2002 Tasmanian state election

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| <- 1998 | 20 July 2002 | 2006 ->

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All 25 seats to the House of Assembly
13 seats needed for a majority
|  | First party  | Second party  | Third party

|
|
|

Leader  | Jim Bacon | Bob Cheek | Peg Putt
Party  | Labor | Liberal | Greens
Leader since  | 14 April 1997  | 20 August 2001  | 29 August 1998
Leader's seat  | Denison | Denison (lost seat) | Denison
Last election  | 14 seats  | 10 seats  | 1 seat
Seats won  | 14 | 7  | 4
Seat change  |  |  3  |  3
Popular vote  | 153,798 | 81,185  | 53,746
Percentage  | 51.88% | 27.38%  | 18.13%
Swing  |  7.09  |  10.67  |  7.95

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Results of the election

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| Premier before election

Jim Bacon
Labor

| Elected Premier

Jim Bacon
Labor

|

A general election for the Tasmanian House of Assembly was held on Saturday 20 July 2002. The Labor government led by Premier Jim Bacon was won a second term against the Liberal Party Opposition headed by Opposition Leader Bob Cheek in a landslide. The election was marked by a strong swing to both the Labor Party and the Tasmanian Greens at the expense of the Liberals, with Cheek losing his own seat.

Bacon and the Labor Party campaigned on a platform of revitalising the state after the 1990s-era economic reforms of successive Liberal governments, while maintaining law and order and a strong economy, and promoting tourism in particular. In response, Cheek and the Liberals claimed that the government had abandoned small business and promised a wide range of spending initiatives - something that was seized upon by Bacon as a means of attacking the Liberals' economic credentials. The Tasmanian Greens, under leader Peg Putt, campaigned as an alternative to both major parties, concentrating on environmental issues, which are often an area of bipartisan agreement among the Tasmanian major parties.

The results of the election were somewhat unexpected. The government retained its 14 seats in the 25-member parliament and recorded a swing in their favour in all five electorates. The Liberal Party had held ten seats before the election, but lost three to the Greens, who subsequently went from one to four seats. The Greens gained 18.1% of the statewide vote, their highest on record. In the Hobart-based seat of Denison, the Greens polled 24.5%, outpolling the main Opposition Liberal Party.

The election had major impacts on both the Liberals and Tasmanian Greens, while leaving Labor largely unchanged. The Liberals suffered a swing of over 10 percent and lost three seats, including that of their leader, Bob Cheek–the first major-party leader in Tasmania to lose his own seat since 1903.[citation needed] Rene Hidding was elected as his successor.

In contrast to the misfortune of the Liberal Party, the election saw the unexpected revival of the Greens. The reduction of the size of the Assembly in 1998, from 35 to 25, had increased the quota necessary to win a seat to 16.7%. Both major parties portrayed this as a way to cut the costs of government, but the Greens saw it as an attempt to eradicate them. At the 1998 election, all of their MPs except one, Peg Putt, were defeated. However, they managed to markedly increase their vote in the 2002 poll, and picked up three new MPs, Kim Booth, Nick McKim and Tim Morris.

## Results

[edit]

See also: Results of the Tasmanian state election, 2002

Summary of the Results of the 2002 Tasmanian state election, House of Assembly

Party| Votes| %| +/–| Seats| +/–
| Labor| 153,798| 51.88|  7.09| 14|
| Liberal| 81,185| 27.38|  10.67| 7|  3
| Greens| 53,746| 18.13|  7.95| 4|  3
| Democrats| 2,019| 0.68|  0.21| 0|
| Socialist Alliance| 722| 0.24|  0.21| 0|
| Tasmania First| 529| 0.18|  4.92| 0|
| Independents| 4,471| 1.51|  0.52| 0|
Total| 296,470| 100.00| –| 25| –
Valid votes| 296,470| 95.13|
Invalid/blank votes| 15,167| 4.87|
Total votes| 311,637| 100.00|
Registered voters/turnout| 332,473| 93.73|

### Primary vote by division

[edit]

| Bass  | Braddon  | Denison  | Franklin  | Lyons

|
|
|
|
|

Labor Party | 49.1% | 53.2% | 50.8% | 51.7% | 54.6%
Liberal Party | 31.4% | 33.1% | 22.9% | 23.7% | 25.7%
Tasmanian Greens | 16.5% | 12.0% | 24.5% | 20.4% | 17.2%
Other | 3.0% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 4.2% | 2.6%

### Distribution of seats

[edit]

| Electorate  | Seats held

|

Bass |  |  |  |  |
Braddon |  |  |  |  |
Denison |  |  |  |  |
Franklin |  |  |  |  |
Lyons |  |  |  |  |
|  | Labor

|

| Liberal
| Green

## See also

[edit]

* Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, 2002-2006
* Candidates of the 2002 Tasmanian state election

## References

[edit]

* Tasmanian Parliamentary Library: 2002 election results
* Voting by Division from Adam Carr's Electoral Archive
* Australian Parliamentary Library research note

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