ALP 12.2%
Incumbent MP
Julie Collins, since 2007.
Geography
Franklin covers the southern parts of Tasmania and the eastern suburbs of Hobart. The seat is divided into two parts, with each covering half of the voters in the electorate. Half live on the eastern shore of the Derwent River in Clarence and Brighton LGAs, while the other half lives to the south and west of Hobart in Kingborough and Huon Valley LGAs.
Franklin was created for the 1903 election. The seat was first held by William McWilliams, who was a member at various times of the minor Revenue Tariff party, the Free Traders, the Commonwealth Liberal Party and the Nationalists, before becoming the first leader of the Country Party in 1920. He lost his seat in 1922 to the Nationalist candidate. He won the seat back as an independent in 1928 and retained it at the 1929 election but died shortly after the declaration of the poll.
The by-election was won by Charles Frost of the ALP, who lost his seat in 1931 to the United Australia Party before winning it back in 1934. He went on to serve as Minister for Repatriation under John Curtin before he lost the seat to Charles Falkinder of the Liberal Party in 1946. Falkinder held the seat until his retirement in 1966, and Ray Sherry of the ALP won the seat in 1969. Sherry lost the seat to Bruce Goodluck in 1975. Goodluck held the seat for the Liberal Party until he was defeated by Harry Quick in 1993.
Quick held the seat until the 2007 election, and he announced his impending retirement in 2005. He caused controversy in 2006 by endorsing a Greens candidate, sitting MP Nick McKim, for the state seat of Franklin in the state election. The ALP originally preselected Electrical Trades Union official Kevin Harkins, Quick openly criticised Harkins and was seen to be supporting Liberal candidate Vanessa Goodwin. Harkins was eventually replaced as the ALP candidate by ALP state secretary Julie Collins, and Quick was expelled from the ALP, supposedly for not paying his membership fees.
Collins won Franklin at the 2007 election, and has since won four more terms.
Assessment
Franklin is a safe Labor seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Julie Collins | Labor | 30,911 | 44.0 | -2.9 |
| Dean Young | Liberal | 21,969 | 31.3 | -4.0 |
| Kit Darko | Greens | 11,420 | 16.3 | +2.7 |
| Darren Winter | United Australia Party | 4,704 | 6.7 | +6.7 |
| Darren Hawes | Conservative National Party | 1,257 | 1.8 | +1.8 |
| Informal | 2,284 | 3.1 | -0.3 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Julie Collins | Labor | 43,706 | 62.2 | +1.5 |
| Dean Young | Liberal | 26,555 | 37.8 | -1.5 |
Booths have been divided into three areas, along local government boundaries: Clarence, to the east of Hobart; Kingborough to the south of Hobart; and Huon Valley in the south-west. While Huon Valley covers a large area stretching to the south-western corner of Tasmania, all of the polling places lay at the eastern edge of the council area.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 61.9% in Kingborough to 64.7% in Clarence.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 14.1% in Clarence to 20.1% in Kingborough.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Clarence | 14.1 | 64.7 | 26,152 | 37.2 |
| Kingborough | 20.1 | 61.9 | 14,246 | 20.3 |
| Huon Valley | 18.6 | 62.0 | 8,496 | 12.1 |
| Pre-poll | 15.3 | 59.9 | 12,693 | 18.1 |
| Other votes | 15.5 | 58.7 | 8,674 | 12.3 |
Election results in Franklin at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
Will Hodgeman should run here. He would give Labor a serious scare here. Other than that I expect Labor will narrowly hold this seat with a 6-7% swing so it will return to it’s 2013 margin. Labor’s hammering won’t just stop in QLD, Tasmania is the other state I think Labor will do poorly in.
Here is how Labor can win but the path is quite narrow.
1) Limit losses in NSW (They will lose seats in QLD no matter what with Albo)
2) Win Higgins,LaTrobe,Chisholm,Casey and Deakin. If they can pick off a Flinders,Kooyong,Menzies,Monash Aston or Goldstein any 1 of those would also help them offset the inevitable losses in QLD and NSW
3) Pick up Boothby
4) Win Swan,Hasluck and Pearce (They need them) Bonus points if they can gain any other WA seats such as Tangney,Moore or Canning (which any of those 3 would be unlikely but would have been won on state figures)
5) Have the backing of Andrew Wilkie,Adam Bandt and either 1 of Katter,Steggal,Sharkie or Haines assuming they all win
Then only then can Labor win the election.
Can somebody please explain to me why the AEC persist in maintaining boundaries for Franklin where the seat is cut in two distinct pieces. Once upon a time it wrapped around Denison but no longer. Is there a community of interest between the Eastern Shore and the Huon Valley? Isn’t it time for a wholesale change of Southern Tasmanian Boundaries so that Franklin is one contiguous entity?
@redistribution
I have not investigated this in great detail, but I suspect that due to numerical requirements, it is not possible to have a division cross the Tasman Bridge. If Franklin extends from the Huon Valley to as far north into Hobart as it can, I think the boundary goes well beyond the Tasman Bridge. Clark would then be roughly coterminous with Glenorchy and Clarence. Yes, there are other bridges across the Derwent, but without the Tasman Bridge, one could argue that the divisions may as well be discontiguous, and at least we get a division (Clark) centred on Hobart.
Labor hold, I honestly don’t see the liberal party winning here.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/franklin2022/comment-page-1#comment-753841
They may be some logic to a Huon and southern Hobart seat, a northern Hobart and Derwent Valley seat and Lyons east of the river.