2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

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BASS (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN)

(At Election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND

SEAT PARTY CONTEST: George Razay defeated Labor

SEAT WINNERS: Bridget Archer (Lib), Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (GRN), George Razay (IND)

WITHIN-PARTY BATTLE: Jess Greene (ALP) defeated Geoff Lyons (ALP). 

SEAT LOST: Rebekah Pentland (IND), Simon Wood (Lib)

Final seat was a six way race - eliminated from contention in order: Pentland, Greens, Liberals, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, 3rd Labor.

NOTE: The Bass count involves a complex and novel Hare-Clark scenario and has been rated Wonk Factor 5/5. 

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts

2025 Tasmanian State Election Guide: Bass

This is the Bass electorate guide for the 2025 Tasmanian State Election.  (Link to main 2025 election preview page, which will include 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. 

Bass (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN, at election 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

North-east Tasmania including most of Launceston

Mixed urban/small-town/rural

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.

Lambie Network Blows Up After Only Five Months

In the beginning there was the Deal, and the Deal was stupid.

Nobody seems to know for sure who actually "negotiated" the JLN side of the confidence and supply arrangement with the Rockliff Government but, for whatever reason, the three elected JLN MPs signed it.  The Deal so needlessly limited the JLN MPs in terms of their ability to vote against the Government that when they broke the Deal by voting for a doomed Greens motion to compel the Government regarding its coastal policy, the Government either didn't notice or ignored the breach and it took the Labor Opposition to point it out.  (Edit: The Government then claimed the Deal hadn't been broken when it had, which soon resulted in the JLN MPs breaking it again on a motion re Forest Reserves.)

Tensions were apparent within the JLN from early on with Rebekah Pentland and Miriam Beswick having one approach and Andrew Jenner another.  Staffing was one issue where this came to a head.  There were further problems in early July when it emerged that the three state MPs had sent Jacqui Lambie a letter in June insisting she keep out of Jacqui Lambie Network state business, and alleging that she was directing state MPs on how to vote.

The catalyst for yesterday's events was the recent news that upgrades to the Devonport ferry terminal, needed for the overdue replacement for the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, had been bungled.  Lambie issued a release on August 15 demanding that Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure Michael Ferguson resign.  On 19 August JLN MP Andrew Jenner made comments that Ferguson's position was "untenable".  

On 20 August Lambie seems to have issued a press release - the verbatim text of which I have not seen because the Jacqui Lambie Network is beyond hopeless at publishing its output - saying that if Premier Rockliff did not sack Ferguson she would rip up the government's confidence and supply arrangement with the JLN.  This was bizarre to say the least since Lambie herself was not a signatory to the deal which, whoever drafted it, is between the government and the individual JLN MPs.

2024 Tasmanian Postcount: Bass

BASS (2021 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor - when election called 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 IND)

Notional 2021 7-Seat Result 4 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

SEATS WON 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN 

CALLED WINNERS: Michael Ferguson (Lib), Rob Fairs (Lib), Michelle O'Byrne (ALP), Janie Finlay (ALP), Cecily Rosol (Green), Rebekah Pentland (JLN), Simon Wood (Lib)

SEAT LOST: Lara Alexander (IND)

(Links to other seat postcount pages  Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons Summary)

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This year I will do my postcount threads in alphabetical order but some may get more effort at the start than others!   A late-night update in Bass sees the Liberals with 3.04 quotas, Labor 2.40, Greens 0.95, JLN 0.65, Shooters 0.18, Animal Justice 0.12.  The independents are collectively on 0.66 quotas but none of them has any vote to speak of and Greg (Tubby) Quinn is the only one who can hold his head up high, outpolling much more fancied indies who have flopped (though Lara Alexander has just overtaken him).  The count is at 81.9% (it will finish somewhere around 90 probably) and George Town and Scottsdale prepolls are not added yet.

The Liberal vote in Bass has been trashed by an enormous swing currently running at over 20%, but when you start from a base of 60, how bad can it be?    Michael Ferguson has topped the poll with 1.44 quotas in his own right.  Rob Fairs has a little less than half of that.  Ferguson will be the only candidate elected with quota and his surplus will provide boosts to the remaining Liberal candidates.  From then on it will be a long series of exclusions from the bottom up, with occasional surpluses.  Michelle O'Byrne and Janie Finlay will be over quota pretty quickly in that process, and Rob Fairs and Cecily Rosol later.  This leaves two battles.  The first is between JLN and Labor for the last seat at party level and the second is a battle for the third Liberal position.