2025 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Braddon

This is my Braddon 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. 

Braddon (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 JLN 1 IND, at election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND 1 Nat). 

North-west and western Tasmania including Devonport, Burnie and Ulverstone

Regional/rural/remote

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

Jeremy Rockliff, incumbent, Premier since 2022, Minister Tourism, Trade, Major Development

Roger Jaensch, incumbent, Minister for Children, Community Services, Finance, Mental Health etc

Felix Ellis, incumbent, Minister for Police, Fire, Skills, Housing, Planning etc, ex-plumber

Stephen Parry,  former Senator and President of the Senate 2014-7, former funeral director and police officer, Section 44 distillery co-founder, more detailed profile

Gavin Pearce, federal member for Braddon 2019-2025 (retired at election), farmer, Army veteran, more detailed profile 

Giovanna Simpson, Deputy Mayor Burnie, radio administrator, former youth worker and owner of modelling academy, Pres Burnie Harness Racing Club

Kate Wylie, Central Coast councillor, works in school for disengaged youth, has worked in "real estate, hospitality, education, and sales and marketing"

Labor

Anita Dow, incumbent, Deputy Leader, Shadow Minister Infrastructure, Skills, Industry, Local Government, Small Business, former Burnie mayor

Shane Broad, incumbent, Shadow Minister Housing, Planning, Building + Construction, Resources, agricultural scientist (PhD)

Amanda Diprose, Central Coast councillor, 2021 and 2024 candidate

Cheryl Fuller, Mayor of Central Coast Council, manager until very recently of training organisation People Improvers, past Legislative Council candidate

Kelly "Hooch" Hunt, business development manager at Tasmanian Exigo Agencies sales firm, rally driver, fishing identity

Adrian Luke, director of DMS Energy (electrical/renewable energy), 2024 candidate

Tara Woodhouse, Amanda Diprose's daughter according to The Advocate, that's all I've got so far!

Fuller ran as an independent for Montgomery in 2013 and 2019, finishing second in 2013 and third behind Labor in 2019.  She was briefly a Palmer United member (but never candidate) in 2013 and also briefly a Jacqui Lambie staffer in 2014.

Greens

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

Vanessa Bleyer, lawyer and law firm director, Australia Institute spokesperson for Tasmania's native forests, Greens #2 Senate candidate 2022 and 2025

Scott Jordan, high profile Tarkine/takayna campaigner at Bob Brown Foundation, lead candidate 2018, federal candidate 2016 and 2018, support Senate candidate 2025

Erin Morrow,  psychologist with background in mental health care and organisational psychology, 2025 federal candidate, 2024 candidate

Petra Wilden, environmental scientist/teacher, 2022 Devonport Council candidate, 2024 candidate

Susanne Ward, caravan park manager, formerly in logistics, removals etc, 2024 candidate

Haru Fergus, student, has been involved in public transport research and Tas Uni Quadball Club

Thomas Kingston, "retired community member", 2018 candidate

Nationals

Miriam Beswick, first-term incumbent elected as JLN MP in 2024, carer, former director of laser tag business Big Big House

Andrew Roberts, property maintenance contractor, PhD in chemistry

Andrew Roberts ran in the 2013 Senate race as a "True Green" independent candidate. 38,000 anti-gay fliers advertising his candidacy were intercepted by Australia Post and not delivered.  Also ran in 2016 for the original Family First and has signed a 2024 trans-exclusion pledge for "Women's Forum Australia".  I am not at all impressed with the Nationals running him - see here.

Independent - Own Column (Group D)

Craig Garland, first-term incumbent, charismatic fisherman and campaigner against Robbins Island windfarm, for longer pre-parliamentary coverage see 2022 federal guide.

Garland has claimed at least twice that I said he had no chance of election in 2024.  This is false - see eg 2024 guide and 2024 postcount thread where at times I thought he was unlikely to win but I never wrote him off.  

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers

Adrian Pickin, ranger and a former Senior Regulations and Pricing Analyst at TasWater, practitioner of hunting using ferrets, previous 3-time SF+F candidate, more detail here

Independent - Own Column (Group C)

Joel Badcock, AI and automation officer, firewood splitter and seller

Badcock's signs "Turning Politics Upside Down" with an inverted headshot of himself are a novel point of interest.

Coordinated Independents (Group B)

A group of independents running together with Adam Martin as the most prominent candidate. They are not united by a specific viewpoint but are all anti-stadium and opposed to the major parties. 

Claudia Baldock, first term Latrobe Councillor, co-runs a company that builds housing for people with disabilities

Andrea Courtney, Waratah-Wynyard Councillor, mental health and hospital worker, ran in 2024

Cristale Harrison, carer and disability advocate, prominent campaigner for banning engineered stone that causes silicosis

Adam Martin, poultry farmer, carpenter and builder, involved in federal lobbying for not-for-profits, ran for Braddon federal polling 8.5%, more detail here

James Redgrave, military veteran, firefighter, private investigator, Tasmanian Times author, 2024 Jacqui Lambie Network candidate

Malcolm Ryan, chocolatier, former Burnie alderman 2005-14

Redgrave's interactions with Latrobe Council provided some background colour in the 2024 campaign - see 2024 Braddon guide for more details. Baldock, an actual Latrobe councillor, was in the news over the appointment process for Latrobe Council's General Manager.  Baldock and Redgrave were also cited in a matter concerning accommodation for seasonal workers where they were the subject of criticism by Senator Richard Colbeck (Estimates 3 June 2024 and also by a previous General Manager of Latrobe Council - see statements from both sides of dispute here.  The dispute has resurfaced during the campaign).  Baldock was also a signup member of the Tasmanian Nationals in December.  

During the campaign Martin - and not his first conspiracy theory rodeo though he did later clarify that Martin Bryant was "of course" guilty  - approvingly linked a very emotional video rant by Rod Culleton in which Culleton among other things blamed banks for the death of a policeman during the campaign, suggested gun laws were a pro-bank conspiracy and even claimed to still be a Senator! (Culleton was disqualified in 2017.)  In more evidence that Martin is not your normal "community independent" despite often running a leftish critique, he in September 2024 shared material by and praised leading anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown figure Michael Gray Griffith (for spotting this one I am indebted to ... Gatty Burnett!)

The Martin team running precisely six candidates is a big formality risk since if anyone votes 1-6 for them and stops, that vote won't count.  Perhaps the intention is that their voters vote 7 Garland.

Independents - Ungrouped

Dami Barnes, instructor at Devonport Pole Fitness and former Council staffer 

Gatty Burnett social media figure covering many issues including child protection and corruption but often with a strong conspiracy theory tone, former youth and outreach worker, serial candidate  more here

Jennifer Hamilton, President of online community newspaper The Coastal Voice, CEO/co-founder of Lean AI (workforce skilling), background in assisting startups

Ernst Millet, paramedic, former RAAF Supervisor/Instructor and sports therapist, sporting shooter, has lobbied government for relaxed gun laws

Matthew Morgan, professional fisherman, also ran as ungrouped indie in 2021.  Admin together with Ryan and others of "Voices of Braddon" Facebook group

Melissa Wells, I haven't found any non-political bio details yet but frequent colleague of Burnett with somewhat similar style, especially focuses on anti-pedophile and wildlife protection issues

Burnett and Wells are running together as Tasnanians Now, an unregistered proto-party that intends to register in the future.  I am not sure if anyone else is involved but Burnett and Wells.  

A candidate called Dami Barnes was a Greens candidate in the 2018 SA election and contested Senate preselection, I am not sure if it is the same person or not.

The ballot paper column order in Braddon is Greens, Coordinated Independents (Martin Group - will appear on ballot as Group B), Badcock, Garland, Labor, Liberals, Nationals, SF+F, ungrouped

Prospects for Braddon

Braddon is an electorate where resource development and employment issues have long been very significant, and the Green vote has lagged behind the rest of the state.  Federally it seemed to be realigning from swing seat status to a safer Liberal seat, but on Gavin Pearce's retirement Labor Senator Anne Urquhart won Braddon with a stupendous 15.2% swing.  This was the first time a government has ever gained a non-marginal Opposition seat at a federal election.

Braddon was the Liberals' best seat in 10 of the last 12 state elections, being narrowly bettered by Bass in 2018 and 2021, and is likely to again be so with it being the Premier's seat and a very strong candidate lineup.  In 2024 the Liberals polled 45.6% (3.65 quotas), Labor 24.7% (1.97), Lambie Network 11.4% (0.91), Greens 6.6% (0.52), Craig Garland 5.1% (0.40) and among the rest was 2.9% (0.23) for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.  The Liberals were the leaders on raw quotas in the race for the final seat but Garland overtook the Greens on leakage and Shooters preferences and used their preferences to win the final seat - his was the lowest winning primary vote for an independent candidate or group ever.  (More detail here)

With Labor on just under two quotas, Miriam Beswick's win for JLN clearly cost the Liberals a seat, so if she doesn't get much without Lambie and loses then in theory the Liberals could get four.  But that assumes there won't be a big swing against them.  For the Liberals to not get three there would need to be a swing over a quota against them - yes this happened in the federal election but there has already been a big swing against at state level last time.  

If there is an underlying two-party swing more than a few percent and the Lambie vote goes more back to Labor than Liberals then it becomes more likely that Labor take a third seat.  Labor candidates will also have an eye to recounts as there was recurrent speculation in the term about Broad potentially retiring.  (This said, getting into government has been known to change such things!)   Fuller is a good pickup in Labor's push for three seats in Braddon as she is quite high-profile and has a degree of cross-spectrum political appeal.    Overall I think the likelihood in Braddon is that Labor's vote is too concentrated in its incumbents to benefit from the split within the ticket, but there is some thought that other Labor candidates might get closer to Broad's vote this time.  If Labor has a really strong performance statewide, three Labor isn't totally unthinkable, but the Labor ticket's not as strong as the Liberals'.  

Craig Garland has generally had a good first year except for being charged with drug driving, a matter which unhelpfully recurred in the campaign.  In particular his reasoning over his vote on the no-confidence motion was well explained: he is there to achieve things on particular issues (including the Robbins Island wind farm and Marinus Link) and the government under Rockliff had showed no interest in his voterbase's concerns.  With a lot of soft votes floating around and the Greens having switched to a possibly less "Braddony" (though locally resident) candidate than before there seem to be a lot of soft votes around for Garland to pick up if the dope charge hasn't hurt his support too much.  I think that he could well be re-elected.

Bleyer's share of the below the line Greens Senate vote was actually lower in Braddon than in Bass and Lyons.  The Greens did recently have a good Legislative Council result in Montgomery in the absence of Labor, but that was with previous state candidate Darren Briggs who isn't running this time.  Some polling has the Greens very competitive in a seat they won three times in the old 35-seat days, though under the 25-seat system they would often poll competitively but only once won.  It could be that enough of the Lambie type vote goes to Garland rather than the majors for the Greens to remain in the hunt and Garland and the Greens could both then win.  However Garland and the Greens are competing for the same votes to a fair extent so both winning would be a striking result.  

The Nationals are not polling well in Braddon in the polls to include them.  The anti-stadium-but-not-Greens vote has to go somewhere but in Braddon it can go to Garland, leaving a smaller niche for others.   Adam Martin's group could poll substantially but Martin will find that 8.5% federal does not translate to anything like that in Hare-Clark and I suspect he will be fishing in the same ponds as Garland a lot of the time.  

Within the Liberal ticket Rockliff will poll his usual massive vote, but Roger Jaensch who has been dependent on Rockliff's surplus votes is at risk this time around to Pearce who was a popular federal MP.  Pearce will also compete for some of Felix Ellis's voterbase.  Pearce's return to the fray so soon after retiring from federal politics citing family reasons is interesting, but I would assume that being Tasmania-based is less demanding in that regard.  The best outcome for the Liberals would be to have Pearce, Ellis and Jaensch all roughly even after Rockliff's surplus as this gives them a real chance for four seats even off an in theory trailing quota position.  

There are waaaaaaaaaaaay too many independents in this seat.  A lot of lost deposits coming up.  

Outlook for Braddon: 3 Liberal 2 Labor and Garland and the last may be between the Greens and Liberals, with Greens favoured unless Liberals outperform their polling.