From a Tasmanian point of view, this contest - expected in May - follows the decimation of the Liberals' lower house representation in 2016, when Labor seized Braddon, Bass and Lyons.

The latter two seats are both historically marginal. Voters in Bass are notoriously fickle, with no qualms about showing incumbents the door after just one term. They've had 17 representatives in the Federal Parliament since federation. 

But the people of Lyons are a lot more favourable towards sitting members, having had just five MPs from 1946 (when the electorate was still known as Wilmot) to the present.

Labor's Ross Hart holds Bass on a margin of 5.4 per cent, while Lyons Labor MHR Brian Mitchell holds Lyons on 3.8 per cent.

In terms of the six Tasmanian senators up for re-election, Labor's Lisa Singh, the Greens' Nick McKim and the Nationals' Steve Martin will be fighting to hold on to their seats. 

To kick off our election coverage, The Examiner has spoken to a number of mayors, as well as the chief executive of the Northern Tasmanian Development Corporation (NTDC), to find out what the funding priorities are for the North.

The NTDC, a partnership of seven Northern councils, has released a draft regional economic development plan which lists five priority projects that - if they came to fruition - would have not just local but also regional significance.

The priority projects are:

NTDC chief executive Maree Tetlow said the NTDC was hoping to present a dossier to Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he's in Launceston for a post-budget breakfast on Wednesday morning.

City of Launceston mayor Albert van Zetten said the council had already met with candidates from both major parties to discuss a suite of funding priorities for the municipality.

These included funding for stage two of the Launceston City Heart Project, which seeks to revitalise central Launceston, as well as further funding for Launceston through the federal government's Building Better Regions Fund, designed to stimulate regional economies.

As for the West Tamar municipality, mayor Christina Holmdahl said the most pressing need was for two new roundabouts at Exeter - one on Glen Ard Mohr Road and one on the Frankford Highway. Each roundabout would cost about $1 million.

"[Exeter is] ... a vital supply town," Cr Holmdahl said. "The traffic conditions ... are choking the little township."

Cr Holmdahl noted that Frankford Highway was a state road and, therefore, she wasn't certain the council would be able to get federal funding for the roundabouts.

Break O'Day mayor Mick Tucker was coy about the projects he'd be lobbying for in the lead-up to the election but said the council had "big ambitions".

"We need to make sure that both parties aren't just going to promise something and not deliver," he said.

Cr Tucker called on federal MPs to meet with the council face-to-face to discuss potential projects, which he said hadn't happened yet.

Meander Valley mayor Wayne Johnston, a relative newcomer to the role, highlighted the proposed bioenergy plant at Westbury as the project that was foremost in his mind.

"We've got the fish food plant being built there at the [Westbury industrial precinct] at the moment," he said. "That'll come online very shortly. We've got Tasmanian Alkaloids and a couple of other industries going there that would benefit from a bioenergy plant."

The town of Perth will be the centrepiece of the Northern Midlands Council's lobbying efforts in the 2019 election campaign.

Mayor Mary Knowles said improvements to the town were sorely needed.

"That's the quickest growing area in the northern part of the state," she said. 

"It's important we have infrastructure in place for families to live there."