Transcript of short interviews conducted with various candidates and observers present at the election night tally room in Hobart, 23 March 2024.
Alice Hardinge
I’m Alice Hardinge, Campaigns Manager for the Wilderness Society Tasmania.
Tasmanian Times
How do you see things unfolding?
Alice Hardinge
I’m seeing really positive results so far. We’re seeing lots of votes coming in for progressive candidates who are supporting nature in Parliament and have good environmental policies. I really think we’re going to see a huge increase in in Greens members in the next parliament. A huge swing away from the major parties. I guess time tell.
Tasmanian Times
There was a large rally last week on the Sunday for forests. How influential do you think that was in swinging the vote, particularly here in Clark and Franklin the two southern electorates?
Alice Hardinge
I think native forest logging has become an election issue, really top of mind for a lot of progressive voters and I think the rally has had a big impact. But I also think the ill advised policy the Liberals came up with – that promise to extend logging contracts to 2040 as well as log 40,000 hectares of potential production forests, forests that should have been permanently protected under the Tasmanian Forests Agreement – I think that really did not go home to voters. I think that has really made people come out and think about voting more progressively to make sure that a policy like that and that promise will not come to fruition.
Tamar Cordover
Tamar Cordover, I’m an independent candidate in Franklin.
Tasmanian Times
What’s your take on numbers as they stand? It’s about 9.30 on Saturday night, a few hours into the counting, how does it look to you?
Tamar Cordover
It’s pretty exciting. I think we are seeing a shift and so we’re not seeing a majority on and so that’s the shift that people have been talking about. As I moved through community, I really heard that quite strongly, that people wanted to see a coalition. And so it looks like we’re heading in that direction. It’s exciting.
Tasmanian Times
You’ve been out campaigning as an independent, what’s been your experience out there?
Tamar Cordover
That’s a great question. I think there’s still a small percentage of people that are disengaged. But in this campaign, being an independent myself, as opposed to being a being a support for somebody else, it’s been pretty exciting to see how many people have actually wanted to know what was going on and have had a real interest in starting to explore the idea of having maybe more independents and getting to know what people stand for as individuals rather than just as parties and along those party lines. So that’s been exciting.
Tasmanian Times
It doesn’t look like you’re going to be elected personally. So what’s the future for you? What’s in your political future?
Tamar Cordover
Thanks for asking, look, I think for me, I have found a space where I feel like I am almost my best self. I didn’t do any really strong campaign advertising. So no corflutes, no flyers, this was all just word of mouth. And so yeah, I’m right at the bottom of the board.
But for me, it wasn’t just about where I ended up in this election. This was about really engaging with community and starting to understand if my way of representing people, representing that diversity in community, whether that had value to people. I really feel like there was a really strong positive to that. People want diversity. And so sure, I’m going to do this again.
Tasmanian Times
You talked a little bit during the campaign about illegally- placed advertising signs and so on. What’s your recommendation about how we fix that, so that we actually have a level playing field for all candidates in future elections?
Tamar Cordover
Fabulous. I think the onus right now sits on the public to do research and to figure out who it is that their options are. We all know that that’s a big ask. So whether it is some sort of a framework so that it comes through the TEC and we can have a printout that has a small blurb and contact details for candidates, or whether we just keep asking media to be more accountable to ensuring all of those voices of all of those candidates are made available to people. I really believe that it’s absolutely important that people know what options they have. Because this is a democracy, we’re electing in a democratic process. And if you don’t know who your options are, then then you can’t really act out that democratic process. Thanks very much.
Tasmanian Times
We’ve got Peg Putt here of the famous deck chair. We’ve seen a little bit of, you know, statements today from Christine Milne, about how it’s been so long. What’s your take on the return to 35 seats in the House of Assembly for Tasmania?
Peg Putt
I am just over the moon. Really. It’s been a very long time coming. We always wanted to build back to this. We see the proper restoration of Tasmanian democracy, a better chance for voices of all the people to be represented in the parliament. And for it to function properly, with the right number of people to actually be able to manage the ministries and have back benches and people who are very important for being out on the ground in touch with people all the time to bring back to the Parliament, the things that are really important that need to be dealt with. So all that’s going to come back much better now.
But it’s also going to require a level of maturity from the politicians to understand that parliament is not about parties. It’s about the electorate, and the people who were voted to represent every person in the electorate,. That’s what’s going to have to be the focus and working together to achieve that.
Tasmanian Times
But what level of confidence do you have that that maturity exists and we’re not going to be back at the polls in a month? With a party saying ‘minority government sucks, we need to elect a majority’. What do you think is actually going to happen?
Peg Putt
Well, it is hard to work. So you know, if they don’t want to work hard, and they just want it really clear and simple and bullying their way through, then we’re going to see some nastiness and possibly an imbroglio. But when we’ve had it in the past, and I was there 96 to 98 when it was Liberals in minority, we had no arrangement with them. We had to debate it all on the floor of the house.
All three parties in the parliament actually became quite practiced at talking to each other, hearing the different points of view, figuring out how to make an accommodation between them and probably come up with the best approximation on how you could take the different views from around Tasmania and work them into a decision. In the end, everybody quite enjoyed it.
It was really interesting once people learnt to listen to each other, and it was really challenging, but in a creative way, to try and figure out how to make the views coalesce and come up with something good. And it actually felt like a real loss when that went away. And not just to me, other members of parliament also said that to me at the time,
Tasmanian Times
I kind of think of that image of you in the deck chair in the sort of cross-bench space as like the man in front of the tanks in Tienanmen Square. But if we move forward from that, what is Peg Putt doing these days? Is she enjoying life, is she enjoying a happy retirement?
Peg Putt
Well, she’s enjoying life. But no, she’s not retired. I’m working internationally now most of the time on, mostly on forests, on environmental issues at the United Nations Climate Convention mostly, and also the Biodiversity Convention trying to save the forests of the world.
I’m co-ordinating a network of 300 non-government organisations in 60 countries on all the continents except Antarctica. We are working to try and stop the wholesale logging and burning of forests in place of coal in huge generators, as a claimed form of renewable energy, because it’s destroying the forests of the world, not helping the climate, but making it worse and destroying biodiversity along the way. So something had to be done. Nobody was organising, and I thought I know how to organise a bunch of people to do something, let’s have a go. And that’s where we’re at.
Corey Speers
I’m Corey Speers, an avid watcher of Tasmanian politics, maybe the best way to put it.
Tasmanian Times
So we’ve been counting for about three hours, there’s a few numbers up on the board, some seats have been awarded by Antony Green.
Corey Speers
I think Antony is spot on. It’s very hard to call at this stage. But it does look like the Liberals are going to have to form a minority government with either the Greens or some independents of some colours We don’t know yet. But I don’t think either party can take the win on their own at all. It’s very much going to be a mixed parliament, a mixed bag.
Tasmanian Times
You’re from up in the north-west. What’s the mood like in Braddon?
Corey Speers
Well, looking at the numbers up there I am a little bit surprised to see higher numbers for Felix Ellis than Roger Jaensch, I thought Roger would have been more popular. I’m really pleased to see, personally, a high result for Darren Briggs, that’s some really good numbers there. It’s going to be really interesting to see where the preference flows go.
Miriam Beswick is another surprise because I guess James Redgrave has had a bit more of a higher profile in Braddon and sort of been almost seen as the lead candidate of Jacqui Lambie, but Miriam’s ended up I guess with more votes. And Craig Garland well that’s another one to watch for sure, it’ll be a really interesting one.
Tasmanian Times
So like at this stage, it looks like possibly three Liberal, two Labor. And then it’s all a bit of a free for all for last few seats.
Corey Speers
It’s like a mixed bag of lollies, it really is.
Tasmanian Times
Jacqui Lambie Network doesn’t have a huge track record of standing in state elections, so do you think their preferences are going to stay very much in house or they might leak –
Corey Speers
I think they’ll leak all over the place to be honest. I think people are sort of directing their Jacqui Lambie votes because they don’t know where else to put them. It’s going to be your frustrated Liberal and your frustrated Labor voters probably most likely. So they’ll probably go off to some of the other smaller parties and then they’ll probably push back to the Liberals or maybe more right-leaning Labor candidates. It’s really hard to pick. People to sort of, I guess, Hare-Clark, that’s why we love it, right? It presents all sorts of scenarios depending on the preference flows.
Tasmanian Times
You mentioned those frustrated Liberal frustrated Labor voters, what is it that’s not working for those voters? That they’re, you know, people who probably for a few generations were absolutely rusted-on Liberal and Labor. But now they’re leaving those parties, they’re considering the Jacqui Lambies, the independents, the alternatives, what actually is driving that?
Corey Speers
I definitely think it’s the results. The last couple of years, we haven’t seen a lot of results, particularly in Braddon and a lot of people I’ve spoken to, the bolted-on voters, are saying things like, ‘oh, I don’t know why they’re concentrating on this stadium’. You know, the stadium in Braddon means nothing. It doesn’t mean anything for people in Braddon at all. It’s Hobart-focused and Hobartcentric. And yeah, we don’t like that very much in Braddon, we like the attention. We are the usually a marginal electric, particularly in the federal election. This will be a really interesting one to see what the mix is at the end of the day.
Tasmanian Times
There’s been some criticism of the Jacqui Lambie network, that they don’t really stand for anything. But they haven’t released the policies. And they’ve said they’ll decide on how the individual members feel What’s your understanding of how that plays with the voters in Braddon?
Corey Speers
A few people I spoke to were like, ‘well it’d be good to know what you’re voting for’. Whose side are they going to take? They say they’re going to represent the community. I interviewed James at the Braddon forum that we had for candidates as well. And he seemed to sort of say, he’s got lots of ideas. Well put those ideas out there. The voters want to hear about your ideas and what you’re about and what you stand for.
You can’t just stand for ‘oh, we’ll work with whoever gets in government, and negotiate whatever’. Well what is it? What does it look like? What do you stand for? I can see why they might try and take this keeping-the-government-to-account kind of position, but it’d be good to have a central tenet behind them. What do they stand for? What are the values? Those sort of things. I feel like they could have probably communicated that a little bit.
Tasmanian Times
Tony Mulder, what’s your take on the overall picture for the Tasmanian state election?
Tony Mulder
I think as the day has drawn closer, the electorate has retreated back to the safety of the parties. I think we’ve got a fascinating period ahead to see whether the cross-bench as it looks like will support Liberal or Labor in a vote of confidence.
Tasmanian Times
And how do you think that will play out? I mean, are we going to be back at an election within 18 months with both parties saying minority government doesn’t work?
Tony Mulder
That’s a strong prospect and until we go to single member electorates in the Lower House and multi-member electorates in the Upper House, as is the norm for every other bicameral Westminster system, we are going to be playing this game over and over again.
Tasmanian Times
You’re not saying something negative about Hare-Clark? We’re going to have to load you in a cannon and fire you down the Derwent.
Tony Mulder
I’m saying something about not just Hare-Clark but proportional voting in the Lower House. Every other system, every other state, every other Westminster country that has two Houses of Parliament, has proportional representation in the house of review and single member electorates in the Lower House. Yet for some strange reason, Tasmania has to be different. And here we find ourselves in this instability.
Tasmanian Times
You’re former Liberal Party member and it looks alike the party vote have crashed by about 13% tonight Peter Gutwein’s around 50% to down toward 37. What what’s gone wrong with a Liberals?
Tony Mulder
Let me start by saying that I have never been a member of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. When I sat in the Legislative Council it was as an independent. And I have had to run the knuckles over both Liberal and Labour governments, quite successfully I might add.
My take on this is that although the vote, the Liberal vote, is declining, it’s because I believe they are being far too conservative. They are not liberals. They are conservatives, they are Tories. Real liberals believe in different values than the conservatives. As I’ve said previously, what we are looking at in the Liberal Party is conservative wolves in sheep’s liberal clothing.
Tasmanian Times
But also looks like Labor, they’ve identified major problems in health and education and so on, and yet their vote has gone down like. Honestly, it appears that Tasmanian people don’t feel that Labor is a viable alternative to the Liberals. What’s your perspective on Labor?
Tony Mulder
With my background, what’s happening is that if you look nationally, it’s the teal independents, the sensible centre, that is getting that vote. That’s where the electorate is gravitating to. And one of the problems with Hare-Clark system is that in the end, it goes back into the party mall, instead of that central thing. If you had single member electorates, I believe there’d be a fair old swag of sensible centre people in there. And you can call me Liberal and I will never vote for Liberal again, nationally at least, until I have a candidate from the sensible centre, like Bridget Archer, that you can vote for. And that’s all based on that outrageous campaign they ran on the Voice to Parliament vote.
Tasmanian Times
Peter Dutton’s has been campaigning for nuclear energy, where would the first nuclear reactor be sited in Franklin?
Tony Mulder
In Franklin, there will be no new reactors, it’s too expensive, they are dicking around with a whole heap of trouble. If you want to know the future, we should be building gas fired power stations, because they can easily be converted to the future which is hydrogen.
Tasmanian Times
You’ve talked a bit about the link road between I think Risdon –
Tony Mulder
– between Geilston Bay and the Mornington roundabout.
Tasmanian Times
So why is that a hard sell? Neither party has been able to commit to it.
Tony Mulder
I have no idea. The cost benefit analysis on that was $2.20 for every dollar spent. The cost benefit analysis on the Bridgewater Bridge was 52 cents for every dollar spent. Yet the Bridgewater Bridge gets built and the Flagstaff Gully doesn’t.
There’s two bypasses that Hobart desperately needs. One is the western bypass. And the other one is to bypass the Tasman Bridge by connecting the Mornington roundabout to Geilston Bay. And there’s only about less than a kilometre of roadway that needs to be built to achieve that. But they cannot bring themselves to do it. I don’t know why they’ve got this fixation.
That problem with Hobart traffic is that all the jobs are in the centre of the city. And the city is constrained by the Derwent River and the Wellington range. We need to come up with a network of satellite cities where you have your shopping centres and your industrial centres, so people can go to work there and not into the city. 80% of the people who travel from Sorell for work have to travel to the city. Why can’t we start by putting the government offices out at Sorell, Kingston and these other places so they don’t have to travel?
Tasmanian Times
It looks like you’re probably not elected as one of the seven members for Franklin. What’s next for Tony Mulder?
Tony Mulder
We shall just focus ourselves I think on the on the Clarence City Council. And will continue the work there.
Tasmanian Times
Frank Formby, how do you think your campaign went?
Frank Formby
Well, obviously didn’t do that well, we are quite disappointed. But we were caught on the hop by the sudden, early election. We only really started planning in January assuming an election was coming sooner rather than later but, yeah.
Tasmanian Times
We had a few complaints from independent candidates about major parties leaving trailer in road corridors illegally, that are controlled by State Growth. Do you think there’s a level playing field where independent candidates can actually compete effectively with the major parties?
Frank Formby
Well, no. I mean, first of all, there’s a question of campaign finance. And secondly, there’s name recognition. They’re the two big problems for independent candidates. Obviously, if you’re in the local council, you get some of that because people know who you are. And you’ve got a track record. But yes, campaign financing. Possibly some misinformation campaigns don’t help either. That’s, you know, that’s the way the system works.
Tasmanian Times
I’m assuming that because you stood as a candidate, you’ve got a passion, a bee in your bonnet about something. So what’s next for you? Given that I don’t think you’re going to be elected as a member for Clark, what’s next for Frank Formby?
Frank Formby
Well, I’m still interested in the health sector, health care, because I work in the system. I’ve been trying to put forward some ideas about how it could be improved. I think the major parties are disappointing, having one-off ideas when really it’s a system problem. It’s not you know ‘end all ramping’ I mean, that’s just ridiculous.
Tasmanian Times
I’m here with Roland Browne, who’s a spokesperson for Our Place with regard to the stadium. What’s your comment on the results as you see them tonight?
Roland Browne
Well the Liberal Party’s gone backwards by 12%. The stadium was a defining issue for them. They were the party that was preferring the stadium. The Labor Party sat on the fence while all the other independents and minor parties opposed. There’s clearly been a drift away from them and the Liberal party. It’s clear that the stadium is unwelcome. And given the budget commentary over the last week, it’s clear that Tasmania simply cannot afford to keep going down this road. Project of State Significance status should be revoked. And we should get on to trying to work out how Tasmania is going to resolve its budgetary problems.
Tasmanian Times
Do you feel like this was a bit of a referendum on the stadium? The Premier spoke about his cap on the first day of the campaign. And on pretty much the last day of the campaign at the leaders debate he was still talking about it. It was clearly a major issue. So do you feel like that this was like a de facto referendum on the stadium?
Roland Browne
I agree that it was a de facto referendum on the stadium. It was a major issue for a lot of the commentary around the election. The Labor Party have not backed the stadium, the minor parties, and the independents have largely been against the stadium. And the result reflects that, it reflects in 12% swing away from the Liberal Party.
Tasmanian Times
Lara Alexander, who I heard speak at a no stadium rally in about April last year, had a very low vote and she appears to have lost her seat. Do you think that reflects that there is a bit of softness in the no stadium vote?
Roland Browne
No I don’t. Lara Alexander had a very, very low primary vote in the first place. So she was unlikely to win her seat and so was John Tucker, but they stood on principle and on matters of integrity. They effectively put their money where their mouth is. So I don’t think them failing to gain their seats means anything. What is telling is that the Liberal Party had a 12% swing against it.
Tasmanian Times
We appear to be in for a period of a bit of horse trading for probably two or three weeks to see who gets how many seats and who wants to do an alliance with someone else. Do you think the stadium should really be a part of those negotiations?
Roland Browne
Absolutely. The first thing that should happen in the negotiations would be for the government to give a briefing to the other parties on the state’s finances. We can expect that the state’s finances will be in a parlous state. And once that’s accepted, the stadium is gone. There is no money for the stadium. We don’t have the 700-odd million dollars that the state wants to put into the stadium.
Tasmanian Times
You clearly don’t believe in that $375 million cap that the Premier announced on the first day of the campaign.
Roland Browne
But it’s not a cap because the state is also putting in 240 million from the GST carve up. So the cap was an illusion, an absolute illusion. And it’s made worse by two things. Firstly, it doesn’t account for the blowout in the cost of the stadium and we’re looking at 1.2 billion.
It also fails to take into account all of the other costs associated with works to facilitate the stadium. So the movement of the sewerage works at Macquarie Point, the transport changes that need to be made to facilitate the construction of the stadium. None of those costs have been built in and the government and the state will not be able to afford it.
Tasmanian Times
I can’t quote him verbatim, but the Queensland Premier this week came out and said words to the effect that ‘I can’t commit to a multi-billion-dollar mega stadium when we have disparities in health and housing’. Do you think that’s a pointer for Tasmania?
Roland Browne
It absolutely applies to Tasmania. But it wasn’t just the Queensland Premier, because the Victorian Premier pulled out of the Commonwealth Games for the same reason. The cost of the construction was too much and they knew that the costs were going to blow out. We know in Tasmania that any stadium constructed here will result in much greater costs. The government is just living a lie and not telling us how much that’s going to be.
