Legislative Council 2025: Montgomery, Nelson and Pembroke Live And Post-Count

Montgomery: Casey Hiscutt (IND) won after preferences as expected
Nelson: CALLED (7:09 pm) Meg Webb (IND) re-elected
Pembroke: CALLED (7:33 pm) Luke Edmunds (ALP) re-elected

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Live comments (scrolls to top)

All updates are unofficial, check the TEC site for official figures

Thursday 29th:  Unsurprisingly Hiscutt has done better than the Liberals on preferences; in fact he has won massively, 61.7-38.3 getting 76.9% of preferences that flowed to the two leaders (these figures are still subject to very minor change).   In Pembroke Ritchie snuck into second late in the primary count and moved 6.9% clear of Allan after preferences but still lost to Edmunds 58.2-41.8.  In all Ritchie got 59.2% of preferences.  In Nelson there will be no preferences; Meg Webb has 51.7%.  

Legislative Council 2025: Nelson

NELSON (2019 margin IND vs Lib 9.3%)

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 is here 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.

Legislative Council 2019: Nelson, Pembroke and Montgomery Live And Post-Count

Montgomery: CALLED 8:30 pm Hiscutt (Lib) retains
Nelson: CALLED 4:45 pm Tues Webb (IND) defeats Street on preferences by a large margin
Pembroke: CALLED 8:37 pm Siejka (ALP) retains

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Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
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Legislative Council 2019: Nelson

I've decided to start my 2019 guide to the Legislative Council division of Nelson early this year.  Firstly, I need to clear some decks for other things ahead of a very busy period ahead.  Secondly there is great interest in the contest already, and thirdly I don't have to wait until the final pre-election sittings to tell you anything about the voting patterns of the incumbent, since (i) the incumbent is the current President and doesn't vote (ii) the incumbent is retiring.  I will be updating my Legislative Council voting patterns assessment (last edition here) but for the time being there's not much to add, as there were only eight contested votes in all of 2018. [EDIT: I ran out of time to do this before the election!]

 I will also have pages for the other two seats, Montgomery and Pembroke, some time not later than early April.  And there will be live coverage here of all three seats on the night of the election, on Saturday May 4th, and through the inevitable postcount.

This piece will be edited through the campaign from time to time for updates, campaign information, added candidates and changed assessments.

Other guides are linked here:

Pembroke
Montgomery

LegCo Live Comments And Post-Poll Discussion

Pembroke: CALLED: Vanessa Goodwin (Lib) re-elected on first preferences
Nelson: CALLED: Jim Wilkinson re-elected
Montgomery: CALLED: Leonie Hiscutt (Lib) elected

The live comments appear below and updates are being added from the top.  To see TEC results pages go here.  Thanks to all for the interest on Saturday night; at one stage had nearly 2000 hits including close to 1000 link clicks-in (so not just the same five people obsessively hitting refresh) in three hours.   This is what the hit spike (figures are hits per hour) looked like:

What is an independent liberal?

This article could also have been called "What is an Independent Liberal?"  However, they are apparently not the same thing!

A revealing piece of campaign colour in the most exciting (but I'm not expecting it to be the closest) Legislative Council race, Nelson, involved the race's most obscure and recently announced candidate, Hans Willink.  Here is a Willink sign photographed at a well-known sign location at the city end of the Southern Outlet. 

The photo was taken with flash at night,  and the blue is actually quite a bit darker than it appears in this photo.  About halfway between the above and black.

Until today I'd seen no coverage of this one in the southern press, but Calla Wahlquist in The Examiner (April 22 page 4) thought it was interesting and so do I - mainly because it touches on two of my pet themes, namely (i) electoral law beat-ups and (ii) the Liberal Party's deceptive self-labelling.  What's happened here is that the Liberals have tried to get a bit heavy against the upstart minnow candidate.  Liberal Party state director Sam McQuestin is quoted as describing the combination of wording and colour of the signs as "a blatant attempt to deceive the voters of Nelson into supporting [Willink] as a member of the Liberal team".

Impressions of the Nelson LegCo Debate

I expect to have live election-night comments on all three LegCo electorates, from 6 pm 4 May.

(For election night, comments will still be subject to clearance but registration will not be required to post comments.)

This is another in a series of articles about the 2013 Tasmanian Legislative Council elections.   Existing instalments include:

My Legislative Council Candidate Guide

Nelson LegCo Polling

LegCo Spending Limits Create Confusion

I also have other LegCo related articles about the forestry peace deal, LegCo voting patterns and same-sex marriage.  And something coming up perhaps about the Liberal Party's stoush with the Nelson candidate who doesn't feature heavily in this article.
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LegCo Spending Limits Create Confusion

This site will have live election-night comments on all three electorates, from 6 pm 4 May.

(For election night, comments will still be subject to clearance but registration will not be required to post comments.)

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This is another in a series of articles about the 2013 Tasmanian Legislative Council elections.   Existing instalments include:

My Legislative Council Candidate Guide

Nelson LegCo Polling

I also have articles about the forestry peace deal, LegCo voting patterns and same-sex marriage.

Upcoming articles include my comments on the Nelson debate (see Simon de Little's video here if you missed it or want to relive it) with a roundup of other Nelson issues, which may be released in the next week or so.  These were originally in this article but I have held them back because it was too long and the Nelson-specific remarks did not mesh well with this issue, which involves all the electorates.  I will also have detailed projection attempts for at least Nelson and Pembroke which will be released sometime during election week.  To save the suspense in the case of Pembroke, I expect Vanessa Goodwin to win, and that it won't be close.  In Nelson there is a strong modelling and polling based case that Jim Wilkinson should win easily, but the nature of the contest is distinctive, and I don't consider it to yet be cut and dried.  This article explores one of the reasons why the fight for this seat could yet be competitive. 

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Over the last fortnight, the lobby group Tasmanians United for Marriage Equality (TUME) has been letterboxing the Legislative Council electorates of Montgomery, Pembroke and Nelson with leaflets.  These leaflets, versions of which are currently available on the TUME website,implore voters to "vote for marriage equality".  The initial versions contained pictures and names of most of the then-known intending candidates and ticks and crosses indicating their perceived positions on the issue.  The current versions indicate the three candidates who are known to be opposed to state-based same-sex marriage (Jim Wilkinson (Ind, Nelson), Vanessa Goodwin (Lib, Pembroke) and Leonie Hiscutt (Lib, Montgomery)) simply with large red crosses and wording such as "The current representative" or "The Liberal Party candidate", as well as ticks for two supportive candidates in each electorate.

Nelson Legislative Council polling (Updated)

 (Note: for more on the Legislative Council elections see my rampagingly popular if somewhat sprawling candidate preview article.  And there is so much more to come, perhaps including a look at the dreaded Section 159!)

UPDATE: Following the publication of partial results of another ReachTEL on Tasmanian Times this article now includes discussion of two separate polls.  The second is discussed at the bottom of this article.

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There have been some mysterious media reports of a Nelson Legislative Council ReachTEL poll.  I now have a copy of the full results (though there is a suggestion that an official corrected version may exist too - see first update below).  This is one of perhaps as many as four polls and surveys of the electorate conducted by or circulated among candidates; one of the others is discussed below.

The publication of partial details of polling commissioned by unknown sources in the mainstream media is a source of continual frustration because it means that the public are not in a position to know what the polling really says, or to access fully informed discussion of what the polling really means.  Nor are they in a position to be aware if there are errors in the polling results, as is apparently the case this time around.

I am here publishing the full details for the purposes of non-profit critical review and study.  Anyone thinking of copying these details for profit-related or any other purposes should be aware that the poll is copyright ReachTEL and obtain appropriate permissions.  I should note that while I have the data, I don't have permission to disclose (or know with absolute certainty) the identity of the commissioning source, and results should be treated with caution for that reason.  That said there is absolutely nothing in this poll, beyond some errors in the presentation of the data discussed below, that I have any reason to doubt is true. 

LegCo: Pembroke, Nelson and Montgomery Candidates

(Most recent updates:  9 April Nelson ReachTEL comments removed and new link added, 11 April Willink added, 19 April Willink update.)

Legislative Council nominations close noon, 11 April.  Election day is Saturday 4 May. 

The field is set: Apart from the last-day nomination of Hans Willink there were no surprises and the eleven candidates below are all who are contesting.  I will post in detail on my views of the chances of the candidates during the campaign.

Additional articles: I have other articles on the LegCo elections:
Nelson polling
LegCo Spending Limits Create Confusion
The Nelson LegCo Debate (Wilkinson/Richardson/Baxter)
What is an independent liberal? (Liberal Party attacks Willink)

ABC survey: The ABC has surveyed the social-issue views of candidates here.

I also have LegCo related articles about the forestry peace deal, LegCo voting patterns and same-sex marriage.

 Advance summary

1. This article initially discussed the early Legislative Council candidacy announcements of Allison Ritchie (Pembroke, Ind) and Tom Baxter (Nelson, Green), and has since been updated to include all Legislative Council candidates.

2. The Mercury's coverage of Allison Ritchie's past, either following the lead of or coincidentally resembling an error on Wikipedia,  has oversimplified official findings about past nepotism claims against her.  The Auditor-General's report on the matter was actually quite unfavourable.

3. Attempts by the Liberal Party to attack the Labor Party over the Ritchie candidacy are unsurprising but also unconvincing.

4. Tom Baxter is one of the better Legislative Council candidates the Greens have fielded for some time, but the Greens are currently experiencing a slump in polled support that will make it difficult for him to poll a high vote. 

5. While Nelson is probably the more interesting seat, neither challenger is likely to win.

6. The seat of Montgomery is an open seat which at the last state election had a slight lean to Labor and a comparatively low Green vote. The Liberals and various independents are contesting the seat.  There is no clear favorite.

This article will be updated as more candidate news comes to hand.

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