Dorset mayor Greg Howard bitterly breaks from Liberal Party

North-East branch president Greg Howard has not only resigned from his position that he has held for the past 10 years, but ditched his decades-long party membership, saying the government had turned its back on rural and regional areas under the leadership of Jeremy Rockliff.

"Over the last few months, there have been a number of issues that the branch, and me in particular, haven't been happy about with the Liberal Party," he said.

"We're working hard on the outside and those blokes on the inside are just ignoring us.

"When you go to war with your own people, you can't expect them to continue to support you."

Mr Howard said some branch members, like himself, felt ignored on matters like local government reform and potential council mergers, compulsory voting and the restoration of the House of Assembly to 35 seats.

He said a 35-seat lower house over five electorates would wipe out any prospect for a majority Liberal or Labor government under the Hare-Clark voting system.

Mr Howard said there should have been one-member electorates in a restored lower house as was the case interstate.

"And that motion got passed two years in a row at the Liberal State Council and the government just ignored it," he said.

Mr Howard said the state government's planned reforms to the local government sector waged war with rural and regional parts of the state.

"They've attacked their own supporters, they've attacked rural residents," he said.

Mr Howard told branch members that he would resign from the party at its recent annual general meeting.

This led to the suspension of the meeting and placed the branch in recess.

Tasmanian Liberal Party director Peter Coulson on Tuesday confirmed the branch was in recess, but remained active, and a handful of membership resignations from within the branch had been received.

He said the resignations related code of conduct complaints independent of the party.

Local Government Minister Nic Street said the government had listened and responded to concerns about the council code of conduct process and legislation before parliament intended to address those concerns.

"We are committed to making sure local government can deal with grievances of all types and create an environment where elected officials can operate without the fear of vexatious complaints defining their time in office," he said.

"Our government remains focused on delivering our long-term plan and doing what matters for all Tasmanians."