Howlett win gives Libs upper hand

TASMANIA’S traditionally independent Upper House will have another member of a major party added to its ranks with Liberal candidate Jane Howlett’s election to the seat of Prosser last night.

That takes the number of major party MLC’s to six out of 15 Legislative Councillors — a record, according to political analyst Kevin Bonham.

It also means for the first time half of Tasmania’s 40 state MPs are women.

Candidates had an anxious 10-day wait to find out who would become the member for the newly created seat.

This was because votes among many of the independent candidates were too close for the Tasmanian Electoral Commission to begin distributing preferences until yesterday.

Preference distributions started after the close of postal votes at 10am.

Ms Howlett led the count on election night and was ahead throughout counting yesterday.

She finished with 52 per cent of votes (8776), ahead of Labor’s Janet Lambert, who ended up with 47 per cent (7889) after pulling in front of independent Steve Mav.

Ms Howlett took to social media last night to thank the people of Prosser for their votes.

“This campaign was about which candidate had the best plan for Prosser and which candidate can deliver for Prosser,” she said.

“Once again, this result shows that the community clearly support the majority Hodgman Liberal Government’s plan and I will fight every day to deliver on our plan for the people of Prosser.

“It is such an honour and a privilege to be elected to represent you.”

Ms Howlett and Ms Lambert also contested the March state election.

Ms Lambert congratulated Ms Howlett on social media last night. “It was incredibly hard to back up to two campaigns in a row as we both now know,” she said.

“I won’t name people indi- vidually for fear of missing someone out, but a special thank you to all of the ALP and the amazing volunteers and supporters of my Prosser campaign.”

Dr Bonham said Ms Lambert had done better relative to Mr Mav than he had expected.

Dr Bonham said this may be an indication Prosser voters had not warmed to the idea of an independent Upper House.

“The independent preferences have just completely failed to help [Mav], they haven’t pooled with Mav,” Dr Bonham said.

After being excluded yesterday Mr Mav said he was proud of the independent campaign he ran.

“I want to say how humbled I am by having received the highest independent vote,” Mr Mav said.

“I’m very happy with the way I ran my campaign. Politics is full of unknowns.”

This result shows the community clearly support the majority Hodgman Liberal Government’s plan and I will fight every day to deliver on our plan

— JANE HOWLETT