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| Adam Carr's Election Archive
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Australian federal election, 2025
Division of Clark, Tasmania
Named for: Andrew Inglis Clark (1848-1907): Tas MP 1878-82,
1887-98, judge. Co-author of the Australian Constitution, co-sponsor
of the Hare-Clark electoral system.
Central Hobart: Claremont, Glenorchy, Hobart, Moonah, New Town
Enrolment at 2019 election: 73,915
Enrolment at 2022 election: 74,697 (+01.2)
1999 republic referendum: Yes 52.4
2018 same-sex marriage survey: Yes 73.8
2023 Voice referendum: Yes 58.1
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Sitting member: Andrew Wilkie (Independent): Elected 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022
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2007 Labor majority over Liberal: 15.6% *
2010 Independent majority over Labor: 1.2% *
2013 Independent majority over Labor: 15.5% *
2016 Independent majority over Labor: 17.8% *
2019 Independent majority over Labor: 22.1%
2022 Independent majority over Labor: 20.8%
* as Denison
Status: Very safe Independent
Liberal/Independent two-candidate vote 1983-2022
2022 results
Statistics and history
Division of Clark
The seat of Clark, named
Denison until the 2018 redistribution, has existed since Tasmania was first divided into
electorates in 1903, and has always taken in the city of Hobart and its suburbs on the western shore of the Derwent River.
Its boundaries have expanded and contracted over successive redistributions but the character of the seat has changed
very little. Although it has a relatively low median income level, like all Tasmanian seats, it has a high proportion of
people in professional and managerial occupations, and particularly, as both a state capital and a hub for Commonwealth
administration, a high level of government employment. This contributed to the consolidation of the Labor vote from 1969
onwards, even as traditional blue-collar employment has disappeared from inner urban areas. Clark has the smallest
proportion of Catholics of any seat in Australia.
Members for Denison included Liberal ministers
Athol Townley and
Michael Hodgman.
Duncan Kerr won the seat for Labor
in 1987. Denison used to be one of the most consistently marginal seats in the country (it has had 16 members, second only
to the "ejector seat,"
Bass), but Kerr held it for 23 years. He was a junior minister in the Keating government and a
Parliamentary Secretary in the Rudd Government. Kerr retired in 2010, and Denison then produced a major upset by electing
Andrew Wilkie, an independent.
Andrew Wilkie, independent MP for Denison from 2010 to 2019 and for Clark since 2019, is a former Army officer and analyst
at the Office of National Assessments, who gained attention with his criticisms of the Howard Government's conduct of the
Iraq War. In 2004 he ran as an independent against
John Howard in
Bennelong. In 2007 he was in second place on the Greens'
Tasmanian Senate ticket. In 2010 he contested Denison as an independent. He polled only 21%, but was elected over Labor
on Green and Liberal preferences.
Wilkie supported the minority Gillard Government in the 2010 hung parliament, but later withdrew his support. He
has easily won re-election ever since. In 2022 he won every booth, most by wide margins.
He now appears to be unbeatable in this seat. If Wilkie were to retire, the seat would be a close contest between
Labor and the Greens.
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