Election 2022: Jacqui Lambie and Labor in preference deal

The Jacqui Lambie Network and Labor have agreed to a preference swap deal in Tasmania, with Lambie placing the ALP above the Liberal Party in Braddon and Lyons.

Senator Jacqui Lambie.

The Jacqui Lambie Network and Labor have agreed to a preference swap deal in Tasmania, with Senator Lambie ­placing the ALP above the Liberal Party in the vital ­Tasmanian seats of Braddon and Lyons.

The JLN, though, will help ­Liberal MP Bridget Archer in her fight to retain the seat of Bass, held on a 0.4 per cent margin – one of the thinnest in Australia.

With the looming federal election on a knife’s edge, the three Tasmanian seats – all held on less than a 5.2 per cent margin – could prove pivotal for Scott Morrison’s chances of retaining government on May 21.

In return for enhancing their prospects of holding Labor MP Brian Mitchell’s seat of Lyons and taking Liberal backbencher Gavin Pearce’s seat of Braddon, Labor will preference JLN’s ­Senate ­candidate, Tammy ­Tyrrell, in her bid for the state’s sixth and last upper house spot.

In contrast to former Labor leader Bill Shorten, who tailed off in the weeks leading up to the 2019 ­election, Senator Lambie said, Anthony Albanese had “picked up on a whole new level”, benefiting from local concerns about cost of living pressures.

“JobSeeker is gone, JobKeeper is gone, the little bit of savings they might have saved up because they couldn’t go out and wine and dine and spend their money during Covid – that has now gone,” she told Radio National on Thursday morning.

Senator Lambie rejected ­allegations made by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who had accused her of doing a “dirty deal” with the Liberal Party, saying there was “talk of preferences many months ago … on a walk down the corridors”.

“No, there’s absolutely been no deals done,” Senator Lambie said. “I don’t have time to be doing deals so it’s as simple as that.” ABC psephologist Antony Green said the impact of the ­preference deal was “nearly ­impossible to measure” and was dependent on whether JLN had the campaign infrastructure to man polling booths and hand out how-to-vote cards.

Most JLN voters, Mr Green said, would have come from Labor or the Coalition and would be likely to ­return their preferences to the party they voted for in the 2019 federal election.

Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister spent 48-hours campaigning across the northwest of Tasmania, announcing a raft of hyper-local funding announcements in a bid to shore up the two marginal Tasmanian electorates.

Liberal sources said Senator Lambie’s decision to preference Ms Archer could prove pivotal in Bass and they were confident of ­holding Braddon in the northwest of Tasmania, held on a 3.1 per cent margin.