2025 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Clark

This is my Clark 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. 

Clark (2 Liberal 2 Labor 2 Green 1 IND)

Western shore Hobart, primarily Hobart City and Glenorchy City

Inner and outer urban

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.

Will The Spirit Of Hare-Clark Be Killed By Farce?

Update: As of 9 November the Legislative Council has fixed the issue reporting in this article by changing per-candidate funding to per-party/group funding.  

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Watch out which candidate you vote for next Tasmanian state election.  Your vote could cost the party you voted for $17,000.  That's if the Liberal Government's current electoral public funding model is passed through Parliament with the help of the Labor Opposition.

Of all the bizarre things that have happened in the current Tasmanian Parliament this is among the strangest. We are here not by design but by accident, largely because former Attorney-General Elise Archer was given (and relied upon instead of checking) incorrect advice on a technical point about elections in the ACT.  It may be that the Rockliff Government has no real intention of progressing electoral reforms inherited from Archer, or that an election intervenes before they can come into place.  But if the Government does go ahead and  the Electoral Disclosure and Funding Bill 2022 (No. 25) comes into force with Labor support, then that will create a public funding model that will distort the competition between candidates within the same party.  It will also unfairly advantage some parties over others, and expose voters to tactical dilemmas best left to defective voting systems like first-past-the-post.  This will be the worst reform in the 126 year history of Hare-Clark, the first change that is completely contrary to the spirit of the system.

Elise Archer Resignation And Recount

Recounts (Nov 13)

I somehow didn't update at the time with the news that Simon Behrakis had comfortably won the Archer recount (defeating Coats 55.2-44.7).  Behrakis resigned his council seat immediately, which has been won by Coats in a very lopsided countback.  Coats polled nearly 30% of recount primaries to Briscoe's 12.6% and went on to win with an absolute majority against three remaining opponents; at this stage Coats led Briscoe by just over 500 votes.  

Archer Resigns (Oct 4)

As you were ... after the Premier issued a 9 am Monday deadline for Elise Archer to make a decision the news has come out that Archer is quitting after all - I expect this means at least a week of Parliament will be prorogued unless the government is past caring whether it falls.  A number of Labor predictions that the Parliament would not sit again appear to be false barring further twists.  

Update: The Government is indeed past caring, there's no prorogue! In theory the Opposition could now renege on the pair and cause chaos (this has been known to happen in such situations) but even if it did it would not be able to form a workable government on the floor, especially as the Speaker can always cause a deadlock by resigning.  So even if a no confidence motion was to be passed the Premier would simply advise the Governor either to call an election (where we could have been anyway) or to wait a week when confidence would be restored.    I am still a bit surprised by this because of the potential risks of an Opposition party floor majority on other votes, though this is somewhat limited by the two-thirds majority rule for suspending standing orders.  

The recount is expected to happen on Oct 23.  

Alexander Noises:  The Australian now reports that Lara Alexander both says that her promise of confidence and supply stands but also that she would "evaluate it and see" if a no-confidence motion was passed - thereby in effect saying both that she guarantees confidence and doesn't guarantee confidence.  

How Not To Do Hare-Clark Public Funding Threshholds In Tasmania

Updates added during debate in November (at bottom)

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In late 2021 the Tasmanian Government released draft Bills concerning electoral funding and disclosure and miscellaneous electoral matters, and called for submissions.  I sent in a submission, which was duly published, but my advice concerning a major flaw in the electoral funding model was then completely ignored in the version of the Bill introduced in parliament and the accompanying second reading speech.  (The Bills were actually introduced in May - unnoticed by me at the time - but the Electoral Disclosure and Funding Bill has just reached the second reading debate stage).

Not to put too fine a point on it, I am getting really jaded with writing submissions.  I keep having to spend my spare time (which does not exist) writing submissions for nothing to try to ensure that governments do not make serious errors, only to find that in this case it does not even stop the mistake being made.

If the submission process does not result in the correction of howlers that are pointed out in submissions then what is the point of calling for submissions and what is the point of writing them?  The Tasmanian Government, for some reason that has never been explained, even sets the deadlines for public submissions at 5 pm, which makes meeting submission deadlines just a little bit harder for people who have to juggle countless other things while trying to write them.  Is someone seriously going to start working on them at 5 pm?  Would it really matter one iota if the submission was received at 10 pm or even 7 am the next day instead?  (Federal JSCEM submissions have a midnight deadline.)

Peter Gutwein Resignation And Recount

Retiring MP: Peter Gutwein (Liberal, Bass)

Recount from 2021 election for remainder of 2021-25 term

Recount for seat between Liberals Simon Wood and Greg Kieser 

Simon Wood won recount easily as expected

Jeremy Rockliff elected Premier unopposed. 

Recount updates 26 April

Recount updates will be posted here today as news arrives.  The number of ballot papers to be counted is very large but an outright majority for Wood on the first count (pretty likely I think) would speed things up.  Not sure if the result will be today, but if so I'd think late today.  

Tuesday night: the update late tonight shows Wood with nearly two-thirds of the vote with nearly two-thirds counted, confirming he will win tomorrow.

Wednesday: Wood wins on primaries as expected and by lots, 61%-28.9%.  

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In breaking news Premier Peter Gutwein has announced he is resigning as Premier and from Parliament later this week.  Gutwein was Premier for just two years and three months but in that time led his party to the retention of its majority (a very unusual feat for a seven year old government while the same party held office federally) and vied with Mark McGowan for the highest opinion poll ratings recorded in Australian polling history.  Gutwein's leadership of the state during the early days of the pandemic was acclaimed, though in the last few months opinion of the state's reopening has been divided and his ratings were starting to return to earth.  Gutwein has stated he is resigning for more family time.  His devotion to a massive workload saw him hospitalised with exhaustion and he has had some difficult challenges recently including isolation after a family member tested positive, and also revealing that he was a survivor of an attempted sexual assault as a teenager.  

This is very fresh and this article will be updated as the Premiership story develops.  I will start with the known unknown - the battle to replace him, and other parts as I can.

2021 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Clark

This is the Clark electorate guide for the 2021 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2021 election preview page, including links to other electorates.)  If you find these guides useful, donations are very welcome (see sidebar), but please only donate in these difficult times 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.

Clark (Currently 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 1 Independent)

(When election was called 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 Green 2 Independent)

(2018 Result 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green)

Western shore Hobart, primarily Hobart City and Glenorchy City

Inner and outer urban

2018 Tasmanian Postcount: Denison

Denison 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green
Re-elected: Bacon (ALP), Archer (Lib), O'Connor (Green)
New MP: Hickey (Lib)
Within party contest: Haddad (ALP) vs Ogilvie (ALP).  CALLED: Haddad will win.

There was much interest in the final week of the campaign in Denison.  The possibility sprang up that the seat might rip up the script by delivering three seats to Labor.  This has, in the end, fallen about a further 6% swing short of happening, so it really wasn't all that close.  The Liberal vote, bolstered by the preselection of Sue Hickey to replace Matthew Groom, has held up well clear of two quotas.

2018 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Denison

This is my Denison electorate guide for the 2018 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2018 election preview page, including links to other electorates.)

Denison (Currently 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green). 
Western shore Hobart, primarily Hobart City and Glenorchy City
Inner and outer urban

Declared Candidates

Note to candidates: As the number of candidates is 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 request 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.

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

The order of parties on the ballot paper is T4T, SF+F, Labor, Greens, Liberal