Election 2022: Marginal mavericks making it all about them

Tasmanian Liberal marginal seat MPs are running maverick, independent-style campaigns, emphasising personal records and distancing themselves from Scott Morrison.

Bass MP Bridget Archer. Picture: Rob Burnett / The Australian

Tasmanian Liberal MPs in marginal seats are running maverick, independent-style campaigns, em­­phasising their personal records and distancing themselves from Scott Morrison.

To retain government, the ­Coalition must hang on to its Tasmanian seats: Braddon, held by Gavin Pearce with a 3.1 per cent margin; and Bass, its most marginal seat, held by Bridget Archer on a margin of just 0.4 per cent.

Polling and anecdotal evidence suggests local hostility to the Prime Minister, and both first-term MPs appear keen to focus on themselves and are ambivalent about prime ministerial visits.

“I’m Braddon’s representative in Canberra, not the other way around,” Mr Pearce, a cattle farmer and former soldier, told The Australian. “There is a certain amount of air between me and Canberra. I’m not tarred with Canberra’s brush.

“I believe I’ve got almost my own brand. That goes with hard work for the electorate, and I’m hoping that will pay dividends.”

Polling by UComms in mid-March suggested Mr Pearce, who wrestled the Northwest seat from Labor’s Justine Keay in 2019, was behind Labor candidate Chris Lynch 53-47 on a two-party-preferred vote.

Mr Pearce said the popularity of the leader mattered less than ­regard for the local MP.

“There are a lot of people between the leader and the elector here in Braddon,” he said. “They value that person who’s standing in front of them and going in to bat for them every day.

“I would welcome his (Mr Morrison’s) visits but then again I believe that my focus needs to be at the local level and I’ll maintain that all the way through.

“This is a very pragmatic, practical, outcome-driven region. They just want their ‘stuff fixed’. They don’t want any flash; they don’t want any cameras.”

In Launceston-dominated Bass, Ms Archer, a beef and sheep farmer and former George Town mayor, made a virtue of her conflict with Mr Morrison and her party over an anti-corruption body, religious discrimination and cashless welfare cards.

Braddon Gavin Pearce. Picture: Jodie Coward

“I’m asking the people of Bass to consider what I’ve delivered over the past three years and whether they think I deserve the opportunity to continue,” she said.

“The PM has a job as well in terms of what the national message is. So I guess it would be unreasonable to say ‘you just stay in one spot and do that’.

“The PM is going to do whatever he thinks he needs to do or (be) where he needs to be, and that’s fine. (But) if we were only voting on the PM, then what am I doing running around?”

Reduced to tears after a meeting with Mr Morrison when she crossed the floor on an anti-corruption body towards the end of last year, Ms Archer revealed she had complained to him about bullying by his staff.

 

“I was very unhappy with the treatment that I perceive I had from some of those staff,” she said.

“If I’m going to go to Canberra just to nod along, I’m probably not doing my job,” she added.

“I do feel some pride in relation to the actions I’ve taken. I feel I have genuinely represented the views of people in my electorate.”

The maverick approach by the mother of five MP appears to be resonating with voters in her electorate. Recent polling shows her ahead of Labor candidate Ross Hart 57-43 two-party preferred.