Labor Party soon to begin process for replacing Senator Anne Urquhart
Anne Urquhart’s gamble to resign her Senate seat paid off and now the search is on for her replacement. Read who might be in the running.
Tasmania
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The Labor Party in Tasmania will soon begin the process to replace former Senator Anne Urquhart who resigned to stand in Braddon.
Nominations will be called from party members but the decision will be made by the ALP’s national executive.
A joint sitting of both houses of the Tasmanian parliament also will be held to approve the party’s nomination.
Party sources say there could be three people keen to replace Ms Urquhart, whose term expires in three years.
The annual salary for a senator is $233,660 before other allowances.
Former party secretary Stuart Benson, Unions Tasmania secretary Jessica Munday and Meander Valley councillor Ben Dudman are all believed to be considering whether to nominate for the Senate seat.
Mr Benson declined to comment but one source said many in the party were trying to persuade him to nominate.
It is likely that Ms Urquhart’s replacement would be based in the North-West.
“Stuart would be the ideal replacement, he is intelligent, capable and well organised, he grew up in Burnie and his family are there,” he said.
“He’s worked hard and got soil under his fingernails.”
Ms Munday, who has been touted as a future MP for years, said it was a “matter for the Labor Party”.
“I’m celebrating Peter Dutton not becoming Prime Minister,” she said.
“I’m looking forward to working with the new Labor government to help workers in Tasmania and I am very happy at Unions Tasmania.”
Mr Dudman could not be contacted for comment.
Ms Urquhart, a former official with the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, was first elected to the Senate in 2010.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese persuaded her to resign her upper house seat and contest Braddon which she won easily.
The gamble paid off with Ms Urquhart saying: “This election, we made history by delivering a 15.1 per cent swing to Labor in Braddon – the largest in the nation.”
In 1987 the Gray Liberal government refused to accept the Labor Party’s nomination of union leader John Devereux to fill a casual Senate vacancy when Don Grimes resigned because he supported a federal Labor government’s moratorium on logging of the Lemonthyme and Southern Forest areas.
Political analyst Professor Richard Herr said the filling of casual Senate vacancies “should be straight forward”.
“It would be unwise for parliament to play politics and oppose the nomination to fill the vacancy,” he said.
If a nomination is finalised it is expected it could be rubber-stamped by both the House of Assembly and Legislative Council when both houses sit on May 27, two days before the state budget.
It is not known when the Senate will sit but the Australian Electoral Commission is awaiting postal votes before finalising the distribution of preferences.
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