Franklin – Tasmania 2024

Incumbent MPs

  • David O’Byrne (Independent), since 2018. Previously 2010–2014.1
  • Nic Street (Liberal), since 2020. Previously 2016–2018.
  • Dean Winter (Labor), since 2021.
  • Rosalie Woodruff (Greens), since 2015.
  • Dean Young (Liberal), since 2022.2

1O’Byrne sat as an independent in Parliament while maintaining his Labor membership from August 2021 until February 2024, when he resigned from the ALP.
2Young filled a casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Jacquie Petrusma in August 2022.

Geography
Franklin covers the southern parts of Tasmania and the eastern suburbs of Hobart. The seat is divided into two parts, with each covering half of the voters in the electorate. Half live on the eastern shore of the Derwent River in Clarence and Brighton LGAs, while the other half lives to the south and west of Hobart in Kingborough and Huon Valley LGAs.

History
Franklin was first created as a state electorate in 1909, when Tasmania moved to a system of proportional representation with each district electing six members. Franklin has always had the same boundaries as the federal electorate of the same name.

Six-member electorates tended to result in 3-3 splits between the major parties, even when one party received substantially more votes than the other party, producing many hung parliaments and slim majorities.

The ALP didn’t manage to win a majority of Franklin’s seats for almost thirty years. The Anti-Socialist Party won a 4-2 majority in 1909, and then the ALP and the Liberal/Nationalist party each won 3 seats at the 1912, 1913, 1916 and 1919.

The Country Party contested the Tasmanian election in 1922, the only time the party won seats in the House of Assembly. They won five seats, including one in Franklin, which they took from the ALP, while the Nationalists held their three seats and the ALP two.

The Lyons Labor government won a majority in the 1925 election, including three seats in Franklin, while the Liberals were reduced to one seat, alongside two independents.

The 1928 election saw the Nationalists win three seats in every district, and the ALP won three seats in all other districts. The only exception was Franklin, where the ALP lost their third seat to an independent, producing a 15-14-1 breakdown in the House of Assembly.

The 1931 election saw Franklin’s numbers maintained, while the Nationalists won a fourth seat at the expense of the ALP in every other district.

The 3-2-1 split was reversed in 1934, with the ALP winning back a third seat off the Nationalists. The ALP finally won a 4-2 majority in Franklin in 1937, and again in 1941, although the fourth ALP seat was lost to an independent at the 1946 and 1948 elections.

Franklin elected three Liberals and three Labor MPs at the 1950, 1955 and 1956 elections, which led to the number of seats per district increased to seven in 1959, allowing for more decisive results.

The Liberal Party won a fourth seat at the 1959 election, with the ALP maintaining their three seats. The ALP won a 4-3 majority at the 1964, 1969, 1972, 1976 and 1979 elections.

At the 1982 election, the ALP and the Liberal Party each won three seats. The seventh seat was held by former Labor premier Doug Lowe, who had moved to the crossbenches upon his removal as Premier in 1981.

The 1986 election saw the ALP lose their third seat for the first time since 1931. The Liberal Party won four seats and the ALP two. The seventh seat was won by Green independent Gerry Bates, who joined Bob Brown in Denison.

The 1989 election saw the ALP win back its third seat off the Liberal Party and Bates re-elected, producing a 3-3-1 split, which was maintained in 1992. In 1996 the ALP and the Greens maintained their seats, but the Liberal Party lost their third seat to Bruce Goodluck, a former Liberal federal MP for Franklin from 1975 to 1993. Goodluck won a seat in the state parliament as an independent.

The size of the House of Assembly was cut to twenty-five, and two of Franklin’s seats were abolished. Greens MP Mike Foley lost his seat and independent Bruce Goodluck retired, while the major parties retained their seats; three for the ALP and two for the Liberal Party.

At the 2002 election, the Liberal Party lost one of their two seats to the Greens, with Franklin electing three Labor MPs along with new MPs Will Hodgman (LIB) and Nick McKim (GRN), both of whom went on to lead their parties.

At the 2006 election, the numbers were maintained at 3-1-1. Nick McKim was reelected comfortably with just short of a quota, while Hodgman and then-Premier Paul Lennon each won quotas in their own right. Lara Giddings (ALP) was also re-elected, and Paula Wreidt squeezed in to the last seat, beating Liberal candidate Vanessa Goodwin by about 1000 votes.

At the 2010 election, the ALP lost its third seat to the Liberal Party. Three MPs (Giddings, Hodgman and McKim) were re-elected. The other two seats were held by Labor MPs who had filled casual vacancies in the previous term and had never won election in their own right. Both Ross Butler and Daniel Hulme lost their seats, to the ALP’s David O’Byrne and the Liberal Party’s Jacquie Petrusma.

The Liberal Party gained a third seat from Labor in 2014, with David O’Byrne losing to Paul Harriss.

The third Liberal seat was lost in 2018, with Labor regaining their second seat and the Greens holding their one seat. This result was repeated in 2021.

Candidates

Assessment
The Liberal Party will likely win a third seat with the increased magnitude. The Greens may have an outside chance of winning a second seat, but it’s more likely that Labor would win three instead. Labor would be aiming to increase their vote to the level where they could win four seats if they are to have a chance of a majority government.

It will also be worth watching David O’Byrne. The increased number of seats to seven could give him a chance of retaining his seat as an independent.

2021 result

Candidate Votes % Quota New quota Swing
Jacquie Petrusma 14,550 21.0 1.2604
Nic Street 5,783 8.3 0.5010
Bec Enders 3,271 4.7 0.2834
Dean Young 3,196 4.6 0.2769
James Walker 2,468 3.6 0.2138
Liberal Party 29,268 42.3 2.5353 3.3805 -6.0
Dean Winter 7,859 11.3 0.6808
David O’Byrne 7,538 10.9 0.6530
Alison Standen 3,107 4.5 0.2691
Amy Brumby 2,020 2.9 0.1750
Toby Thorpe 1,753 2.5 0.1519
Fabiano Cangelosi 724 1.0 0.0627
Australian Labor Party 23,001 33.2 1.9925 2.6566 -1.0
Rosalie Woodruff 10,161 14.7 0.8802
Bridget Verrier 939 1.4 0.0813
Phoenix Harrison 745 1.1 0.0645
Kit Darko 671 1.0 0.0581
Gideon Cordover 606 0.9 0.0525
Tasmanian Greens 13,122 18.9 1.1367 1.5156 +4.2
Shane Broadby 788 1.1 0.0683
Rebecca Byfield 627 0.9 0.0543
Robert Cairns 594 0.9 0.0515
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers 2,009 2.9 0.1740 0.2320 +0.1
Mark Tanner 1,227 1.8 0.1063
Animal Justice Party 1,227 1.8 0.1063 0.1417 +1.8
Francis Flannery 379 0.5 0.0328
George Spiliopoulos 252 0.4 0.0218
Total Others 631 0.9 0.0547 0.0729 +0.9
Informal 3,031 4.2 0.0000

Preference flows
Liberal candidate Jacquie Petrusma was elected with a full quota on primary votes. Greens candidate Rosalie Woodruff came close to a quota and passed a quota with preferences from minor Greens candidates.

Let’s fast forward to the final eight candidates. This included four Labor candidates and the remaining four Liberal candidates:

  • David O’Byrne (ALP) – 0.809 quotas
  • Dean Winter (ALP) – 0.799
  • Nic Street (LIB) – 0.641
  • Bec Enders (LIB) – 0.382
  • Dean Young (LIB) – 0.366
  • Alison Standen (ALP) – 0.365
  • James Walker (LIB) – 0.274
  • Amy Brumby (ALP) – 0.262

Brumby’s preferences favoured her Labor colleagues, particularly Standen:

  • O’Byrne (ALP) – 0.878
  • Winter (ALP) – 0.845
  • Street (LIB) – 0.644
  • Standen (ALP) – 0.494
  • Enders (LIB) – 0.387
  • Young (LIB) – 0.369
  • Walker (LIB) – 0.276

Walker’s preferences favoured the remaining Liberals, particularly Street:

  • O’Byrne (ALP) – 0.884
  • Winter (ALP) – 0.849
  • Street (LIB) – 0.753
  • Standen (ALP) – 0.497
  • Enders (LIB) – 0.469
  • Young (LIB) – 0.436

Young’s preferences mostly flowed to the other two Liberals, particularly Street, who was left just short of a quota:

  • Street (LIB) – 0.992
  • O’Byrne (ALP) – 0.896
  • Winter (ALP) – 0.864
  • Enders (LIB) – 0.624
  • Standen (ALP) – 0.502

Standen’s preferences mostly flowed to the two remaining Labor candidates, electing both. She also pushed Nic Street just over a quota for the fifth seat, leaving Enders about 0.361 quotas short, with about 0.2 quotas of Labor surplus left undistributed:

  • Winter (ALP) – 1.117
  • O’Byrne (ALP) – 1.091
  • Street (LIB) – 1.000
  • Enders (LIB) – 0.639

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three areas, along local government boundaries: Clarence, to the east of Hobart; Kingborough to the south of Hobart; and Huon Valley in the south-west. While Huon Valley covers a large area stretching to the south-western corner of Tasmania, all of the polling places lay at the eastern edge of the council area.

The Liberal primary vote ranged from 39.0% in Kingborough to 42.1% in Clarence.

Labor’s primary vote ranged from 29.4% in Huon Valley to 36.3% in Clarence.

The Greens primary vote ranged from 16.4% in Clarence to 23.6% in Kingborough.

Voter group LIB % ALP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
Clarence 42.1 36.3 16.4 25,291 36.5
Kingborough 39.0 31.9 23.6 13,288 19.2
Huon Valley 40.4 29.4 22.7 8,244 11.9
Pre-poll 45.9 31.8 17.9 12,591 18.2
Other votes 44.1 32.0 17.3 9,844 14.2

Election results in Franklin at the 2021 Tasmanian election
Toggle between primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor Party and the Greens.

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16 COMMENTS

  1. The federal Liberals should try harder in Franklin if the state Liberals are winning most of the booths here.

  2. To compare like with like.. allocate 80% of grn vote to
    Alp. On that basis Labor leads in Franklin if we consider it as a single member seat

  5. I reckon only the Libs, Labor and Greens will get seats in Franklin. JLN will struggle to win in Franklin and Clark but it’s not impossible. The Greens are the main third force or the main alternative to the majors.

    JLN has more appeal in regional and northern Tasmania as the main third force. JL is from NW Tasmania and has home field appeal. No doubt, they will pour more resources into Bass, Braddon and Lyons.

  6. There’s a few scenarios here I could see happening. I think the Liberals vote will decline a bit but whether it’s enough to make them only get two seats I’m not sure. David O’Byrne standing as an independent will harm Labor but not everyone who voted for him last time will ditch Labor. If he stays in the count until the end but doesn’t get elected he could stop Labor from getting a third seat Greens will easily win one seat and could win two if they do particularly well. Less likely than in Clark though. JLN won’t be close to winning a seat.

    Prediction: either 3 LIB, 3 LAB, 1 GRN or 3 LIB, 2 LAB, 2 GRN or 3 LIB, 2 LAB, 1 GRN, 1 IND (O’Byrne)

  7. Interested to see the final result here, the Libs should probably have a swing against them, hard to know how Labor will fare with O’Byrne running and how much of the vote he will take. The Greens will be hoping for a second seat but I doubt that will happen. I find JLN running here a bit perplexing, they could win a seat here but that would be an extremely good result for them, although I seriously doubt that.

    I suspect the outcome will be 3 Lib, 2 Labor, 1 Green and final seat between O’Byrne, Labor and the Greens.

  8. I also wonder if O’Byrne may receive preferences from some Labor voters, considering he probably would have been preselected had Labor leadership not barred him. In the event he’s elected and there is a hung a parliament I don’t think he’d work with the Liberals and I doubt Labor would want to work with him.

  9. I’m a little skeptical of O’Byrne’s chances as his primary in 2021 was only 10.9% and lower than Dean Winter, a non-incumbent that people allied with O’Byrne tried their hardest to prevent from running.

    From what I know O’Byrne definitely puts in the work in the community which will help. However I’m not sure how many of his voters from last time were just Labor voters who will switch to Winter and other Labor candidates instead of following an independent O’Byrne.

    Labor will be hoping that O’Byrne underperforms because they will likely only get 2 up if he wins.

  10. Also on JLN, there’s definitely pockets of Franklin where they would poll very well (such as the suburbs on the Eastern Shore where the Green vote is in single digits) but I’m expecting them to get less than half a quota overall.

  11. What do current Franklin voters see as the possibility of Rosalee Woodruff’s profile bringing in a lot more Greens votes in Clarence / Eastern Shore. Particularly from a 40 and over female professional demographic which is well represented in pockets of the Eastern Shore? The potential is there – Nick McKim got around 27% in 2010 and for reasons I do not understand (as a former Tasmanian resident of Braddon, Clark and Franklin for 20 years or so who has family and friends across the state who do talk politics) – there was or seemed to be a particular animosity to Cassy O’Connor that has never quite been explained to me – I don’t understand the local issues much as I haven’t lived there for a few decades. I could see Woodfruff bringing in a quota and a half but the leakage would probably not get a second Green across the line in Franklin? I do see it as a possibility. (Also and this is better put on the Braddon chat – but from what I’ve heard Rockliff is very very much on the nose in the more rural areas of that electorate and I wouldn’t be counting on a big Liberal vote there. It’s not going to Labor or the Greens of course.)

  12. Was interested to see what the impact of being Greens leader was. I’ve looked at every election since 1998. Leader was from Lyons in 1998, from Denison in 2002 and 2006, Franklin in 2010 and 2014, and Denison/Clark in 2018 and 2021

    Bass:
    1998 9.1% [-1.2%], 2002 16.5%, 2006 13.6%, 2010 21%, 2014 12.7%, 2018 9.3%, 2021 9.2%
    Braddon:
    1998 13.1% [-0.9%], 2002 12%, 2006 10.4%, 2010 13.8%, 2014 7%, 2018 3.6%, 2021 5.5%
    Denison:
    1998 13.1% [-0.9%], 2002 24.5%, 2006 24%, 2010 24.9%, 2014 21.2%, 2018 17.5%, 2021 20%
    Franklin:
    1998 10.4% [-0.3%], 2002 20.4%, 2006 19.3%, 2010 27.3%, 2014 16.8%, 2018 14.4%, 2021 18.9%
    Lyons:
    1998 10.1% [-1.3%], 2002 17.2%, 2006 15.8%, 2010 21.1%, 2014 11.4%, 2018 6.5%, 2021 8.9%

    For the leader’s seats:
    1998 had the largest swing against and second lowest primary, 2002 had the largest swing towards and largest primary, 2006 had the smallest swing against and largest primary, 2010 had the largest swing towards and largest primary, 2014 had the largest swing against and second largest primary, 2018 had the third largest swing against and largest primary and 2021 had the second largest swing towards and highest primary.

    Seems like in 2002, 2006 and 2010 the leader may have made a positive impact. Although in 2002 Peg Putt was the only incumbent which may have helped boost her vote. Also worth mentioning that Denison in 2010 had Andrew Wilkie running and winning 8.4% of the vote. Without this the Greens probably would’ve had a higher primary than Franklin and potentially a higher primary vote swing.

    As a Clark voter anecdotally I know Cassy O’Connor is definitely polarising even for soft Greens and left swing voters. Rosalie is not as high profile so not sure what impact her being leader will have.

  13. Some anecdotes about Franklin – a friend of mine I was talking to earlier works in community services and spends a lot of time working on the Eastern Shore. He says that David O’Byrne and Meg Brown have been very visible during the campaign but he hasn’t seen much of any other candidates. Warrane (the booth with primaries of 31, 50, 12) has been full of O’Byrne and Brown signs the few times I’ve been there in the last month. I also saw Winter, Petrusma, JLN candidates and Mulder signs but much less frequently.

  14. Some thoughts on election eve

    Liberals: they’ll have an even spread of votes between Jacquie Petrusma, Eric Abetz and Nic Street. I think a fourth seat is out of reach though and if they’re getting a fourth it probably means they’re winning a majority or very close to it. Dean Young would probably win it in that case.

    Labor: Dean Winter will probably poll a quota on primaries. Toby Thorpe is the most likely second, with Meg Brown not far behind. If David O’Byrne is elected I think Labor will only win two seats in Franklin, but if not they’ll win three.

    Greens: Rosalie Woodruff will easily be re-elected. Jade Darko and Gideon Cordover have both run for state elections before but I don’t think they have enough profile to give the Greens a second seat.

    JLN: This is their weakest electorate of the four they’re contesting. There are pockets of Franklin where they’d do well but it’s outweighed by areas where their support is very low. I doubt they’ll even be close to winning a seat.

    Others: Everything seems to point to David O’Byrne being re-elected as an independent. I am skeptical myself but I would still predict it’s more likely than not. Tony Mulder and Clare Glade-Wright are councillors but will fail to get much when the focus is on O’Byrne.

    My prediction is 3-2-1-0-1
    less likely
    3-3-1-0-0
    3-2-2-0-0
    2-2-2-0-1

  15. Definitely Liberals 3 and Labor 2 and Greens 1 – the last seat looks close.
    I see a contest between the Liberals and the Greens and certainly the Independent O’Byrne. But I tip the Greens to grab the last seat, because I feel that they’ll get extra support here with Woodruff as leader, and this should get another of their candidates up, for a tally of 2.

  16. O’Byrne really was and will continue to be a thorn in Labor’s side here. Meg Brown outpolling Toby Thorpe was a surprise. The Greens really missed an opportunity here by not running an obvious second candidate strategy like they did in Clark. It would’ve given them a good chance to have a second seat here and six total in the parliament. Pretty much everything else was as expected here.

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