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 2 IND). 

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 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

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

(rest of ticket TBA)

Independents

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

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

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

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

Independents - Martin Group

A group of independents running together with Adam Martin as the most prominent candidate

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

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).  Baldock was also a signup member of the Tasmanian Nationals in December.  

During the campaign Martin - and not his first conspiracy theory rodeo  - 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.)

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.

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

Nationals

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

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.  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.  It will be interesting to see who Labor wheel out here.  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!)  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.  

Craig Garland has generally had a good first year except for being charged with drug driving.  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.

It is hard to say how Beswick will go.  I am doubtful her profile is high enough to win as an independent and I am not sure whether Braddon voters will get behind the Nationals as much as Lyons voters might.  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.  There is also potential for a new independent but it would need to be someone very high profile.  Adam Martin could poll substantially but will probably 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.  

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.  

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

Outlook for Braddon: An initial offer prior to polling, probably 3 Liberal, 2 Labor, Garland and the last seat depends on how the election is going overall.