The Liberal government has been emphatically returned to power in Tasmania with more than 50% of the vote and a clear majority on the floor of the state’s parliament.

Claiming victory in the state’s tally room, an emotional Premier Will Hodgman said his government had been rewarded by Tasmanians for kickstarting the state’s economy, creating 10,000 jobs and cutting unemployment to the second lowest level in the country.

“Four years ago, they voted for change. Tonight they have voted for no change, to stick in the direction the state is heading and to taking it to the next level,” he said.

Labor and the Greens had earlier both accused the Liberals of effectively buying seats in parliament, citing the widespread belief the government’s campaign had been heavily bankrolled by the gaming and hospitality industry.

By late on Saturday night, the Liberals had won at least 13 seats in the state’s 25-seat parliament. Labor had at least eight seats and the Greens one. Three seats were undecided, with each party in the race for two of them.

Labor had a 5% swing in its favour across the state, mostly at the expense of the Greens. The third party saw its vote fall nearly four percentage points to just over 10% of the vote. With 82.3% of the vote counted, the Liberals were sitting on 50.4% and Labor 32.8%.

In a state that has leant Labor for most of its history, Hodgman is only the second Liberal premier to win a majority in consecutive elections.

His win follows four years of improving economic performance in the state as it began to recover from the loss of much of the forestry industry and the impact of the global financial crisis. The government’s campaign focused on its economic record and, with polls suggesting widespread concern about the uncertainty of minority government, the fact it was the only party with a realistic chance of winning a majority.

Rebecca White on Saturday night as she made her concession speech at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart. She said Labor lost to the ‘most well-resourced campaign in Tasmania’s election history’. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

It came in the face of Labor’s historic pledge to make Tasmania the first jurisdiction in Australia to remove pokies from pubs and clubs.

Labor leader Rebecca White maintained a defiant tone in conceding defeat, saying Labor had picked up seats and nearly pushed a first term government to the wall, but lost to the “most well-resourced campaign in Tasmania’s election history”.

She said people who voted Labor wanted “open government , transparent government, and government that makes decisions on behalf of the people, and not vested interests”.

To cries of “shame” from the Labor faithful, White said: “It shouldn’t be the case that you can buy a seat in the Tasmanian parliament. That is shame. The Tasmanian people should be represented by the best representatives, not the richest.”

It was a message echoed by Greens leader Cassy O’Connor, who started her campaign by arguing for donations reform. “If there is one lesson that comes out of this campaign it is that donations reform is absolutely essential for Tasmania. Never again can we let an election and government be bought,” she said.

Hodgman was at times near tears in his speech as he paid tribute to Vanessa Goodwin, his childhood friend and former attorney-general who died on Saturday after succumbing to cancer.

He said: “I can assure you that never before have I had a stronger resolve to lead a government, a majority Liberal government that will forever do what is in our state’s best interests at every turn.”

Though White remained defiant, Labor’s pokies stance is likely to be questioned internally. Labor candidate for Franklin David O’Byrne, who was returned to parliament after losing his seat four years ago and last week refused to rule out a leadership challenge, said the pokies policy aligned with Labor values but indicated it would be reviewed.

At least two Labor candidates indicated on Saturday night they had received negative feedback about the pokies policy.

The Liberals were clearly better funded, with an advertising blitz that began during the Boxing Day test and ran consistently for the next nine weeks. It was joined by simultaneous and similarly expansive campaign by the gaming industry and particularly pokies giant Federal Group.

Anti-pokies campaigners, who ran a smaller advertising push with funding from Museum of Old and New Art owner David Walsh, said it was a scare campaign based on misinformation, including industry suggestions that 5000 jobs could be lost. A government-backed analysis said the figure would be fewer than 400.

The government declined to say how much it spent during the campaign, and that its donations would be released as the law required. That means early next year.

The result was roughly in line with two polls released early in the final week, suggesting Friday’s revelation that the police minister Rene Hidding had told a firearms consultation group that a returned Hodgman government would soften gun laws had little impact.

Greens Leader Cassy O’Connor said: ‘Never again can we let an election and government be bought.’ Photograph: Rob Blakers/AAP

O’Connor said the government would have no mandate to weaken gun laws after failing to release its policy to the electorate, and no mandate to open up forest reserves to logging given it did not say anything about forestry during the campaign.

The returned Liberal government is likely to face questions about 170 policies that Hodgman on Friday said it had released to interest groups, but not posted on its website.

The fall in the Greens vote follows the departure during the term of two former leaders with high profiles – Nick McKim, who resigned to take a seat in the Senate, and Kim Booth, who left the parliament early in the term. It also came in a campaign in which environmental issues received less attention in the past.

Under Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system, five MPs are elected in five different electorates. The Liberals have won at least three seats in the three multi-member electorates that stretch into the state’s north: Bass, centred on Launceston; Braddon taking in Burnie and Devonport in the state’s north-west; and the largely rural seat of Lyons. It has at least two MPs in Franklin and Denison.



Hodgman had the highest personal vote in the state, picking up more than a third of first preferences in Franklin.



By 11.30pm AEDT Labor was assured of two seats each in Denison, Lyons and Franklin, and has at least one in both Bass and Braddon. The Greens were only assured of O’Connor’s seat in Denison.



The three seats in doubt were Bass (a contest between Labor and the Greens), Braddon (between the Liberals and Labor, with Labor ahead), and Franklin (between the Liberals and the Greens).



The Jacqui Lambie Network, with its eponymous leader deciding not to run as she gears up for a bid to return to the Senate, struggled. Its best performance was in Lambie’s home seat of Braddon, where it was hovering below 6% of the vote. Conceding defeat, Lambie blamed the imbalance in campaign funding. “We got done over by cash. We just didn’t have it,” she said.

