Tassie sends the Three Amigos off into the sunset
TASMANIAN voters have delivered a stinging rebuke to the Liberal Party, turfing the self-styled “Three Amigos” from the key marginal seats of Bass, Braddon and Lyons.
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TASMANIAN voters have delivered a stinging rebuke to the Liberal party, turfing the self-styled “Three Amigos” from the key marginal seats of Bass, Braddon and Lyons.
In an election which has delivered an uncertain result for the nation, Tasmania has delivered three seats to Labor and a major setback to the Coalition Government’s chances of re-election under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – who campaigned on a platform of stability and certainty.
After a gruelling eight-week campaign, the outcome of the election was last night too difficult for even the best-informed pundits to predict who might form government.
Late in the evening, Australian Electoral Commission figures showed the Coalition just ahead with 57 certain or likely seats, and Labor on 55, with five independents and six impossible to call.
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Labor’s core campaign messages on Medicare, education and penalty rates appeared to have resonated with voters in the state’s North and North-West.
The result delivers a strong message to the state Liberal Party machine dominated by powerbroker Eric Abetz – and a warning to the State Government of a restive and fickle electorate.
Bass Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic saw a 10 per cent swing against him in Bass, delivering the seat to Labor’s Ross Hart.
In Braddon, Brett Whiteley fell to a 5.4 per cent swing in favour of Labor’s Justine Keay and a determined campaign by Labor’s Brian Mitchell saw him take Lyons from Liberal incumbent Eric Hutchinson with a 2.1 per cent swing.
Mr Mitchell has spent two years working in the seat, eroding the margin of first-term Liberal MP Eric Hutchinson.
“We’ve worked for this win non-stop for two years, but to see the win as emphatically as it seems to be tonight ... it’s an enormous privilege.”
In the state’s South, Denison Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was among the first MPs to be returned.
“There has been a solid swing to me ... so I’m in a position to claim victory,” said Mr Wilkie, who secured 68 per cent of the vote on a two-candidate preferred basis.
Labor’s Julie Collins enjoyed a 6 per cent swing in Franklin and also claimed victory early in the evening.
“It looks like I will no longer be the only [Tasmanian] Labor member in the House of Representatives,” she told a gathering of her supporters in Hobart.
There was little soul-searching among Liberals last night. Instead, Senator Abetz last night claimed Labor and others had run a “dirty tricks” campaign against the Coalition.
“We will be back, we have to be back and we will be,” he said.
In the Senate, early projections pointed towards four seats each for the Liberal and Labor parties, one for the Greens and one for former Palmer United Party senator turned-independent Jacqui Lambie.
The two final seats are likely to be determined by complex preference flows – and the counting of postal, pre-poll and absentee votes – in the coming days and weeks.
That count will determine the future of former state Greens leader Nick McKim and a brace of candidates from minor parties.
Senator McKim was not sure whether he would retain his spot last night but believed he would, given the swing to his party in the Lower House.
“A great swing to us around the country because people are sick and tired of politics as usual, and they want a new way. In Tasmania, we had good swings to us in the House of Representatives.
It will some days before it is clear whether Labor’s Lisa Singh and Liberal Richard Colbeck – who were dropped down the ticket by their party machines – have been able to pull off unlikely victories based on their personal followings.
“I’ve been encouraged all the way through this campaign by the number of people telling me they were going to vote below the line,” Senator Singh said last night.
The Greens managed to claw back some of the losses they experienced in the 2013 election.
The party’s best-performing candidate was Terrill Riley-Gibson in Bass, who saw the party’s primary vote jump three percentage points to 10.76 per cent.
The Greens also managed double-digit primary votes in Franklin (13 per cent) and Denison (10.6 per cent).
In its first election as a political party, the Australian Recreational Fishers Party has recorded a primary vote of between 5 and 6 per cent in each of the Tasmanian Lower House seats where it has fielded a candidate.
For more of the state’s best election coverage and analysis, grab a copy of today’s Sunday Tasmanian.
Originally published as Tassie sends the Three Amigos off into the sunset
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