Clark – Australia 2025

There’s no indication that Wilkie will be retiring, but this will be an interesting contest when he does. It will probably be a very dirty Labor vs Green contest where both fight hammer and tongs to win.

The 2022 senate results paint the kind of starting point – Labor 30.1%, Greens 26.4%, Liberal 23.4%. Labor made a good recovery in the recent state election results in Clarke polling 30%, but running a campaign in a federal single-member seat is very different to a Hare-Clarke system, and I think Labor will need a higher primary vote like 35%+ to feel comfortable about seeing off the Green threat here.

This poses difficulties for Labor, because running a strong federal campaign in Clarke where they have to battle the Greens makes it harder for Labor to campaign in Lyons/Bass/Braddon where being seen as sympathetic to the Greens policies may be toxic. It’s all theoretical at this point, but something to consider for future.

Labor are probably just biding their time waiting for Wilkie to retire. Over many elections – state, federal and senate – the Greens are stuck at 26 or 27% maximum vote. There is also a Liberal voting floor of about 25%. This leaves Labor with about 40% – a good base for a comfortable win.

I imagine we will see greens do well here. Most inner central city seats are trending that way. They already have melbourne and griffith(brisbane) they will get Sydney when plibersek retires and Perth and Adelaide over time I imagine too. Unlike the Teals who have no legacy party to take over the greens are a permanent threat to Labor. All it will take to unseat the Teals will be them supporting a ,anor minority govt or for them to retire so the liberals only have to wait to reclaim them. The exception is Wentworth which will be marginal and probably flip Labor when spender retires so that’s a good thing for the libs for her to there now.

I don’t think the Greens have hit their ceiling. They have gotten much better at pulling in working class votes in traditional ALP areas (that aren’t inner city hipsters). The main problem is that Greens need to not just beat Labor on primaries but have enough of a lead to survive Lib to ALP preferences.

Until Wilkie retires, seems like Franklin has more potential and running against the housing Minister would be the kind of campaign Greens would want to run

@john Clark is currently 8% under quota and franklin about that over so Clark will absorb parts of franklin

All this talk that it’s a foregone conclusion that if Wilkie retires the seat will become a Labor / Greens battle. This entitlement and smugness that certain parties have rights to seats is why so many have fallen to independents. I’m hopeful Wilkie has a succession plan in place like Cathy McGowan did in Indi (giving us the the awesome Helen Haines) and Clover Moore did for Sydney at the NSW state level (giving us the equally awesome Alex Greenwhich).Take into account too that the majority of people in Clarke (and Denison before that) have only every voted IND. At the last election Wilkie got 45% of the primary vote. Labor, Liberal and Greens have their work cut out for them as they only received 19, 16 and 13% of the vote respectively at the last election. People will need a reason why to switch their vote from IND at upcoming elections whether Wilkie or a successor is on the ballot. They’ll need a reason to switch other than ‘just because’.

Andrew Wilkie’s not recontesting, going by historical trends and the recent state election this should be a Labor gain.

@Addy – he is recontesting. He confirmed today he’s seeking re-election in Clark.

Source: https://tasmaniantimes.com/2024/07/wilkie-to-seek-another-term-as-clark-mhr/

Not sure if you made a mistake but he announced on twitter and in the papers that he IS recontesting.

Sorry my bad I accidently confused contest for not contest on twitter. Easy retain for Wilkie then.

This is a very tealish seat so here’s a question.

Alternative history: what if Andrew Wilkie never ran for Clark and Labor won this in 2010? Would the Liberals have won it in 2013 with Tony Abbott’s landslide and/or in 2016 with Malcolm Turnbull as a moderate leader (which is why he did so well in Melbourne that year when there was a correction swing back to Labor in much of Sydney and on the Central Coast where the Coalition won big in 2013) or would’ve Labor held on?

The Liberals won the most votes in the state seat of Clark in 2014 and 2021, while Labor did in 2018 and 2024. Clark has Labor areas like Glenorchy which is working-class and Liberal/tealish areas like Sandy Bay which is affluent.

@ Nether Portal
The Altenative history would have to involve that it was an open seat in 2013 rather than 2010. The 2010 election was good for Labor in Tasmania while 2013 was a disaster so if Labor had retiring members in 2013 in Denison and Franklin they could have won both. Remember before Duncan Kerr it was a Liberal Seat.

The Libs weren’t even able to win Franklin in 2013, Clark has always been a good 5-10% more left wing than Franklin. I don’t think this seat is very Tealish. This seat is a Melbourne/Sydney/Grayndler/Wills, ultra-left wing.

Something I have wondered, if the Greens did slightly better in 2010, to overtake Wilkie, would they have won this seat in 2010?

Does anyone know why Wilkie got a decently big swing against him last time?

Fun fact: a 3% swing from Labor -> Greens in this seat would turn it into a Greens vs IND seat

@ Drake
in 2007 Franklin was one of only 4 seats in the Nation that had a swing to the Libs when there was a retiring member. Clark/Denison has been Liberal held in the past and there has not been significant demographic change to me knowledge.

@Nimalan

I’m pretty sure Clark/Denison on an ALP vs Lib margin is as safe as it’s ever been. The last time Franklin was safer for Labor was 1972. These two seats are definitely trending even more left wing. Problem for Tas Labor, is Hobart is trending left whilst the rest of the state is trending right. The 3 marginal seats are all non-Hobart based.

@ Drake
Antony Green says there is increasingly a North-South divide in Tasmania. I sometimes wonder if the Southern Parts of Lyons will trend left while the North of Lyons trend right.

Agree Drake, I believe Ben posted a graph showing the changing vote patterns across Tasmania prior to the recent state election. It showed that Clark/Denison and Franklin are both trending to Labor whereas the other three seats (Bass, Braddon and Lyons) are all trending to the Liberal Party.

Also, the campaign for Franklin at the 2007 federal election was marked by controversy surrounding the initially preselected Labor candidate and union official Kevin Harkins. Retiring MP Harry Quick disliked him and endorsed Liberal candidate Vanessa Goodwin instead. Other personal scandals forced Harkins to step down as candidate and be replaced by Julie Goodwin, who eventually won the seat with a swing against her.

Nimalan, the southern parts of Lyons especially those surrounding Hobart are probably like key mortgage belt areas such as Western Sydney or Cranbourne/Pakenham in Melbourne. I believe these parts are not necessarily safe Labor, but instead swing regions that both parties will be targeting heavily.

*Correction should be Julie Collins as new Labor candidate for 2007, who is still the sitting MP.

@ Yoh An

Fair point the Southern parts of Lyons are probably swing mortgage belt areas.

lyons will most likely lose the southern parts in the net redistribution making it easier for libs to win/hold after 2025 when the next redistribution is conducted

whether it loses the south-eastern parts acroos the bridge to clark or does a swap with the south/ south western area to franklin and that gives territory to clark instead. wither way it will lose labor territory. but i think the libs will win lyons regardless in 2025

I reckon in a good year the Liberals could win Franklin, or perhaps if Will Hodgman ran which he should.

@ Nether Portal
Maybe use the State Results and using Federal preference flows calculate what Franklin and Clark could have been.

When Wilkie retires, he might want to choose an independent successor like how Cathy McGowan handed over to Helen Haines.

If not then Labor will pick this up as there are strong Liberal areas around Lower Sandy Bay and strong Green areas near the CBD. Both Liberal and Greens preferences will go to Labor before going to each other.

@ Votante
That depends on the ordering. The Greens will hope Labor gets knocked out of the 2CP to win If Labor can stay in the top 2 they will win.

Based on Clark’s senate and state election results, Labor finished first on primaries, followed by Liberals and then the Greens.

At the state election, the results were ALP 30.5%, LIB 27.1%, GRN 20.9%.

At the senate election, Labor was miles ahead. The Liberals were slightly ahead of the Greens and that’s before factoring in votes for One Nation and UAP whose preferences would’ve went to the Liberals.

@Votante interestingly the Liberals were only just behind Labor on votes in the Senate in 2022.

@Nimalan I’ll do a booth comparison for Clark. I already did one for Franklin. Go to the Franklin (federal, 2025) thread and it’s the newest comment there. There’s a link to a CSV file where I compared the federal primary vote (2022), the state primary vote (2024) and the Yes/No vote at the Voice referendum. There are some interesting differences, and it shows that Julie Collins is a very popular MP in Franklin.

Nearly finished the Clark file.

Thanks Nether Portal Much appreciated.
For some reason i have never felt that Clark is Ultra Left like Wills, Cooper, Grayndler etc. i have always felt it is more like Macnamara or Griffith, socially progressive but has pockets of Liberal/Affluent Private school territory. It is Yes vote was no where near as high as those seats i mentioned above. In the Ultra left seats the Libs usually get less than 25% on the 3CP while in Clark i think they can get 30% on the 3CP without an independent.

Will Clark and Franklin eventually be reconfigured such that one becomes south and central Hobart and the other becomes north and east? I can understand the current “inner and outer” configuration but some people find Franklin’s discontiguity to be objectionable. If Clark has to gain from Franklin at the next Tasmanian redistribution, surely this will only make the argument stronger.

@Nimalan Clark and Franklin are a bit like Brisbane. They are demographically overwhelmingly European and have high Greens votes and are teal seats that would be won by teals or moderate Liberals hence why the Liberals won the most votes in Franklin and weren’t far behind Labor in Clark.

Clark still has some working-class areas though that traditionally vote Labor but vote for Andrew Wilkie because of his personal vote. Northern suburbs like Glenorchy, Claremont and Chigwell are a bit like Hobart’s version of Mount Druitt and Doonside just less multicultural.

@Nicholas potentially yes but Tasmania has less growth than other states and territories.

@ Nether Portal
When you compare Clark and Franklin to Brisbane, Do you mean the Federal electorate of Brisbane or the wider Brisbane Metro area?

@Nimalan the electorate. I was gonna compare it to Ryan but Ryan is probably more centrist than Clark.

based on how under quota Clark is and the difficulty absorbing parts of over quota lyons i imagine clark will tak in the parts of Franklin across the bay and then Franklin will take in the southern parts of Lyons. this should make Lyons easily winnable/retainable for the Libs in 2028