Government members who back the unsuccessful candidate in the Liberals' leadership contest are unlikely to lose their ministerial positions because of the limited number of replacements.
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A cabinet reshuffle is inevitable following the election of a new Premier on Monday.
There are only four voting members who do not hold seniors positions in the government; Braddon MHA Joan Rylah, Lyons MHA John Tucker, Franklin MHA Jacquie Petrusma and Prosser MLC Jane Howlett.
And there are nine ministers along with Leonie Hiscutt, Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council.
Ms Petrusma is unlikely to again take on ministerial responsibilities after stepping down from cabinet for health reasons in June last year.
In other news:
Both Mr Tucker and Ms Howlett have less than two years of experience in government and Ms Rylah only returned to Parliament on a recount in February 2019 after being defeated in the 2018 state election.
A parliamentary inquiry into the size of the House of Assembly has heard ministers are burdened by their workloads, as are backbenchers.
Despite this, the government is not backing an increase to the size of Parliament with a bill seeking to restore the lower house's numbers to 35 to be brought on this year.
The Greens support the move but Labor's position on the bill is unclear.
Political analyst Kevin Bonham said the promising of portfolios for votes ran the risk of members of government being promoted as a reward into cabinet roles they may not be up to.
"If there are genuinely undecided MPs who have an eye on particular positions it may also be difficult to avoid making such offers," Dr Bonham said.
"The issue of whoever wins they may want to promote supporters and demote opponents is a common thing that happens with leadership spills [but the size of parliament] may well restrain their ability to do that."
Dr Bonham said a Michael Ferguson-Elise Archer victory would see an interesting shake-up, as their side was less experienced.
"The [other] side has the major players at the moment, [Peter] Gutwein and [Jeremy] Rockliff. If Ferguson wins there might be quite a ministerial shake-up and it might be quite interesting to see who gets what and where they go with it," he said.
Labor leader Rebecca White said she had no doubt portfolios were being traded behind closed doors.
"And a lot of in-fighting within the Liberal party about who is going to have what portfolio and who is going to get a promotion or not. That's not good for the people of Tasmania," Ms White said.
"We've seen over the course of the last two years ministers and members of this Liberal party exit at a rapid rate [which] does place pressure on whoever it is who becomes premier to allocate portfolio responsibility to people who've got the ability to perform those functions.
"We would like to understand how those portfolios are going to be allocated and what deals are being done to secure those votes in the party caucus room."