Parliament of Tasmania, House of Assembly election

* Party did not contest previous election or did not meet criteria for listing, or contested previous election under a different party name.

Notes

Premier in office at election: There had been a change of Premier since the previous general election for the House of Assembly in 2010 which had resulted in Bartlett continuing as Premier but as leader of an Australian Labor Party and Tasmanian Greens coalition government. Premier Bartlett resigned on 24 January 2011, stating that he wished to spend more time with his young children. Although political support for the Premier had declined, there had been no public discussion of a move to replace him as leader of the Labor Party. The Labor Party caucus chose Lara Giddings to lead the party; she was commissioned as Premier of an Australian Labor Party and Tasmanian Greens coalition government on 24 January 2011; for a summary of the context of this change of premier, see Megan Alessandrini, 'Tasmania', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Australian Political Chronicle, January-June 2011, 57 (4) December 2011: 651-655, at 651-652.

Government in office at election: Giddings was chosen to lead the Labor Party and become Premier of an Australian Labor Party and Tasmanian Greens coalition government on 24 January 2011. Policy differences between the Australian Labor Party and its coalition partner, the Tasmanian Greens, had led the Labor Party caucus to become increasingly dissatisfied with coalition government. The issue became more pressing with the approach of the House of Assembly elections scheduled for March 2014. Discussions within the Labor Party prompted the Premier to terminate the coalition arrangements with the Greens with effect from 17 January 2014 by removing the two Tasmanian Greens ministers and replacing them with two new ministers from the Labor Party. At the same time, the Premier announced that she had requested an election for the House of Assembly on 15 March 2014; for details, see Alessandrini in 'References', below.

These changes meant that Premier Giddings led an Australian Labor Party minority government at the time of the election.

Government in office after election: The 2014 Assembly election saw a large swing to the Liberal Party which won a majority of first preference votes and increased its seat share by 50 percent to 15. Hodgman, leader of the Liberal Party, was commissioned as Premier of a Liberal Party majority government on 31 March 2014.

Electoral system and voting: The Constitution Amendment Act 1906 reduced the number of Assembly districts to five, the boundaries of which were to be identical with the five Commonwealth electoral districts. The 1906 Act specified six members in each electoral district, but this was increased to seven from 1959, and then reduced to five from 1998 creating a House of Assembly of 25 (see the notes to the 1998 House of Assembly elections).

The Electoral Act 1907 introduced proportional representation by the single transferable vote (STV) method to elect all members of the Assembly, a method which became known as the Hare-Clark system. For details of the adoption of STV and references on the operation of the electoral system, see the notes to the 1909 House of Assembly elections.

From 1980, candidates' names were rotated within party lists on the ballots under a system of Robson rotation; for details, see the note to the 1979 House of Assembly election.

The Electoral Amendment Act of 1917 provided that '... casual vacancies be filled, not by a fresh poll of the electorate [by-election] but by a re-count [countback] of the ballot papers which elected the vacating member. For a brief summary of changes to the electoral system from 1909 to 1994, see Terry Newman, Representation of the Tasmanian People, Expanded edition 1803-1994, Appendix 2 (Hobart: Tasmanian Parliamentary Library, 1994, ISBN 0724642475).

Palmer United Party: The Palmer United Party was formed in 2013 by mining businessman Clive Palmer, who had been previously associated with the Queensland National Party and its successor, the Liberal National Party. The Palmer United Party endorsed candidates in every House of Representatives electoral district in Australia, and in Senate elections for all states and territories at the 2013 federal elections. The Party only won the Queensland House of Representatives seat of Fairfax which was contested by Palmer himself, but gained Senate seats in Queensland, Tasmania and a third after the rerun of the Senate election in Western Australia in April 2014. Palmer United Party candidates ran in all five Tasmanian multimember electoral districts at the 2014 Assembly election on a platform of better transport, hospitals and aged care, and economics growth through more investment.

Independents: The vote share of Independents shown in the table above is the sum of votes won by 10 'Ungrouped' candidates, and 3 candidates who ran as Groups G, H, and I in the electoral district of Denison. None of these candidates was elected.

References: For a summary of the context, events and outcome of the election, see Megan Alessandrini, 'Tasmania', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Australian Political Chronicle, January-June 2014, 60 (4) December 2014: 659-665.

Sources

Voting figures and seats were calculated from the Tasmanian Electoral Commission website; the current location of the site is, 'House of Assembly Elections 2014', online here [accessed 27 February 2018].