Why is she running for Liberals again?

Bridget Archer didn’t expect to be returning to politics so soon.

In fact, perhaps she didn’t think she’d be returning in 2025 at all — despite Bass being a marginal seat federally, Archer losing the seat to Labor newbie Jess Teesdale was one of the surprises of the May election. Her reputation for leading with principle (so much so that she was awarded for her political leadership in 2024) and being a “true Liberal” was enough to compensate for the sins of one deeply unpopular leader in Scott Morrison, but not two. Peter Dutton was an albatross, and she’s said as much. “It was devastating for me personally,” Archer tells me over the phone.

State politics wasn’t “on the bingo card” for 2025. But when the Tasmania budget crisis saw the Labor opposition successfully bring a motion of no confidence against Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff, spilling the government and sparking a snap election, Archer says she went from watching “appalled” from the sidelines, to having just a few days to decide whether to put her hand up for pre-selection. “So yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind,” she admits.

‘We wanna get on with it’

Tasmania’s federal and state electoral boundaries are identical. On the one hand, it’s very convenient for politicians making a transition from one realm of politics to the other; on the other hand, you are pitching to the exact same voters. In Archer’s case, she’s going back to the same constituents who have already heard a lot from her this year, and still decided to vote her out. Isn’t that a tough sell?

“The concerns of the community are probably the same,” she said. “Here in Tasmania health always takes a very strong focus, things like cost of living. The issues that they’re concerned about are the same, but the state government has a different level of responsibility to what the federal government did.”

“For me it’s been really good to be able to say, ‘Here is the plan, and this is building on actually the plan that we just took not very long ago to the last state election. We are rolling out that work. We’ve been delivering on those things. We know there’s more to do. We wanna get on with it’.”

That plan is not one that Archer herself would have been involved in developing. Tasmania has been governed by the Liberal Party since 2014, and Bass has had majority Liberal representation since then too. The argument put forward by Tasmanian Labor, the Greens, independents and frustrated voters is that the Libs have had a decade to implement the plans that would fix the state’s big problems across health, education and economic opportunity. Throughout this snap election campaign, new Liberal proposals are met with, “If it’s so great why weren’t you doing it already?”

Archer is uniquely positioned to benefit as both an outsider not involved in making this particular political mess, and a Liberal insider with a reputation that allows her to call out Labor without invoking pot-kettle comparisons. For example, she was a vocal advocate for integrity measures in federal politics, once threatening to leave the Liberals if they did not support Labor’s establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Similar integrity issues plague Tasmanian politics, with the Tasmanian Inquirer reporting that both major parties are shying away from improving the rules for lobbyists. Archer’s reputation for principled advocacy is a natural fit for this issue, if she is elected and prepared to use it.

State of play in Bass

Bass is the state’s northeast division, which includes Launceston (where 75% of voters live) and its surrounds. Like the rest of Tasmania, the population is older and less culturally diverse than Australia, with lower levels of higher education, higher rates of chronic health issues, and lower household incomes. The care industry is the top area of employment.

‘Loyalty’ vs ‘instability’

“Instability” is a dominant political buzzword this year, and the public expectation of Archer is that she would stand for her constituents even if that puts her at odds with the party. So, regardless of who leads the next state parliament, will Archer cross the floor for good policy?

“Look, it’s not necessarily something you do”, she said. “I think it’s who you are. I think I’ve demonstrated as an elected representative that I do think very carefully about the decisions that I make, that I give consideration to a whole range of views and perspectives … I think that that is the responsibility of elected members. That is what we are asked to do.”

It’s the kind of thing that voters love to hear (and in the case of Archer, see actions matching words), but will it be a comforting thought for the Liberal leadership, should they be back in the driver’s seat post-election?

Archer tells me she has never considered leaving the Liberals to run as an independent, even though there were many who think she may have retained her seat in the federal election had she done so: “Loyalty is a pretty important value to me.”

This could explain her changed position on the incredibly controversial AFL stadium deal — once a critic, Archer now aligns with the Liberals’ support of the project to the disappointment of a section of the voting public.

“Now, it’s not to say that I don’t think that independents can be a valuable part of our democratic systems. They are. They can be. And I have worked closely with independents as a federal MP. But I think people need to understand who those representatives are, what they stand for, and how they’re gonna work in a collaborative way for stability and certainty for Tasmanians.”