Scott Morrison fires first shots in battle for Tasmania’s three marginal seats

The battle for three marginal seats in Tasmania has begun, with Scott Morrison sparking a sparking a forestry stoush.

Scott Morrison samples the pinot noir at Josef Chromy Wines. Picture: News Corp Australia

The battle for three key marginal seats in Tasmania began in earnest on Monday, with a visiting Scott Morrison further endorsing a proposed Bass Strait power interconnector and sparking a forestry stoush.

Labor believes it has a good chance of winning back the northern Tasmanian seats of Bass and Braddon, but the Liberals believe both are defendable and that the ALP is vulnerable in neighbouring Lyons.

On a tour with wife Jenny, the Prime Minister trumpeted a new $86m tree plantation scheme and a local defence contract and drank pinot noir, while seeking to stir local hostility to Labor-Green power-sharing.

“Let‘s not forget, Tasmanians know better than anyone that Labor forms government with Greens, and the Greens’ policies on national security are even worse than Labor’s,” Mr Morrison told talk back radio. “And guess who’ll be pulling their chain if Labor is elected to government.”

Tasmania has had several state Labor-Green alliance governments, as well as a Green-supported Liberal administration, and hostility to power sharing remains significant in the federal marginal seats.

Labor and the Greens, however, pilloried Mr Morrison’s plantation scheme, which aims to harness federal, state and private investment to plant a further 1.5 billion production trees nationally.

ALP candidate for Braddon, Chris Lynch, said voters would recall that this week marked three years since Mr Morrison visited the electorate to promise to plant one million trees by 2030.

Mr Lynch, hoping to wrest the Northwest and Western electorate from incumbent Liberal Gavin Pearce, said the government had since managed to meet just one per cent of this target.

“This is business as usual for the Morrison Government – make an announcement and then let the actual job slip into the never-never,” Mr Lynch said.

“We’re seeing it here in the Northwest with the stalled Cradle Mountain Cableway, the long-delayed new ship loader for Burnie Port and the non-existent road building works to end the Cooee Crawl (traffic problems).

“They’re all years behind schedule, but the tree planting program is even worse. At the current rate, it will take centuries to plant the billion trees.”

Former national Greens leader Bob Brown said the policy was a “very pale shade” of Bob Hawke’s 1989 promise to plant one billion trees to save ecosystems.

Mr Morrison backed-in controversial plans to build a second power “Marinus” interconnector under Bass Strait, despite an estimated cost of more than $3 billion and no commitment from mainland states to help fund it.

He also “announced” a defence contract with local manufacturer Elphinstone to build 45 turrets and hulls for the Australian Army’s new Huntsman self-propelled howitzer, creating about 55 jobs in Braddon.

However, it emerged the contract, and Elphinstone’s involvement, was originally announced in December 2021.

State Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein denied talk of a rift with Mr Morrison over Covid-19 health funding, after the two men both visited the state’s north without meeting.

“We’re busy people – we’ll catch up I’m sure over the next day and a half, while he’s in Tasmania,” Mr Gutwein said.

Launceston-based Bass is held with a .4 per cent margin by Liberal first-term MP Bridget Archer, on whom Mr Morrison heaped praised despite her recent decision to cross the floor over religious discrimination legislation.

Braddon is held by Mr Pearce, also a first-termer, by a margin of 3.1 per cent. Lyons, spanning much of the state’s centre and east, is held by Labor’s Brian Mitchell with a 5.2 per cent margin.