Voters in three Tasmanian Legislative Council seats go to the polls on May 7. Voters in Elwick and McIntyre will elect representatives for the next six years, while voters in Huon will be voting at a by-election to fill a vacancy for the next four years.
Profiles have been prepared for the three races, including results of the previous election, history of the seat, and list of candidates, along with results maps.
This map shows the three electorates facing election this year:
Tasmania’s upper house is unique in how it is elected. While every other state and federal upper house is elected with proportional representation, while every other lower house is elected with single-member electorates, Tasmania reverses that pattern.
The Tasmanian House of Assembly is elected using the Hare-Clark proportional representation system, with each federal electorate electing five MHAs. The entire House is elected once every four years.
The Tasmanian Legislative Council consists of fifteen electorates, each of which elects a single MLC.
The strangest thing about the Tasmanian Legislative Council is that these elections never happen all at once. MLCs are elected for six-year terms, with elections held every year on the first Saturday in May. Each year, two or three districts are up for election. These elections have only been held alongside lower house elections once, in 2021.
The Legislative Council has traditionally been dominated by independents. While Labor has regularly run candidates in the past, and in the past held most seats close to the Hobart area, the Liberal Party rarely ran candidates until the last few years, and held no seats between 1999 and 2009. The Greens regularly run candidates, but have never won a seat.
Independent MLCs held a majority of seats in the chamber until 2020. They now hold just six out of fifteen seats.