Legislative Council 2025: Montgomery

(Current federal poll roundup is here)

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MONTGOMERY (2019 margin Lib vs ALP 10.2%)

It's taken a long time to finish the trilogy with the distraction of the federal election and all the other distractions as well but here finally is my guide for Montgomery, the third Tasmanian Legislative Council seat to go to the polls on May 24 after a three-week delay to avoid a clash with the federal election.  Recently I released my usual survey of the Council's voting patterns.  Link to Pembroke is here, link to Nelson is here. 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 the first defence for Labor's Luke Edmunds, and the subject of this article, the first defence for left-wing independent Meg Webb, and the subject of this article, a vacancy for Montgomery on the retirement of Leader for the Government, Leonie Hiscutt.

Seat Profile

Montgomery (see map) is a regional/rural electorate on the north-west coast.  It includes the Central Coast municipality with the large town of Ulverstone and the town of Penguin, the western side of Kentish municipality including the rural town of Sheffield, and the south-eastern suburbs of Burnie.  It also includes a large number of small rural and bush localities.

Montgomery is a very conservative electorate at state elections.  At the 2024 state election the Liberal Party recorded 45.2% of the primary vote, Labor 26.2%, the Jacqui Lambie Network 11.4%, the Greens an improved 7.1%, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers 3.0% and independent Craig Garland (who wasn't on the ballot in three booths) 37%.  However the seat hasn't always been conservative at federal elections and narrowly voted Labor in 2016 and the 2018 Braddon by-election.  

Montgomery has had only two representatives in its 26-year existence, the fairly conservative independent Sue Smith and now the Liberal incumbent.  It straddles parts of the former divisions of Meander and West Devon, which were both never won by party-endorsed candidates.  The independents who won them, however, included some who were so reactionary that they continued to oppose repealing Tasmania's ridiculous and appalling anti-gay laws of the time, even when most of the parliamentary Liberal Party was in favour of repealing said laws.  The Central Coast has changed greatly since those days, but it's still hardly a socialist's paradise. 

Retiring Incumbent

Leonie Hiscutt (Liberal) has announced her retirement after serving two generally successful terms in the seat.  A farmer, tourism operator and former local Chamber of Commerce president, Hiscutt had had one run for state parliament with a reasonable result before running for Montgomery.  She reasonably easily beat independent Cheryl Fuller in 2013 and was then very easily re-elected in 2019 defeating Labor by more than 10%.  A self-avowed "Conservative" (at one stage displaying that word on her social media but not her party affiliation), Hiscutt has served as Leader for the Government in the Legislative Council for the past eight years, and has always voted consistently with party policy (there have been rare conscience votes in her time).   

From time to time Hiscutt's commitment to the party was questioned, firstly when her property displayed a sign for independent Craig Brakey (a failed Liberal federal preselection aspirant, she said the sign had been put up by her husband) and more recently during her son's campaign for the seat.  

The Hiscutt name is prominent in the area's politics.  Hiscutt's husband's uncle Hugh Hiscutt was MLC for West Devon 1983-1995.  He was succeeded by his brother Des Hiscutt from 1995-1999 (the last two years as MLC for the short-lived Emu Bay division).  

Liberal Candidate

The Liberal candidate is Stephen Parry (Facebook, linkedin, candidacy announcement).  A former funeral director, police officer and director, Parry was elected to the Senate at the 2004 election from third on the ticket, and then raised to second on the ticket thereafter.  He was a Liberal Senator from mid-2005 to 2017 and President of the Senate from 2014 before losing his seat as part of the Section 44 eligibility crisis (found to be a dual UK citizen by descent, he was replaced on a special count by Richard Colbeck).  Parry's ineligibility briefly created a bizarre situation in which Nick McKim could be unelected from the Senate, until that went away when Jacqui Lambie was disqualified as well.  Taking his fate with good humour, Parry has co-founded a distillery called Section 44.  In common with most Tasmanian Liberal Senators of the time he was regarded as socially conservative.  In earlier life Parry played a major role in embalming operations following the Port Arthur massacre, and he was also president of the Burnie and a director of the Tasmanian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.  Parry had some unusual publicity last year when he was the victim of an elaborate money laundering scam.  

To the best of my knowledge Parry is the first former Senator to have ever even contested the Legislative Council, though three former House of Reps members have become MLCs, and five former Senators and numerous former Reps have been elected to the House of Assembly. Parry lives at Ulverstone, within the electorate.

Other Candidates (4)

The first announced independent runner was Casey Hiscutt (linkedin, council page, candidacy announcement) and there is no escaping that he is the son of the incumbent and if elected would be the fourth Hiscutt in the Council in the last 40 years.  Hiscutt jnr is a Project Manager at Top Cut Group, a metals fabrication and labor hire shop, and has also worked in campervan sales and customer liasion.  He was elected to Central Coast Council at the first attempt in 2018, claiming the final seat by 53 votes.  In 2022 he was elected third but lost a cliffhanger for Deputy Mayor by 43 votes after leading until the last exclusion.  In jis candidate statement he ran on issues including upgrading rural roads and streamlining planning processes.  Hiscutt lives at Spreyton, just outside the electorate.  Asked about his political orientation, Hiscutt recently described himself as "moderate centre" (!) but also didn't object to Leon Compton calling him "conservative centre".  He has local involvements with Slipstream Circus Committee, Penguin Surf Life Saving Club, and is chairing the Penguin 150th anniversary committee.

The Greens candidate is Dr Darren Briggs (Facebook, linkedin, candidacy announcement), a local emergency doctor who also has an ecotourism operation at Tullah on the west coast.  Briggs was most notably the Greens' lead candidate for Braddon at the state election in 2021 and 2024, and on his watch their vote rebuilt from a terrible 2018 result of 3.5% to 5.5% then 6.6%.  However in both cases he was outlasted in the cutup by independent Craig Garland, who in 2024 went on to beat the Liberals on his preferences.  Briggs also stood as the federal Reps candidate for Braddon in 2022 polling 6.7%, a 1.9% swing which was a more than decent effort given that both Garland and the Jacqui Lambie Network had been added to the field that year.    The Greens have not run in Montgomery before. Briggs lives at Penguin, within the electorate.

Adrian Pickin (Facebook, Twitter) is the endorsed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate.  Pickin is a ranger and a former Senior Regulations and Pricing Analyst at TasWater, and is a practitioner of hunting using ferrets.  He has also been involved in soccer working with migrant communities, and has an interest in wilderness and "community projects that aim to reconnect people with nature and promote outdoor activities".  Pickin has recently spoken in support of hunting and eating Tasmania's currently high population of rabbits.  He previously contested Rumney 2023 and Clark 2024 for the party (the former might give him some record for the most distant pair of LegCo divisions contested by a candidate).  He now lives at Burnie, which may or may not be within the electorate.  

Gatty Burnett  (linkedin, Bluesky, Youtube, tiktok of course) ... oh must I really now? Again? Burnett, an independent candidate, is a Utas paralegal student, a former youth worker for Save The Children and a former outreach and street teams officer for the Salvation Army.  As of the mid-2010s she was involved in the North West Regional Comorbidity Action Project, dealing with people who are affected both by drug/alcohol problems and mental health issues.   She now describes herself as a child safety advocate and podcast host but on her YouTube channel I see just two episodes in fourteen months.   

Burnett says she was stood down from one of her positions for refusal to comply with vaccine mandates. Burnett's TikTok videos include some with significant viewer counts, some of which concern banking, child protection and a range of Tasmanian political issues and which frequently have a strong conspiracy theory tone and angry-ant style (supposedly just tailored to the platform!).  She is also known for demonstrations outside Jacqui Lambie's office. At the 2023 Murchison election she polled just 3.76% as Ruth Forrest won re-election in one of the Council's most lopsided results ever.  She polled 127 votes at the state election for Braddon and announced as a candidate for the federal seat but didn't nominate.  She lives at Devonport, just outside the electorate.  

Most candidates (except Burnett) can be heard here.  

Speculation

There has been no sign of Labor interest in contesting the seat.  Cheryl Fuller (now Mayor) has ruled out a third attempt.  

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 Macquarie Point stadium is currently going through the Project of State Significance process ahead of an expected parliamentary vote in September, though the government intends attempting a parliamentary vote to override the POSS because it looks like coming up with unwelcome findings about the proposal.  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.  The stadium proposal is disliked across the north of the state for primarily parochial reasons.  Hiscutt supports the stadium but has described the government trying to force the hand of the LegCo as a poor move and also expressed concerns about stadium negotiations and selling of the "no stadium no team" message.  SF+F support a plebiscite on the proposal. The Greens are opposed.  In the shadow of the federal election the government dumped the news that it was no longer committed to its election promise of a $375 cap.  

2. Youth Crime: Parry (a former policeman) has prominently raised the issue of youth crime in announcing his campaign.  This has now linked in with an announcement by Police Minister Felix Ellis of a youth crime crackdown, the full shape of which is yet to be specified but could potentially include "adult crime adult time" laws.  Such laws have been attacked as extreme by the Greens.  

3. Independence vs Parties:  Hiscutt is running heavily on the independence of the Legislative Council.  The Council was once majority-independent (though at many times many of them were independent in name only), but in recent times the number of independent MLCs has been shrinking.  The north-western seats have generally stayed independent though with the exception of Leonie Hiscutt.  Hiscutt snr was elected as a Liberal at a time when the party brand was on a high.  

Campaign

Any notes on campaigning will be added here.  At this stage there has been little mainstream media coverage of the election beyond the soap opera surrounding Leonie Hiscutt endorsing her son while still a Liberal MLC, which has exposed raw nerves in the wake of the summary ejection of Brendan Blomeley for telling journalists he was considering running as an independent in the state election.  With Leonie Hiscutt now officially retired, we can probably move on from all of that.  What I can see so far of the campaign is mostly old-fashioned and local, and at this stage, unlike Pembroke, I haven't seen any aggro.  

The government has been accused of porkbarrelling over a large grant to the Penguin Sports and Services Club.

Prospects 

Hiscutt and Parry are the only serious contenders for this seat; with the surrounding noise of the federal election I would think anyone else wanting a go at it would have had their hand up many weeks ago.  Hiscutt has the advantages of the established family name and the independence line which usually goes down much better in the north of the state than the south (Leonie Hiscutt's Liberal endorsement being the exception that proves the rule); Brad Stansfield on the Fontcast has declared unequivocally that Hiscutt will win.  Parry is certainly experienced enough to succeed if Hiscutt's campaign for some reason falls over, but I'm not expecting that to happen.  (And even if it did, candidates can usually get away with some rough edges in this area).  Also, Labor voters are not going to vote for Parry or the Greens.  This is a bad area for the Greens but if the field stays small I could see them getting into, say, mid-teens.  It is possible they will benefit from stadium opposition but I am doubtful even that will make that much difference in this electorate (see the state election).

The Liberal brand is in sorry condition in the region following their historic 15% dumping from the seat of Braddon at the federal election, the safest seat ever lost by a first-term Opposition.  Tasmanians are good at separating state and federal elections but  Hiscutt's decision to run as an independent not a Liberal is only looking better.

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 Liberals support restricting Section 196 to how-to-vote cards.  The Liberals have introduced legislation to that effect, which has currently been referred to the new state Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for scrutiny.  

* 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.