{"id":82069,"date":"2025-08-20T09:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T09:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82069\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T09:15:09","slug":"josh-willie-replaces-dean-winter-as-tasmanian-labor-leader-after-election-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82069\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Willie replaces Dean Winter as Tasmanian Labor leader after election loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Willie is the new Tasmanian Labor leader, replacing Dean Winter.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Opposition whip Meg Brown said “in accordance with Labor Party rules, the leadership was spilled at today’s caucus meeting”.<\/p>\n

Mr Winter led a failed no-confidence motion in parliament yesterday, which officially resulted in Labor losing the July 19 state election.<\/p>\n

Tasmania’s Labor Party had been locked in a day-long leadership discussion since 9am.<\/p>\n

\"Labor<\/p>\n

Josh Willie said he looked forward to working “to return Labor to government”. (ABC News: Owain Stia James)<\/p>\n

The party’s dominant left faction had earlier held a meeting in the morning, where Mr Willie won a ballot against fellow Clark MP Ella Haddad to become the left’s leadership candidate.<\/p>\n

“It is a great honour to be elected Leader of the Tasmanian Labor Party,” Mr Willie said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Tasmanian Labor has a proud history and I look forward to giving this role everything I’ve got to return Labor to government.”<\/p>\n

Mr Willie thanked Mr Winter for his service, saying he had “strong Labor values”.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Rockliff retains power \u2014 at it happened<\/a><\/p>\n

Tasmanian Labor fails to unseat Liberal premier Jeremy Rockliff with not a single crossbencher voting for their no-confidence motion.<\/p>\n

The party’s leader and deputy leader roles automatically spilled after Labor’s election defeat.<\/p>\n

Janie Finlay from the party’s right faction was elected unopposed as new deputy leader, replacing Anita Dow.<\/p>\n

The ABC understands many in the Labor party caucus still supported Dean Winter to remain as leader at today’s meeting.<\/p>\n

But if it had come to a ballot, the party’s rank and file members, who are dominated by the left faction, would likely have backed Mr Willie.<\/p>\n

After hours of debate, Mr Winter chose not to recontest the leadership.<\/p>\n

Winter: ‘I take full responsibility’ for election loss\"a<\/p>\n

Dean Winter lost a no-confidence motion in Tasmania’s parliament by a vote of 24-10 on Tuesday. (ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke)<\/p>\n

Worst result ever for Tasmanian Labor<\/a><\/p>\n

Dean Winter’s election gamble has not paid off.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Mr Winter said he took “full responsibility for our election result”.<\/p>\n

“It is understandable that Labor has a new leader moving forward,” he said.<\/p>\n

“While the election result didn’t go the way I wanted, I will forever be proud that Labor stopped the disastrous 2025-26 Barnett Budget from ever passing parliament, and that the Rockliff privatisation agenda is now dead.”<\/p>\n

Mr Winter hit back at criticism from the newly elected crossbench that his approach to forming minority government had not shown sufficient compromise.<\/p>\n

“I will never resile from standing strong and true to my word,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Especially when it comes to Tasmanian workers and traditional industries, including salmon workers and the [greyhound] racing community I care deeply about.<\/p>\n

“My word is my bond. I knew if I sold out the workers, like Jeremy Rockliff has, I could have been Premier. I could never do that.”<\/p>\n

Mr Winter became party leader after the 2024 election defeat led by long-serving leader Rebecca White.<\/p>\n

He will continue to serve as the Labor Member for Franklin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Willie is the new Tasmanian Labor leader, replacing Dean Winter. In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Opposition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,50885,4268,12974,1788,44,19828,8539,2801,62076,16962],"class_list":{"0":"post-82069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dean","11":"tag-election","12":"tag-josh","13":"tag-labor","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-party","16":"tag-tas","17":"tag-tasmania","18":"tag-willie","19":"tag-winter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82069","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=82069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}