A Labor miscalculation helped the Liberals win the Northern seats of Braddon and Bass

Premier Will Hodgman’s former chief of staff Brad Stansfield was one of the masterminds of the brutally effective campaign that helped the Liberals achieve what was considered unlikely even a month ago — winning Tasmania’s two northern seats.

TASMANIAN Premier Will Hodgman’s former chief of staff Brad Stansfield was one of the masterminds of the brutally effective campaign that helped the Liberals achieve what was considered unlikely even a month ago — winning Tasmania’s two northern seats.

And yet the company where Mr Stansfield is now a partner, Font PR, is understood to have initially been reluctant to take on the brief because of the likelihood of it being unsuccessful.

But take it on they did, with Mr Stansfield joined by fellow partner Brad Nowland — himself a long-time Hodgman Government political operative, most recently with Treasurer Peter Gutwein’s office.

The “two Brads” — as they are known around Hobart — hatched what was a risky strategy: to take on Labor over health funding. They built a campaign around promising that instead of matching federal Labor’s 2018 pledge to give $25 million to any future AFL team (“a Hobart AFL team,” as the Liberal campaign trumpeted in the North), a returned Morrison Government would instead invest that cash in Tasmania’s perennially controversial hospital and health system — a system, ironically, overseen by the Liberal State Government.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with Premier Will Hodgman and Bridget Archer at Norwood Primary School ahead of the election. Picture: MICK TSIKAS/GETTY IMAGES

Starting a conversation on health was a risky strategy, and indeed federal Labor eventually announced pledges that outspent the federal Liberals in that space. But in the meantime a new line of attack had opened up, courtesy of what became a Labor own-goal.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten flew into Hobart halfway through the campaign to announce a promise of $50 million towards publicly accessible facilities at Mona’s proposed new half-billion dollar hotel development at its site in the northern suburbs of Hobart.

The remarkably generous announcement — essentially a public donation to a private company headed up by a multi-millionaire — was made in the seat of Clark, held safely by independent Andrew Willkie. And if that wasn’t surprise enough, not even the tourism industry was forewarned.

“The first I knew about the Mona commitment was when it was announced,” says Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin, who still backs the funding commitment and wants backing from the State Government.

It is understood the decision to help fund Mona was made by the national Labor arm rather than Tasmanian Labor — and some local staffers started to worry when it was revealed. And sure enough, the announcement tanked in the North.

The two Brads swooped. Within days Liberal campaign ads in the northern seats warned voters that not only was Labor planning to spend taxpayer cash propping up a Hobart-based AFL team, but now it would gift $50 million to Mona — also in Hobart.

The result was astonishing. According to Liberal polling, the vote in Bass was 63-37 in Labor’s favour at the start of the campaign. That track polling began a vertical climb after the Mona announcement.

“Labor’s Mona promise was a major blunder which turbocharged our campaign — it was unpopular even in the South,” Mr Stansfield said.

“We remained ahead until polling day, after starting the campaign behind.”

Federal Labor was also battling bad press over tax reform and State Labor from its since dumped pokies policy and changes to birth certificates.

Neither Bass or Braddon should have been easy victories for the Liberals,

Broadly, the party’s preselection process did not take place until much later than usual. Bridget Archer was not announced the candidate for Bass until late November. Contrast that to the years-long run-up her Liberal predecessor, Andrew Nikolic, enjoyed ahead of his 2013 election.

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In Braddon, Wynyard RSL president Gavin Pearce was preselected in mid-October — after former Liberal MP Brett Whiteley had fought and lost the by-election in July.

Both candidates did already have a relatively high local profile, with Ms Archer the mayor of George Town and Mr Pearce popular among the North-West farming and veterans’ communities. They also both benefited from a series of campaign visits from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, as did — early on — the Liberal Party’s doomed Lyons candidate Jessica Whelan. Those early visits are a sign the Liberals had their eyes on all three non-Hobart seats before Ms Whelan’s forced resignation over Islamophobic social media posts.

Mr Pearce counted Mr Morrison’s visits to Braddon at 10, including one on election day itself. Both candidates also benefited from repeated appearances with the ever-popular Premier Hodgman. Mr Shorten did not appear alongside his Labor candidate in Bass until the final week of the campaign.

The shamelessly parochial campaign hatched by the two Brads has been credited with the win. But looking back, it is fascinating that the politically brutal but effective play on the historic and fierce division between the North and South was not the campaign the Liberals had set out to run.

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