The new electoral boundaries for Tasmania have been released today.
Reading through the proposed changes, the major changes to Clark, Franklin and Lyons in southern Tasmania have been agreed to. But there are changes in the north with Break O’Day council being moved into Bass.
There is also a proposed name change which has triggered the calling of a new round of comments specifically about changing the name of Franklin to Tongerlongter. As the proposal explains the name –
Following its deliberations, the augmented Electoral Commission proposes renaming the electorate of Franklin in honour of Tongerlongeter (c. 1790-1837), a Poredareme man of the Oyster Bay nation and a prominent Aboriginal leader whose Country encompassed much of south-east Tasmania, including areas within the reconfigured electorate boundaries. The name ‘Franklin’ is proposed to be retired.
Earlier I tweeted that the draft boundaries had been abandoned. That was confusion on my part by opening the wrong map and thinking that was the reason for calling a new round of submissions. It is rare for redistributions to engage in this extra consultation step. It appears the consultation is over the name change alone so the boundaries appear to be otherwise final.
The draft boundaries released earlier this year produced massive changes to the electorates of Clark, Franklin and Lyons. You can read more details in my post on the draft boundaries.
The table below summarises the two-party preferred margins between Labor and Liberal in the five divisions. I’ll go into more detail on the Independent positions in Clark and Franklin inside the post.
| District | Old Boundaries | New Boundaries | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bass | ALP 8.0% | ALP 8.3% | 0.3 to ALP |
| Braddon | ALP 7.2% | ALP 7.2% | Unchanged |
| Clark | ALP 20.9% | ALP 20.2% | 0.7 to LIB |
| Franklin | ALP 19.4% | ALP 18.7% | 0.7 to LIB |
| Lyons | ALP 11.6% | ALP 12.7% | 0.9 to ALP |
The table below shows the calculated first preferences votes for the new boundaries. The vote for “Independents” is first preference support for Andrew Wilkie in Clark and Peter George in Franklin. On the old boundaries this was Wilkie 48.9% and George 21.7%. The major changes to Clark, Franklin and Lyons means this vote has been scrambled across the three electorates. The value shown is an accumulation of votes for the pair split across the three new seats.
| Division | ALP | LIB | GRN | ONP | IND | OTH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bass | 39.8 | 31.1 | 12.9 | 6.5 | .. | 9.8 |
| Braddon | 39.5 | 31.7 | 8.4 | 7.6 | .. | 12.7 |
| Clark | 26.6 | 17.0 | 13.0 | 4.4 | 37.2 | 1.8 |
| Franklin | 43.4 | 20.0 | 10.9 | 4.9 | 11.9 | 8.9 |
| Lyons | 33.7 | 22.3 | 10.3 | 6.7 | 19.2 | 7.9 |
Some comments on the individual seat changes.
Bass
Gains around 5,000 voters in Break O’Day Council from Lyons, an area with a Labor 2PP% of 62.0% in 2025, lifting the margin for Bass from 8.0% to 8.3%.
Braddon
Boundaries unchanged.
Clark
- The above proposed boundaries have been adopoted as final.
- Clark retains the southern end of the old Clark covering Hobert City Council and northern Kingborough where the Labor 2PP% was 72.3% in 2025.
- Gains all of southern Tasmania from Franklin where Labor polled 68.0% after preferences.
- Loses the northern end of Clark in Glenorchy City Council where the Labor result was 69.0%.
- Overall produces a slight drop in Labor’s margin from 20.9% to 20.2%.
- Importantly, Clark is currently held by Independent Andrew Wilkie so the two-party margin is not relevant.
- Wilkie’s two-candidate vote versus Labor in the areas remaining in Clark was 74.0%. He polled 65.8% in the areas transferred to Lyons. Labor’s two-candidate vote in the versus transferred from Franklin was 59.0%.
- If you simply sum up the Labor v Independent votes in the new Clark, Andrew Wilkie comes out with a margin of 9.2% versus Labor, but I am sure he would poll more strongly than Peter George in areas added from Franklin. I don’t have time today to calculate an estimated margin but will try later this month.
Franklin
- The above proposed boundaries have been adopoted as final.
- Franklin retains those parts of Hobert east of the Derwent River where Labor’s two-party vote in 2025 was 70.7%.
- Gains Brighton, Richmond and the east coast running from Sorell and the Tasman Peninsula to Bicheno from Lyons. The Labor two-party result here was 66.0%.
- Loses all of southern Tasmania to Clark where Labor polled 68.0% after preferences.
- Overall produces a slight drop in Labor’s margin from 19.4% to 18.7%.
- Labor’s opponent in Franklin at the 2025 election was Independent Peter George. Labor’s two-candidate % versus George was 57.8% overall, 59.0% in the areas retained in Franklin and 56.4% in the areas transferred to Clark. There is no Labor versus George result for areas added from Lyons so I can’t easily calculate an estimated Labor versus George figure.
- Peter George has since been elected to the Tasmanian parliament and cannot re-contest Franklin without resigning his seat. I’m not sure it’s worth calculating an estimated Labor versus George margin.
Lyons
The map below is of the draft boundaries. There are two changes to the version shown below. To Launceston’s east, the proposed transfer of Blackstone Heights to Bass has been reversed. On the east coast, Break O’Day Council has now been transferred to Bass. This means Lyons no longer touches the state’s east coast. Lyons is now landlocked where two decades ago it touched the state’s east, north and west coasts.
- The areas retained in Lyons had a Labor two-party preferred result of 58.3%.
- The area transferred to Franklin voted 66.0% Labor in 2025.
- The Glenorchy City Council area received from Clark voted 69.0% Labor in 2025.
- The small area transferred to Bass voted 62.0% Labor.
- Overall the Labor two-party preferred vote rises from 61.6% to 62.7%.
The commissioners obviously never travel by bus. Nobody without a car would ever think that putting Break O’Day in with the north-east reflected “economic, social and regional connections”: there’s no public transport between them at all.
Agree, I think the draft boundaries uniting all the Launceston metropolitan area (Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale) into one seat would have better satisfied the ‘community of interest’ criteria even though it results in having a local council/LGA being divided in two.
The unaltered adoption of the southern boundary changes is absolutely baffling to me. There were dozens of objections and suggestions for improvement, particularly regarding the inclusion of Glenorchy in Lyons.
The committee’s reasoning that “with Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale remaining in Lyons, Glenorchy would not be the only urban area within the electorate” is completely inadequate. Glenorchy is nearly 10 times the population of these suburbs, and makes up about a quarter of the new Lyons, significantly changing its composition in a way that a few outer suburbs do not.
I guess there’s no chance of this change being undone now though. Can you remember any other redistributions on this scale? What has the community reaction been like in those cases?
COMMENT: I’ve seen similar drastic changes, usually when states lose a seat. The problem with Tasmania is that Clark had to grow. If it extends south to Kingston it makes the divided nature of Franklin even worse. If you extend it even further Glenorchy has to come out. Do you put it in a re-drawn Franklin on the other side of the river or in Lyons. They’ve chosen Lyons.
They’ve chosen to finally do what has always been resisted which is create one seat north of the Derwent and one seat south. It has created a decision on Glenorchy which many locals dislike but any proposals to keep Glenorchy in Clark means you end up trying to figure out what to do with Franklin and Lyons. There is no perfect solution but the hope is this solution has better prospects of dealing with the long term population in southern Tasmania. Lyons will continue to shift southwards.
I see why Clark needed to be changed as it has, but to me it would’ve made a lot more sense to create a purely metro seat containing Clarence, Glenorchy, and the north bank of the Derwent, thereby retaining Lyons as a primarily regional/rural seat. Many other submissions to the commission made the same suggestion also. The idea that the people of Clarence have more of a community of interest halfway up the island than with their fellow Hobartians a short drive across the river is honestly farcical.
Is there any mechanism by which one can express their displeasure at the committee’s decision now that it’s final? Or will I just have to wait 7 years for the next one?
COMMENT: The decision looks final.
Given that the AEC has called for ‘additional comments/objections’, you could make a further submission although the website appears to indicate they are geared towards just the name change of Franklin to Tongelongter.