Tasmania vote down to wire as leaders raise stakes

Tasmania’s election is headed down to the wire, as both leaders vow to plunge the state into a constitutional crisis or fresh poll rather than govern in minority.

Premier of Tasmania Peter Gutwein. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Richard Jupe

Tasmania’s election is headed down to the wire, as both leaders vow to plunge the state into a constitutional crisis or another poll rather than govern in minority.

With an apparent late surge to Labor and independents, odds shortened on a hung parliament being returned by Tasmanians.

Premier Peter Gutwein, who had hoped the early election would provide the Liberals with a clear majority for another four years, insisted his party would refuse to try to govern in minority.

“This is a very clear policy position on behalf of the Liberal Party: we will not govern in minority,” he said. “We want to continue rolling out our clear plan, we want to ­continue to keep Tasmanians safe … we want to ensure that jobs are being created and investment keeps coming to this island.

“Tasmanians have a clear choice: they can vote for certainty, they can vote for the Liberal Party that has a clear plan to secure Tasmania’s future, or they can vote for minority government. And minority government will take Tasmania backwards.”

Labor leader Rebecca White also vowed that neither she nor any of her team would seek to form a government without a majority in the House of Assembly.

“We are campaigning for ­majority Labor government and if people aren’t satisfied with this government, the only way to change it is to vote Labor,” Ms White said.

“That is the only way to fix the problems in the health system. It is the only way to provide more opportunities for Tasmanians. The community has a clear choice.”

Polling and pundits suggest the election contest has tightened in the second half of the five-week campaign, after Labor survived ­initial infighting to run hard on the failings of the state’s health system.

Tasmanian Labor opposition Leader Rebecca White. Picture; Peter Mathew

Both major parties have become concerned at the prospect of high-profile independent candidates Sue Hickey and Kristie Johnston securing a seat at their expense in the Hobart-based electorate seat of Clark. These concerns, only heightened by a ringing endorsement of both woman by popular MP for the mirror federal seat Andrew Wilkie, led Labor and the Liberals to focus their last-minute advertising and campaigning against the independents.

Recent polling by uComms for the Australia Institute had the Liberals on 41 per cent, Labor 32, the Greens 12.4, and independents 11 per cent. At the 2018 state election, a statewide Liberal vote of 50.3 per cent secured the party just a one-seat majority.

Clark could hold the key, with a win for Ms Hickey — a former Liberal dumped by her party on the eve of the poll being called — ­potentially stranding the Liberals on 12 seats. This would be one short of the 13 required for majority government, while Labor on most analyses is unlikely to win more than 10 seats, at best, and the Greens two.

 

In the event of a hung parliament, and no coalition formed to create a majority, Governor Kate Warner would be expected to advise Mr Gutwein, as incumbent, to test his support on the floor of the parliament.

The Liberals had hoped to pick up an extra seat or two in the northern electorates of Bass and Braddon, but this appears unlikely. While Labor is vulnerable in Clark, in Franklin the Liberals are without vote-winning former premier Will Hodgman.

Adding to the Liberals’ woes, the party’s star candidate for Braddon, former MP Adam Brooks, was embroiled in controversies over his photograph being used by dating app profiles in several other names, and claims a woman dated him while understanding his name was Terry.

Mr Gutwein stood by Mr Brooks. “I’ve got more important things to worry about than Mr Brooks’ love life,” he said.