sporting/community oriented and not all that "political".  He did share to Facebook a video of Eric Abetz resplendant in an Australian flag tie extolling the virtues of Australia Day; on the other hand when I asked social media followers for any leads on where he stood I had some responses suggesting he was moderate.  

Nathan Volf (Facebook, candidacy announcement, Twitter, Instagram) has been the Greens candidate since mid-February without me or I suspect anyone outside the party noticing.  Volf also ran for the party in the 2022 Hobart Council elections and as a minor candidate for Clark in 2021 and 2024.  He is a social worker, youth and housing advocate and disability advocate, and won a leadership award at the 2022 Tasmanian Young Achiever Awards.  The award cited his work at St Francis Flexible, "a school catering to young people for whom the mainstream system does not suit." Volf lives at Sandy Bay, nearly all of which is within the electorate.  

(Note to candidates and connections:

Where I can find one, a candidate's name is a hyperlink to a campaign web presence or Facebook page etc. Subsidiary web presences or announcements are listed in brackets.  Candidates may request one change to the page their name link goes to up until the Saturday before polling day; this will be accepted or not at my discretion.  Requests that include incorrect statements about my coverage will be declined.  Other profile material will be edited on request only to correct clear errors of fact.  Differences in the length of candidate profiles reflect differences in the amount of available/interesting (to me) material only.)

Speculation

There has been no sign of Labor interest in contesting the seat.

Issues

Some issues that have featured or may feature in the campaign are as follows.  Whether they are all actually issues that will affect people's voting intentions to the slightest degree is another matter, but they are subjects candidates could make noise about:

1. AFL Stadium: The proposed stadium is currently going through the Project of State Significance process ahead of an expected parliamentary vote in September, though there have also been noises recently about attempting a parliamentary vote to override the POSS because it looks like coming up with unwelcome findings about the proposal.  In the lead-up to the campaign Webb moved a motion to call on the government to renegotiate the location and timeframe for the stadium, but the motion had little success with only three other MLCs (two INDs and one Green) voting for it, and four Independents voting against as well as both major parties.  In a setback to project opponents, the ABC reported that an independent report by Dr Nicholas Gruen had become open to questions of fairness from stadium supporters as a result of Gruen meeting with project opponents at the instigation of Jacqui Lambie Network staff before he was formally appointed, and then not notifying the government when he amended his disclosures to reflect that he had met with them.  Vermey completely supports the proposed team and stadium and claims Webb is anti-stadium on account of the renegotiation proposal being "la la land".  

2. UTAS City Move: The University of Tasmania has been involved in a protracted and partially stalled process of attempting to move its whole campus into the Hobart CBD, a move rejected by three-quarters of Hobart City Council voters in an elector poll held alongside the 2022 council elections, and also by some university departments.   The University owns substantial land in Sandy Bay (both campus and bushland) that it may seek to sell for housing developments.  Opposition to the proposed move comes from a range of concerns including education quality and financial concerns, environmental opposition to proposed development around the campus, concerns around the demise of a social campus environment and real estate values NIMBYism.  Supporters argue that the move would revitalise the city and make the campus more appealling to overseas and northern suburbs students.  At the state election this issue had a significant impact within a few kilometres of UTAS, essentially the Clark portion of Hobart.  Hobart City Councillor Ben Lohberger, running as an anti-move independent, polled 5.8% in the Clark Nelson booths.  

The Liberals took a policy to the state election of legislating such that any sale of land would require parliamentary approval, but then passed the promised legislation in a form that carved out land above Churchill Avenue.  Although they claimed this was consistent with their election promise (given that Parliament had to approve the carve-out), it actually wasn't, because MPs who opposed any sale of land were presented with a dilemma as to whether to approve the legislation with the carve-out included.  Had the legislation been passed without the carve-out they would not have had this dilemma in the case of a future vote to sell such land.  The legislation is yet to be introduced in the Council.  A curiously underdeveloped WordPress website for Vermey that is still up hosted a petition in favour of the Government's Bill, though the petition was first posted before the Government amended its own Bill.  

Webb opposes the exemption of the land above Churchill Avenue from the government's Bill and also opposes any sale, leasing or disposal of the land gifted to the University, and has also raised various other concerns.  

Other issues will be added later. 

Campaign

Notes on campaign events and vibe will be added here.  

Prospects

The Liberals want the precious back even if they never really had the guts to own it.  To have a seat once occupied by a string of largely friendly conservative-leaning INDs now held by a trenchant leftie hurts.  It would make their lives so much less pestered if they could win it and replace someone who votes with them 6% of the time with someone who votes with them 100%.  But Nelson was changing even in the Jim Wilkinson days and has changed a lot more since.  In common with the national shifting of affluent well-educated suburbs away from the Liberal Party it is just not a conservative seat anymore.  If one imagined the last state election vote in the seat as a single-member contest, the Liberals would have lost heavily on preferences (much as they did in the 2019 contest won by Webb).  As a well-regarded well-connected local business owner, Vermey might not be as rejected by centre/left voters as the Liberals were last time in this seat, but unless there is some feel in the community that Webb is really too left, he has to be the underdog.  The UTAS move issue will divide conservative loyalties in the Sandy Bay area.  The stadium might draw some votes for them in Kingborough but on the Hobart side of the seat it is unpopular.  

The Greens finished fifth in 2019 with 11.1%.  In this case I suspect their vote will again be pretty much a core party supporter vote as Webb will compete with them heavily, though their vote may increase if the number of candidates stays low.  

Section 196

This site strongly supports urgent and unconditional reform of Section 196 of the Tasmanian Electoral Act, which makes it an offence to name or depict a candidate in material deemed to be an "advertisement, "how to vote" card, handbill, pamphlet, poster or notice"  without that candidate's consent.  This section as it stands is highly likely to be federally unconstitutional, and its application to material on the internet is so obscure that the law became an utter laughingstock in the recent state election when the TEC asked Juice Media to modify a mock advertisement.  A sensible reform would be to restrict Section 196 to how-to-vote cards.  A less preferable but still useful reform would be to cease applying Section 196 to the internet.  The views of parties and candidates on this matter will be noted here where known and candidates are welcome to advise me of their views:

* The Liberal Party supports restricting Section 196 to how-to-vote cards and has introduced legislation to that effect, which has currently been referred to the new state Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for scrutiny.  Vermey has not to my knowledge made any comment on the issue himself.

* Webb was one of the seven independent MLCs who defeated an attempt in 2023 to reform Section 196 (this was done by voting against the motion that the relevant clause stand part of the Bill).  Webb's reason for doing so was that the removal of Section 196 was not accompanied by truth in advertising legislation and therefore removing it would enable some false statements to be made without recourse other than defamation law.  

* The Greens support restricting Section 196 to how-to-vote cards and have been outspoken on the issue after being subject to a takedown notice in the 2020 Huon campaign, which they successfully resisted.  Volf has not to my knowledge made any comment on the issue himself.