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Tasmania's Liberals is set for a crushing election victory and a return to office in the island state for the first time in 16 years.

Will Hodgman has led the party to victory at his second attempt and will become the first Liberal premier of the state since Tony Rundle.

Polls had predicted a bloodbath for Labor, who shared power with the Greens for the past four years, and experts were calling the result with barely 10 per cent of the vote counted.

Labor was hard hit in the north and the Greens had also lost electoral support.

Under Tasmania's unique Hare-Clark electoral system, where five members are elected in each seat, the Liberals needed to pick up three for a majority in the 25-seat lower house.

They looked set to win 14, while Labor had won five, the Greens two with four still in doubt.

But in the popular vote it was a landslide, the Liberals claiming at least 53 per cent, a swing of 14, and Mr Hodgman the highest personal tally of any candidate.

The 44-year-old father of three young children comes from a long line of Hodgmans involved in Tasmanian politics, but will be the family's first premier.

His late father Michael was a popular Fraser government minister and state politician.

His grandfather Bill Hodgman and uncle Peter were also members of the state parliament.

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Tasmania's Liberals win majority govt

ABC Incoming Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman addresses supporters as his wife, Nicola, shares a laugh.

Labor has been swept from power in Tasmania but is clinging to life in South Australia after both states went to the polls on Saturday.

Voters called time on 16 years of Labor rule in Tasmania, flocking to the Liberals, whose leader, Will Hodgman, had positioned his party as the only option for a stable majority government.

The Liberals will get that, with at least 14 seats in the 25-seat legislature, which is decided using the complex Hare-Clark proportional representation system.

Premier-elect Mr Hodgman said Tasmanians had voted for change "and that's what they will get".

In South Australia, what had been expected to be a comfortable Liberal victory failed to materialise, with Jay Weatherill's Labor putting up a fight in the Adelaide marginals which have delivered it power for the past three terms.

The South Australian Electoral Commissioner says with the high volume of early and postal votes, up to a quarter of the overall vote is yet to be counted.

The ABC's election computer is predicting 23 seats for Labor, 21 for the Liberals and two for independents.

Both major parties say the seat of Mitchell is too close to call.

Mr Weatherill said he was "hopeful of retaining government".

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Liberals swept to power in Tasmania, Labor hopeful of clinging to power in South Australia

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says a Liberal government in South Australia would get the state moving again, and claims that it would be a federal puppet are just cheap smearing.

'(Opposition leader Steve Marshall) and I want to work for the betterment of this great state,' he told the Liberals' election campaign launch in Adelaide on Sunday.

The prime minister introduced the premier-hopeful to the cheering crowd, saying he would have a constructive approach with him as opposed to having to deal with Labor premier Jay Weatherill's combative stance.

Mr Marshall is campaigning on a platform of energy and water bill cuts, a major new port on the Eyre Peninsular, stronger regions, more jobs and fewer taxes.

It was time for a fresh start with the Liberals, who would grow the economy, drive employment and keep young people in South Australia, he told the party faithful.

Adding his weight to the cause, former long-serving federal minister Alexander Downer said he was optimistic that on Sunday the sun would rise on a Liberal SA government and the 'dark night of Labor will be over'.

The three speakers stood on the stage of the Norwood town hall, with rows of enthusiastic young party members behind them, while Empire of the Sun's Alive boomed out to get everyone in the mood.

Mr Abbott said Mr Marshall, a former businessman, was ready to be premier, had a plan for the state and would work with the federal government which had already committed to major road infrastructure projects.

South Australia would get moving again under a Liberal government, he said.

Mr Abbott later told journalists Mr Weatherill's claim that Mr Marshall would just be a puppet of the federal government was 'cheap smearing'.

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Liberals would get SA 'moving again'

ABC Will Hodgman's Liberals have won 14 seats in the 25-seat Tasmanian parliament.

Tasmanian Liberal leader Will Hodgman has won the state election, ending 16 years in Opposition.

With 80 per cent of the vote counted, the Liberal Party has won more than half the vote and is set to take majority government with 14 seats in the 25-seat Parliament.

It is the Liberals' best ever electoral result.

Mr Hodgman has also broken the hex of being the country's longest-serving Opposition Leader and will be the state's next Premier.

The Tasmanian Liberal Party stormed into power, posting its best electoral result in 60 years.

It is shaping as a comfortable victory for the leader who campaigned on returning the state to a majority government after four years of a Labor-Green minority.

There has been a swing against the Labor Party in all five seats, making it the worst election result for the party in six decades.

The Liberals look set to pick up an extra seat in every electorate except Denison.

ABC analyst Antony Green says Labor has won six seats and the Greens two, with three seats still undecided.

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Tasmania votes: Liberals snatch power, ending 16 years of Labor rule

Prime Minister Tony Abbotts Liberal party won an election in Tasmania, giving it control of all but one of the nations states and helping his bid to cut red tape and sell infrastructure assets.

Tasmanias Liberal Premier Will Hodgman defeated Labor Premier Lara Giddings, whose party was in power for 16 years. In the South Australia election, with 69 percent of votes counted, neither Liberal leader Steven Marshall nor Labor Premier Jay Weatherill received enough votes to form a majority government.

Abbotts Liberal party consolidated control of state power after Labor under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007 controlled government at federal, state and territory level. This will help Abbott push through his agenda of removing unnecessary business regulation, and encouraging governments to sell assets to fund new infrastructure investment. South Australia and Tasmania, with the highest unemployment rates in Australia, have been hampered by the states faltering economies and voter fatigue after more than a decade of Labor office.

The results confirm the swing of Australian voters to the right of center is still on, Zareh Ghazarian, a Melbourne-based professor at the Monash University School of Political and Social Inquiry, said by phone. Labor is in a very brittle position. Even if the Liberals dont win in South Australia, it still highlights just how unpopular Labor is.

The Tasmania election victory gives Abbott control which rivals that of former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, who controlled all but one state in 1996. Abbott led the Liberal-National coalition to federal victory in the September election.

Its not the complexion of the state governments that counts, its the competence of the state governments which counts, Abbott said in a March 14 Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio interview. The problem that weve had in South Australia and in Tasmania is that weve got very long-serving state Labor governments which are well past their prime.

The loss in Tasmania is a further blow to Labor, Australias oldest political party. Now it only holds sway in the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia, pending the outcome of yesterdays poll.

The only way is up for Labor, when youre that far down Haydon Manning, an Adelaide-based politics professor at Flinders University of South Australia, said by phone. Its usually only been a short period when weve had the country one way or the other before its broken. The problem for Labor is that in Queensland and New South Wales, there doesnt look like much hope.

Abbott will see the wins as an opportunity to help fix what he described in his 2009 book Battlelines as a dysfunctional federation -- the overlapping of responsibilities between state and federal governments that can result in the duplication of regulations.

Stalemates at meetings of federal, state and territory governments meant the pursuit of national reforms becomes a frustrating political merry-go-round, always needing just one more meeting or just another funding agreement to finalize, Abbott wrote.

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Abbotts Liberals Win Power in All But One of Australias States