The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

FRANKLIN
Region: Southern Tasmania

Franklin includes the areas of Hobart on the eastern shore of the Derwent River, small towns south of the city and the unpopulated southern part of the World Heritage area to the west. The redistribution has added 1400 voters north-east of Hobart, around Richmond in the City of Clarence (previously in Lyons), while removing 4100 voters at Bridgewater and Gagebrook in Hobart's outer north (to Lyons, which also gains an unpopulated area of Derwent Valley) and 1800 voters around Neika south of Mount Wellington (to Denison). According to Antony Green's calculations, the loss of strongly Labor Bridgewater and Gagebrook has weakened Labor by 0.7 per cent in federal two-party terms.

The federal electorate of Franklin was mostly in Liberal hands in the post-war era (though usually by narrow margins), until Harry Quick won it for Labor in the Tasmanian Liberal wipeout of 1993 and consolidated it thereafter. Labor's Julie Collins retained the seat when Quick retired in 2007 despite a 3.1 per cent swing to the Liberals, a result that was highly unusual in the context of that election. At state level, the electorate has reflected the pattern of traditional Labor dominance that foundered on the rocks of the Franklin Dam controversy in the early 1980s. At the 1996 election, the last held under the seven-member system, former federal Liberal member Bruce Goodluck gained a seat as an independent at the expense of one of the Liberals' usual three. Goodluck polled 6.3 per cent of the vote and won with help from a good many preferences leaking from the Liberal ticket. He did not recontest at the 1998 election, and with the number of seats reduced to five Liberal representation stayed at two seats.

The real Liberal disaster was to come in 2002 when they dropped another seat, this time to the Greens, after slumping from 37.0 per cent of the vote to 23.7 per cent. Their only sitting member going into the poll was Martin McManus, who entered parliament at a mid-term recount when Peter Hodgman quit for an unsuccessful run at the 2001 federal election. Their other sitting member, Matt Smith – who won a seat at the 1998 election at the age of 20 – quit shortly before the election after his father was charged with stealing from his employer, and a court was told some of the money may have been used to fund his campaign (his father was later acquitted on all charges). Their one successful candidate was Will Hodgman, nephew of Peter and son of legendary Denison MP Michael Hodgman.

Labor won three seats in both 1998 and 2002, and entered the 2006 election with three high-profile candidates: Premier Paul Lennon, Economic Development Minister Lara Giddings and Education Minister Paula Wriedt. Despite earlier expectations a seat was likely to be lost, each managed to win re-election. While the Liberal vote was up 7.7 per cent to 31.4 per cent – their biggest swing in the state – they emerged empty-handed, succeeding only in returning Will Hodgman. It appeared on election night that Liberal newcomer Vanessa Goodwin might gain a seat at Wriedt's expense, but in the event Wriedt prevailed by a fairly comfortable 1032 votes. As Tasmanian psephologist Kevin Bonham noted, “Will Hodgman leaked far more than Paul Lennon and Paula Wriedt continued to gather leakage from everywhere while the Liberals' lack of profile apart from Hodgman did them in”.

Paul Lennon comfortably led the poll with 26.1 per cent to Lara Hiddings' 10.6 per cent and Paula Wriedt's 8.0 per cent, while Will Hodgman overwhelmingly dominated the Liberal vote with 22.0 per cent, his nearest rival being Goodwin with 4.3 per cent (Goodwin has since emerged as the only Liberal member of the Legislative Council, after winning the Pembroke by-election in August 2009). Nick McKim easily held the seat he won for the Greens in 2002, although his vote fell slightly from 20.4 per cent to 19.4 per cent.


	ROSS BUTLER
	KATE CHURCHILL
	LARA GIDDINGS
	DANIEL HULME
	DAVID O'BYRNE

Labor's already tough task of retaining its three seats in Franklin has been further complicated by the mid-term departure of two of its members. Paul Lennon quit parliament immediately after resigning as Premier in May 2008. Paula Wreidt retired the following January, after a tumultuous final year in the job which saw her subjected to a lewd remark by Sam Newman on The Footy Show, followed a week later by her admission to hospital after a suicide attempt. The latter event was said to be initiated not by the former, but by the breakdown of her marriage resulting from an affair she had been conducting with her former ministerial chauffeur. Wriedt was subsequently relieved of her ministerial responsibilities, and quit parliament four months later. Lennon and Wriedt's respective vacancies were filled by Ross Butler and Daniel Hulme.

Lara Giddings became the youngest woman ever elected to an Australian parliament when she first won a seat in Lyons at the age of 23 in 1996. She was squeezed out when the number of members was reduced at the 1998 election, but returned as a member for Franklin in 2002. This came at the expense of Labor member Neville Oliver, who entered parliament mid-term after a recount when Fran Bladel abandoned her seat to make an unsuccessful tilt at the upper house seat of Huon. Despite being of the Left faction, Giddings was described as a protégé of Paul Lennon. She became Economic Development and Arts Minister in 2004, moving to health and human services after the 2006 election. When David Bartlett replaced Lennon as Premier in May 2008, she became the fourth Deputy Premier since the election, and further took on the Attorney-General and justice portfolios while retaining health.

Ross Butler entered parliament at the age of 64, having previously been a high school principal, real estate agent, financial adviser and taxi driver, as well as an activist in the Australian Education Union. He polled 1066 votes at the 2006 election, coming fourth out of five Labor candidates with 1.7 per cent of the overall vote. His performance as a parliamentarian has received mixed reviews from observers of Tasmanian politics. Daniel Hulme was an Australian Taxation Office worker and former Young Labor president, described by Sue Neales of The Mercury prior to the 2006 election as a “right-wing pro-development campaigner”. With 1.0 per cent (620 votes) of the vote to his name, he was the last remaining unelected Labor candidate from the election after Wriedt's resignation.

The newcomer candidates on the Labor ticket include David O'Byrne, state party president and secretary of the Left faction Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union. He is the brother of Michelle O'Byrne, Community Development Minister and member for Bass, and reckoned a better chance at the election than two of the three incumbents. The other Labor incubment is Kate Churchill, whose role as operations manager of Colony 47 would appear to make her a community organiser in the Barack Obama mould.


	WILL HODGMAN
	DAVID COMPTON
	JILLIAN LAW
	TONY MULDER
	JACQUIE PETRUSMA

Will Hodgman is the new generation representative of the evergreen Hodgman dynasty, which includes his grandfather (who served as both a Liberal and independent member) as well as his father Michael and uncle Peter. Hodgman went straight into the deputy leadership of the battered Liberal Party after the 2002 election fiasco. He set himself apart from his monarchist lawyer father by abandoning his legal career after entering parliament, and taking up the position of deputy convenor of the Australian Republican Movement. Even before the 2006 election it seemed very likely he would go one better in the very short-term future, given the results of a poll in The Mercury which showed he was the preferred Premier of more than a third of Liberal voters. When the Liberal Party emerged from the election with no new seats, it became apparent that Rene Hidding had no chance of retaining the leadership, despite evidently showing reluctance to let go in the days that followed. He recognised the inevitability of the outcome when the party room first met a fortnight after the poll, and Hodgman was installed as leader without opposition. After a fairly slow start, Hodgman's personal ratings accelerated ahead of Paul Lennon's in early 2007, and an EMRS survey in April 2008 sounded Lennon's death knell as Premier in having Hodgman with a 39-17 lead as preferred premier. Labor at first recovered its lead under the leadership of David Bartlett, but the Liberals and Hodgman recovered their leads in August 2009.

The Liberals' most fancied contender for a second seat was criminologist Vanessa Goodwin, who had narrowly failed on her first attempt in 2006. However, Goodwin was instead deployed to contest the August 2009 by-election for the upper house seat of Pembroke after the seat was vacated by Labor member Allison Ritchie. She delivered the Liberals a morale-boosting win by polling 38.5 per cent, against 12.8 per cent for the second strongest independent in a field that Labor had contentiously chosen not to enter. Goodwin's success made her the seventh Liberal member of parliament, and the party's first new blood since the 2002 election.

With Goodwin successfully accommodated, the Liberal hierarchy – in particular the Right faction forces around Eric Abetz – was reportedly keen that a second seat be won by Jacquie Petrusma, who was Family First’s Senate candidate in 2004 and 2007. She came close to winning a seat on the former occasion at the expense of Christine Milne of the Greens, having benefited from the same preference arrangements that delivered victory to Steve Fielding in Victoria. Petrusma is a registered nurse, and according to her website has “worked as a national sales manager in a global medical company, and has owned her own business”. Also in the field is Tony Mulder, Clarence alderman and former commander of the state security unit of Tasmania Police, who emerged winner of the preselection held to replace Goodwin. Mulder's electoral appeal was reckoned by Sue Neales of The Mercury to have made life complicated for Petrusma and her backers.

Also on the on the Liberal ticket are Clarence City Council building inspector David Compton and Huon Valley small business owner Jillian Law. Law, who was described by Sue Neales of The Mercury as a “delightful Huon Valley Liberal candidate and grandmother”, received a nasty email in January purportedly from a party insider, which said she had made enemies of Eric Abetz and Will Hodgman by “running about the Huon Valley telling everyone he is second to you” in terms of local support.


	NICK McKIM

Nick McKim is a former wilderness guide and advertising executive who entered parliament at the 2002 election. By the time of the 2006 election he was rated the Greens member most likely to succeed Peg Putt as leader, and so it transpired when Putt retired in July 2008. There have been suggestions McKim is being groomed to succeed Bob Brown in the Senate. Should that happen during the life of the next parliament, the identity of the second best performing Greens candidate will become of great interest, as it will likely determine who succeeds him in his state seat. The Greens are promoting as their candidate Adam Burling, a staffer to Brown and former Huon Valley councillor. Also on the ticket are Wendy Heatley, a lawyer and public servant; Mark Harrison, an accountant; and Deborah Brewer, a researcher and educator.