{"id":39374,"date":"2025-08-02T06:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39374\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T06:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T06:36:10","slug":"all-eyes-on-bass-as-the-final-seat-in-tasmanias-new-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39374\/","title":{"rendered":"All eyes on Bass as the final seat in Tasmania’s new parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labor’s hopes of forming government would be buoyed if it manages to snare an unlikely 11th seat in Tasmania’s parliament despite a swing against it.<\/p>\n

Counting will be finalised in the northern Tasmanian electorate of Bass on Saturday morning, with the race for its seventh seat coming down to Labor and independent George Razay.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Professor George Razay is a physician at Launceston General Hospital and is opposed to the Hobart AFL stadium. (Facebook: Prof. George Razay)<\/p>\n

If a Labor candidate \u2014 either former federal MP Geoff Lyons or unionist Jess Greene \u2014 wins the party’s third seat, Labor will have gained a seat despite a 3.1 per cent drop in its state-wide primary vote.<\/p>\n

Counting will resume at 8am, with the Tasmanian Electoral Commission hopeful a result will be declared by midday.<\/p>\n

\"Tasmanian<\/p>\n

Geoff Lyons. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

The Liberal Party had hoped to win a 15th seat, but those aspirations were dashed on Friday afternoon when Liberal MP Simon Wood was excluded from the count in Bass.<\/p>\n

It leaves the party anchored on 14 seats, the same as before the election, four MPs short of forming a majority government.<\/p>\n

ABC chief elections analyst Casey Briggs said the contest in Bass had been “one of the most complicated and hard to predict in a long time”.<\/p>\n

“The seat is most likely to end up a race between Labor’s Geoff Lyons and independent George Razay,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Labor is ahead at the moment, but the preferences of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party may end up determining this seat.”<\/p>\n

The result in Bass delivered another blow to a party already reeling after independent Braddon MP Craig Garland ruled out supporting the Liberals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Garland said a lack of transparency over the Marinus Link deal had highlighted that Jemery Rockliff had not sufficiently changed his approach following June’s successful no-confidence motion.<\/p>\n

Mr Garland also said he would support a no-confidence motion in Mr Rockliff if it was moved by Labor.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

If Labor won 11 seats, it would only need the support of the Greens and one more crossbencher to pass.<\/p>\n

That would pave the way for Mr Winter to become premier through a motion of confidence in a minority government led by him.<\/p>\n

With the Liberals unwilling to work with the Greens, a Labor victory in Bass would mean Mr Rockliff would require the support of all four remaining crossbenchers \u2014 independents Kristie Johnston, David O’Byrne and Peter George and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Carlo Di Falco \u2014 to remain in government, and avoid frequent speculation about another early election.<\/p>\n

If Professor Razay or Mr Frydrych won, the Liberals would need the support of four of the five crossbenchers.<\/p>\n

Ms Johnston said a briefing from Department of Treasury and Finance officials on Monday would be crucial in deciding which party she would endorse to govern in minority, but also didn’t rule out supporting another no-confidence motion in the Liberals.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Byrne, Mr George and Mr Di Falco have all said they need more time, and to know the final make-up of the parliament, before deciding on whether they will support the Liberals or Labor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor’s hopes of forming government would be buoyed if it manages to snare an unlikely 11th seat in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7166,15605,4268,3786,35058,43,35060,15604,1788,7173,35059,44,15603,35057,4267,41,39,42,40,35056],"class_list":["post-39374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bass","tag-carlo-di-falco","tag-election","tag-government","tag-hare-clark","tag-headlines","tag-jemery-rockliff","tag-kristie-johnston","tag-labor","tag-liberals","tag-minority-government","tag-news","tag-peter-george","tag-preferences","tag-tasmanian-election","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vote-counting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}