On 19th July 2025, Independent Peter George was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in electorate of Franklin.
Thanks to an exuberant campaign that attracted over 600 volunteers, Peter won the seat convincingly on first preference votes - the only candidate in Franklin to do so.
As a Community Independent Peter is accountable only to the people of Franklin, not to lobbyists, political parties or their corporate donors.
Peter is your Independent voice in Parliament. He wants to hear from you!
Friday 9th October:
It’s our own Tasmanian Hunger Games.
Harrowing stories were shared on the steps of the Executive Building today, as Community and Public Sector Union members called out the Government’s brutal and baffling treatment of Building Tasmania and Department of Premier and Cabinet staff.
Imagine being one of 1700 employees whose job has been earmarked as expendable, and being given only two weeks to justify why you should stay and another person should go? No wonder these workers voted “no confidence” in their employer, Premier Rockliff, who has created this budget black hole of his own making.
We are gearing up to fight these cuts to Tasmania’s Museum and Art Gallery with everything we’ve got. We’ve had emails pouring in from all over the world praising the work of TMAG, and the work done to preserve the cultural and natural history of our island state. The Tasmanian government has a hell of a fight on its hands.
Hobart, Wed Oct 7:
MLC Meg Web and I continue our investigation into what Tasmanians stand to lose if government cuts go ahead at TMAG to fill a budget blackhole of its own making & pay for the ever-escalating costs of the Mac Point stadium.
Meg and I are both inundated with messages from supporters not just in Tasmania and Australia, but globally. My latest is from Gdansk University in Poland.
The fight is on to save the institutions and people who preserve our cultural and natural heritage.
L-R: Head of Zoology, Cathy Byrne, Curators Simon Grove & David Hocking, MLC Meg Webb and me.
Yesterday, two senior curators from TMAG Herbarium led a group of Friends of TMAG on a botanical walk around Waterworks Reserve at Ridgeway.
Community engagement and education experiences like this are among the many things that we stand to lose if the government’s disastrous cuts go ahead.
Tasmanian Herbarium, Monday Oct 5
I’m trying to keep calm … but the Vandals are at the gates.
A visit to the Tasmanian Herbarium with my Upper House colleague, Meg Webb, left us both ever more concerned about the government plundering our heritage to plug a debt blackhole of its own making.
Since learning of the destructive cuts aimed at the Herbarium, prestigious institutions around the world have been getting in touch to described the global significance of its work, its collection of 350,000 specimens and its renowned leader, Gintaras Kantvilas facing the sack.
Dr Kantvilas managed with 8 staff.
He scraped by with 7.
Then with 6.
Now with 4, if Liberal Vandals - Rockliff and Abetz - have their way.
We must all fight this attack on our heritage and our culture.
A hundred years of research jeopardised for a sporting stadium we neither need nor want.
Tonight @bobbrownfoundation screened their film “Gutted” to a local Cygnet audience, recapping just how far the movement has come in just a few short years, and how much work there is still to do, for Tasmania to reign in the multinational owned, polluting salmon farms.
Hobart, Wednesday, Sept 30
Here’s a personal message to Cabinet minister, Bridget Archer:
Bridget, the vandals in your government are destroying the irreplaceable Tasmanian Herbarium.
You know better than most that we have to stop them.
Before politics, you were a botanical assistant for four years with the small Herbarium team working under a world-renowned scientist who’s now in danger of losing his job.
Don’t let Jeremy Rockliff and Eric Abetz shred this treasure trove with budget and job cuts just to fix the debt mess they’ve created… or help pay for the Mac Point stadium
Bridget, tell them the Herbarium stores 300,000 specimens that not only record our island’s plant life but help inform us what our future holds.
It’s invaluable.
You can stop them.
Speak up in Cabinet before it’s too late!
I’ll be speaking at this event as part of the Q&A panel this Saturday in Cygnet. Hope to see you there.
