The Poll Bludger - Australian State and Federal Elections

LYONS
Region: Central Tasmania

Known until 1982 as Wilmot, the electorate of Lyons is made up of what's left over after the north-west coast (Braddon), north-east coast (Bass), western Hobart (Denison) and eastern Hobart (Franklin, which also makes up the numbers with towns to the south and thinly populated rural and wilderness areas) are grouped together into communities of interest. It thus includes small towns on either side of Tasmania's pronounced north-south divide, respectively including New Norfolk outside Hobart and Launceston's southern outskirts, along with fishing towns and tourist centres on the east coast and a lot of farming land in between. Sharing boundaries with all four of the state's electorates, Lyons has a complicated time at redistributions. This time it has lost 1600 voters at Hadspen and Franklin Valley south Launceston to Bass; exchanged slightly over 3000 voters either way with Braddon, from which it loses the length of the west coast (including Strahan, Queenstown, Zeehan, Tullah and Rosebery) while gaining those parts of Latrobe Council outside the township of Latrobe itself; and exchanged 1400 voters around Richmond north-east of Hobart for 4100 at Bridgewater and Gagebrook in Hobart's outer north, respectively to and from Franklin. According to Antony Green's calculations, this increases Labor's vote by 0.5 per cent on the 2006 results, mostly on account of the Bridgewater and Gagebrook area, while cutting the Greens by 0.5 per cent and making no difference to the Liberals.

Campbell Town (Source: Wikipedia)

The decline in Liberal fortunes in Tasmania which began in the late 1990s kicked in early in Lyons, when former Premier Robin Gray took his personal vote into retirement at the 1996 election. On that occasion the Liberal vote dropped by 16.3 per cent from its high point of 1992, compared with a statewide result of 12.1 per cent. This cost them a seat and contributed to the Rundle government's loss of a majority; another loss in 1998, when the number of seats was reduced from seven per electorate to five, helped cost the Liberals government. But the electorate had still not finished with them, and another dive in support in 2002 (which was actually fairly muted when compared with other electorates) saw the fall of yet another seat – this time to the Greens, who came back into the game after party leader and future Senator Christine Milne lost her seat in 1998. That left Deputy Leader Denise Swan fighting it out for the sole remaining Liberal seat with Rene Hidding, a bitter opponent of both Swan and leader Bob Cheek, who lost his seat in Denison. Hidding began with a slender lead of 3958 primary votes to 3905 but fell behind at one point during the distribution of preferences, recovering late in the count to prevail by just 82 votes.

On the night of the 2006 election there was some doubt as to whether the Greens would retain their seat, but ultimately all sitting members were returned. At the close of the count, the Greens were 0.1 short of their first quota and the Liberals were 0.2 short of their second, leaving Liberal candidate Geoff Page with a slim chance of unseating Tim Morris. However, the gap widened in late counting and Morris finished 1646 votes ahead. An interesting aspect of the result was how closely the primary vote swings matched the state totals – precisely in the case of the 2.7 per cent swing against Labor, and only 0.1 per cent out in the case of the Liberals (up 4.4 per cent) and the Greens (down 1.5 per cent). Another was that Michael Polley (21.2 per cent) outpolled David Llewellyn (18.4 per cent) for the first time since 1992.


	HEATHER BUTLER
	DAVID LLEWELLYN
	MICHAEL POLLEY
	BRENDAN SULLIVAN
	REBECCA WHITE
	NICK WRIGHT

Michael Polley has had by far the longest uninterrupted run in the House of Assembly of any current sitting member, having first been elected in 1972 at the age of 22. He held fairly minor portfolio responsibilities until the Labor-Greens accord government of Michael Field came to power in 1989, when he began his first stint in the Speaker's chair, a position he resumed when the current Labor government came to power in 1998 and has held ever since. In 2000, Martine Haley of The Mercury wrote that the role gave him “scope to do what he does best: mingle, meddle and court the numbers – both Labor and Liberal”. In 2006 he topped the poll in Lyons for the first time since 1992, recording 21.2 per cent of the vote. His sister, Helen Polley, has been a Senator since 2005.

David Llewellyn was first elected in 1986 and has served as a cabinet minister under Michael Field, Jim Bacon, Paul Lennon and David Bartlett. On the election of the Bacon government in 1998 he assumed the primary industries, environment and police portfolios, but he was relieved of police late in the term due to concerns he had an excessive workload. After the 2002 election he moved to health and recovered police, and enhanced his prestige by handling the notoriously difficult former portfolio without serious incident. That helped elevate him to Deputy Premier when lung cancer forced Jim Bacon to stand down as Premier in February 2004. This was despite resistance from the Left, which favoured Braddon MP Bryan Green. Weighing up the two contenders at the time, Ellen Whinnett of The Mercury listed Llewellyn's strengths as being “hard-working, sincere (and) able to get across the detail of the portfolios”, and his weaknesses as being “soporific”, a “poor public speaker” and “lacking in aggression”. During the 2006 campaign the Liberals spoke of a “shady factional deal” which they claimed would cost him the deputy leadership after the election, and he indeed stepped aside from the position citing the need for new blood. He was further demoted to the primary industries, water and energy portfolios. His workload chopped and changed as deputy premiers and premiers came and went, variously seeing him serve in Attorney-General and justice, resources, corrections and consumer protection. He goes into the election with primary industries, water, energy and resources and planning. At the 2006 election his vote was overtaken by Michael Polley for the first time in 14 years, reckoned to be consistent with electoral difficulties involved with the health portfolio.

Heather Butler entered parliament in 2005 on the retirement of Ken Bacon (no relation to Jim and family, although it was suggested his electoral success was owed to confusion on this point). She had polled 3.1 per cent at the 2002 election, slightly ahead of the other unelected Labor candidate (Craig Farrell, who polled 2.4 per cent), but far behind any of the elected members. Her profile as a member helped boost her vote to 6.0 per cent in 2006, comfortably clear of the two newcomer candidates and therefore enough to win her a seat given Labor polled well over three quotas. Before entering parliament she was a tourism operator on the east coast town of St Helens and a board member of TT-Line.

The most visible of the newcomer candidates has been Rebecca White, 27-year-old electorate officer to federal Denison MP Duncan Kerr. Michael Stedman of the Sunday Tasmanian reported an ad by White “poking fun at the elder statesmen of her own party” went “viral” on YouTube, prompting David Llewellyn and Michael Polley to complain to David Bartlett (it appears to have been discreetly dropped from White's YouTube page). There were suggestions White might be in the preselection field to succeed Kerr in Denison when he retires at the next federal election, but such talk has receded. The other Labor candidates are Brendan Sullivan, who according to the Labor website has “extensive experience working in the retail and tourism sectors around Tasmania and interstate and is currently an account manager for a State-wide electrical wholesaler”; and Nick Wright, a staffer to David Llewellyn.


	RENE HIDDING
	LEIGH GRAY
	JANE HOWLETT
	JIM PLAYSTED
	MARK SHELTON

Dutch-born Rene Hidding (first name pronounced "reen", although his foes delight in doing otherwise) ascended to the Liberal leadership after the disastrous 2002 election result deprived the party of both leader Bob Cheek and deputy leader Denise Swan, who stood together at the other side of the schism that rent the parliamentary party throughout the previous term. Hidding does not come off well in Cheek's memoir, Cheeky: Confessions of a Ferret Salesman, in which Cheek complains of persistent acts of betrayal and delights in revealing that Hidding has avoided financial portfolios because he was declared bankrupt while working as a used car salesman in 1981. Hidding had better luck in business after setting up a building industry company with his four brothers, and served on Launceston City Council from 1985 to 1992. He was elected to Lyons from 7.6 per cent of the vote in 1996 and has been an unspectacular electoral performer since, polling 11.2 per cent in 1998 and 7.0 per cent in 2002, before the profile of leadership combined with a lack of other incumbents on the Liberal ticket boosted him to 14.1 per cent in 2006. After the Liberals failed to pick up any new seats on the latter occasion he was compelled to stand aside from the leadership, despite apparent initial reluctance.

Sue Neales of The Mercury writes that Jim Playsted “appears best positioned of the four Liberal candidates” to win a second seat, not least because he was able to show her “spreadsheets, diaries, maps and voter booth data to demonstrate the strategy and geography behind his hard-headed 12-month election campaign”. Neales also writes that Playsted lives at Sandy Bay in Hobart, although on his website he says he and his wife call the east coast township of Orford “home”. A Derwent Valley Gazette report describes him as “a business consultant who divides his time between Orford and Hobart”. Another possible contender is Jane Howlett, a “business development manager” who spruiks a childhood growing up on a farm in the electorate – although she too now lives in Hobart, at Battery Point. Howlett also ran in 2006, emerging the third best performing Liberal candidate with 4.5 per cent of the vote. According to Sue Neales, she has “a strong following in the state's south”.

Mark Shelton is a Bracknell teacher and the mayor of Meander Valley, and as such is “popular in Lyons' northern reaches”, again according to Sue Neales. Leigh Gray lives in Brighton, where he has been a councillor since 2005.


	TIM MORRIS

Former tourism operator Tim Morris came to parliament via Derwent Valley Council, comfortably topping a ticket of untried Greens candidates in 2002 with 9.1 per cent of the vote. His personal vote increased to 10.5 per cent in 2006 despite a decline in the Greens vote from 17.3 per cent to 15.8 per cent. The other Greens candidates are Tasmanian Greens party manager Karen Cassidy, who also ran for Lyons and the upper house seat of Rowallan in 2006; Sharon Prior, “former Sorell councillor and current team leader for Conservation Volunteers Australia”; Karl Stevens, “a local small business owner and councillor in West Tamar”; and Jackie Graham, who “has worked for the community in small business and environmental advocacy for many years”.