UTG contested ten state and federal elections between 1972 and 1977, with 46 candidates overall, with the highest vote of 9.9% in the Legislative Council election with Rod Broadby in 1975 (see Appendix 4, UTG Journal Issue No. 6, 2021). At its peak, sometime in 1976-1977 UTG had over 500 members, 17 branches across Tasmania, and 14 Policy Development Committees (see Appendices 1 & 2 in The UTG Journal No. 6, Special 50th year anniversary edition).
The United Tasmania Group's first President wasDr Richard Jones and it lasted for five years, but the UTG name was used for the purpose of contesting the 1990 federal election (none of the six candidates were members of UTG). One of the 1970s candidatesBob Brown, went on to form theTasmanian Greens and then ultimately, at the national level, theAustralian Greens.
On 2 April 2016 following a meeting, former members of the party re-started the group.[3][4]
The United Tasmania Group launchedThe UTG Journal in 2018.[5] The journal is designed to cover a wide range of topics, including the development of conservation and other issues since that original founding date on 23rd of March, 1972. Eleven issues ofThe UTG Journal have been published since the re-start of the organisation in 2016.
In the mid 1990s Lance Armstrong wrote a history of the politics of Tasmania in the 1990s.[6]
In the mid-2000s author Bill Lines also attempted to grapple with the broader scope of politics in Australia relative to greens politics inPatriots.[7]Meanwhile the 2017 Master's Thesis of Canadian scholar Blake Allen produced an analysis of how the UTG, and their effect on Tasmanian politics, reshaped the Australian federal relationship in a favorable manner for successive national governments.[8] In the late 2010s Paddy Manning researched and wrote a history of the Greens in Australia, and included the UTG in the first chapter, acknowledging the importance of the group within the larger context.[9]
An unpublished Honours Thesis on the party by Pam Walker (University of Tasmania) was written in 1986, and the first chapter in Paddy Manning's book,Inside the Greens (2019), is devoted to the history of the party.[10]
^Armstrong, Lance (Lance John Edward); Armstrong, Lance John Edward (1997),Good God, he's green! : a history of Tasmanian politics 1989 to 1996, Pacific Law Press,ISBN978-1-875192-08-3
^Lines, William J (2006),Patriots : defending Australia's natural heritage, University of Queensland Press,ISBN978-0-7022-3554-2
^Manning, Paddy (2019),Inside the Greens : the origins and future of the party, the people and the politics, Black Inc., an imprint of Schwartz Publishing,ISBN978-1-86395-952-0
^Manning, Paddy (2019),Inside the Greens : the origins and future of the party, the people and the politics, Black Inc., an imprint of Schwartz Publishing,ISBN978-1-86395-952-0
