Hodgman calls for Tasmanian election

Tasmanian Opposition Leader Will Hodgman is demanding the state government name an election date. Source: AAP

TASMANIAN Opposition Leader Will Hodgman is demanding an increasingly beleaguered state government name an election date.

A poll is due in the state on March 15 but Premier Lara Giddings is yet to confirm the date.

A new bout of turmoil has hit the Labor-Green alliance with rogue ALP backbencher Brenton Best calling for Ms Giddings to quit as leader.

Mr Best has been a ticking time bomb for the party for months, criticising it over its partnership with the Greens, who have two ministers in the government.

He says Ms Giddings should now step aside for police and economic development minister David O'Byrne.

Labor is languishing in the polls after 15 years in power with Ms Giddings' most recent approval rating at just 18 per cent, its lowest level yet.

Mr Hodgman, the son of late former federal minister Michael Hodgman, has used his address to the Liberals' state council to call for an election.

"It should be called today," he told members.

"(It) will be the most important election in our lifetime, probably in our state's history."

Mr Hodgman said Labor had reached the point where it was unfit to govern the economically ailing state.

"Infighting has now escalated to open warfare," he said.

"It is appalling for Tasmanians who want to see a government that's focused on them, not on itself."

The Liberals have long drawn a comparison between the state's Labor-Green power-sharing arrangement and the former federal minority government headed by Julia Gillard.

Mr Hodgman's address came under banners reading "Jobs. Growth. Majority Government".

He repeated a warning to Labor voters that only by voting Liberal will another hung parliament be avoided, since Tasmania has the unusual Hare-Clark system which delivers five members per seat.

He said a vote for minor players like the Palmer United Party, which won a Tasmanian Senate spot in September's federal election, could also mean no clear majority.

"Don't risk it and don't waste your vote," he said.

Mr Hodgman has ruled out deals with any other party.

The state Liberals' buoyancy was boosted when prime Minister Tony Abbott addressed the conference on Saturday, 50 days after supplanting three Tasmanian Labor members at the federal election.

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