Fadden
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| Teal and red numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for the LNP and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Fadden covers the northern part of the Gold Coast municipality, from Gaven and Labrador in the south through Coomera, Pimpama and Ormeau to Logan River in the north, with the Pacific Motorway forming most of its western boundary. This area’s intensive population growth has caused the electorate to be progressively drawn into the Gold Coast since its creation in 1977, at which time it contained none of its present territory, instead covering outer southern Brisbane and the Gold Coast’s rural hinterland. The redistribution caused by the expansion of parliament in 1984 drew it into Brisbane, extending as far northwards as Salisbury and Rochedale, with the Logan River as its southern boundary. It first infringed upon the Gold Coast when it acquired Coomera at the 1996 election, the migration being completed with the exchange of Redland Bay in the north for Southport in the south at the 2004 election. The ongoing population explosion caused it to shed nearly 14,000 voters inland of its current boundary at the most recent Queensland redistribution before the 2010 election.
With the exception of 1983, Fadden in its various guises has been won at every election by the conservatives, meaning the the Liberal Party prior to the 2010 merger and the Liberal National Party thereafter. The inaugural member was Don Cameron, who had held Griffith for the Liberals since 1966. The 1975-engorged margin was whittled away at the 1977 and 1980 elections, then overturned with David Beddall’s victory for Labor with the election of the Hawke government. Cameron returned to parliament a year later at a by-election caused by Jim Killen’s retirement in Moreton, which became the third seat he represented. The 1984 redistribution made Fadden notionally Liberal, causing David Beddall to jump ship for Rankin. The seat was then won for the Liberals by David Jull, who had held the seat of Bowman from 1975 until his defeat in 1983. Jull’s margins were less than 5% until 1996, but generally well into double digits thereafter.
Jull was succeeded on his retirement at the 2007 election by Stuart Robert, a former army intelligence officer. Robert was said to have played a role in “rounding up support” for Tony Abbott ahead of his challenge to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership in December 2009, and was elevated afterwards to shadow parliamentary secretary in the defence portfolio. He was further promoted after the 2010 election to the outer shadow ministry portfolio of defence science, technology and personnel, which was rebadged as Assistant Defence Minister following the 2013 election victory.
Moncrieff
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| Teal numbers indicate two-party majority for the LNP. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
Moncrieff covers the central Gold Coast from Miami north through Surfers Paradise to Nerang Head, and inland to Nerang and Highland Park. The seat was created with the expansion of parliament in 1984, previous to which the entirety of the Gold Coast had been accommodated by McPherson since 1949, and by Moreton beforehand. Moncrieff originally extended deep into rural territory at Beaudesert, before assuming its current coastal orientation with Beaudesert’s transfer to Forde in 1996. Prior to Moncrieff’s creation the entirety of the Gold Coast had been accommodated by McPherson, which had itself been created with the previous expansion of parliament in 1949. The Gold Coast had originally been contained within the electorate of Moreton, which has since migrated into Brisbane’s southern suburbs. The area has had conservative representation without interruption since 1906, with McPherson passing from Country Party to Liberal Party control in 1972, and Moncrieff being in Liberal and more recently Liberal National Party hands since its creation.
Steven Ciobo assumed the seat at the 2001 election after the retirement of its inaugural member, Kathy Sullivan, who had previously been a Senator since 1974, establishing what remains a record as the longest serving female member of federal parliament. Ciobo emerged through Liberal ranks as a member of the Right faction, associated with former ministers Santo Santoro and Warwick Parer and state party powerbroker Michael Caltabiano. He rose to the shadow ministry in the small business portfolio after the defeat of the Howard government, which was elevated to a shadow cabinet position when Malcolm Turnbull ascended to the leadership in September 2008. However, he was demoted to the outer shadow ministry portfolios of tourism, arts, youth and sport when Tony Abbott became leader in December 2009 and relegated to the back bench after the August 2010 election, which was generally reckoned to be a consequence of his support for Turnbull. Following the 2013 election victory he won promotion to parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer.
Fran @11
[This lies at the heart of the problem. It’s cultural. This is what they have learned from their environment.]
Big tick.
The culture is ingrained beyond just the upper levels uncovered in ICAC. Its accepted as part of business that you win contracts by being ‘close’ to your client base. The word ‘close’ goes way beyond ‘good working relationships’ and it undermines business level meritocracy (winning contracts because you do it well and efficiently) – which undermines national productivity.
I recall (in a past life) a CEO giving a talk to his staff saying ‘the most important part of your job is to know what footy team your clients support, where they like to go on holiday, their favourite restaurants, wifes name, drinking preferences…’. Delivering them a good project didnt rate a mention.
victoria
Tim Costello was advocating this approach in an interview I heard the other day. His view was that not taxing fresh food was disadvantageous to people on lower incomes because they tended to eat more processed food which does incur the GST.
Well that takes the cake… we have a small inbuilt price signal that encourages a ” healthy life choice”. … so let’s remove it & give free McDonalds vouchers. FFS
We do no have to wait until 2016 for the GST to be seen as the saviour of the country.
I think I heard reported this morning that Michael Costello (?)Tim Costello ?) claims everything should be “put on the table” for a “mature discussion” to take place on the GST.
Among other things, he was reported to have said the exemptions should not be the forerunner to any discussion, but something which comes later.
I have no issue with a GST (and increases thereto which is what business wants to shift the tax burden from them) provided, and this is a big one, other taxes are either reduced or done away with.
One would not be very optimistic about this action after GST Mark 1. Everyone is, until such a list of abolitions and reductions are actually mandated, entitled to be cynical and a wary as all hell with snake oil salesmen coming with their GST Mark 2 as the saviour of the nation.
Even after GST Mark 1 there are instances where a levy of some kind is placed on a taxable amount, only to have the GST to go on the top of the levy and taxed amount combined.
The trust in politicians on both side of the fence on the matter of the GST is, I would have thought, somewhere in negative territory are the moment.
I suppose one could make a comparison. Like nuclear power, we know that electricity can be generated. With a GST we know it can harvest a tax bonanza.
Whether one or the other or neither are the way to go is the basis for a lot of debate.
Tom the first and best@138
On the corner actually.
But I suppose Collins St is a more fashionable address.
Aha—Sceptic has just beaten me to the punch@152
Tim Costello is quickly losing it, his brother never had it.
sceptic,
As John Hewson found, ‘Cakes” are a difficult area for the GST.
bemused@146
Not so, it is a beautiful word, with a long history in the English language. It was taken to north america by the english settlers, and found fertile ground there, while it withered away back in blighty.
It survives, however, in the phrase ‘Ill-gotten gains’.
I use it, and find it more easy on the ear than the alternative.
The truly extraorindary thing is that after all these cuts, the LNP project a debt about the size of the one the ALP left us with last year.
They havent even reduced debt – except insofar as they first increased it themselves since late 2013.
Is there any respect in which this budget is not an abject failure? Name one,LNP supporters. Or have you all pissed off by now? Wouldnt blame you.
[Everyone can forget about the GP tax.
It’s dead, as ALP, PUP and Greens Party have announced they will reject it in the senate.]
It is dead in the current parliament but as an issue it will hang around the neck of every LNP candidate at the next federal election. Thanks for that Tony and Joe.
Sadly, if the Libs run the next election around expanding the GST, most voters will discount it as a lie.
[ bemused
Posted Saturday, May 17, 2014 at 12:16 pm | Permalink
sohar@121
Victoria,
You were right the first time – the accepted past participle for “get” is “got” these days. Maybe “gotten” is American.
“Gotten” is yet another ugly Americanism that is starting to pollute our language.
]
———————————————————-
gotten
North American
past participle of get
Usage
As past participles of get, got and gotten both date back to Middle English. The form gotten is not used in British English but is very common in North American English, though even there it is often regarded as non-standard. In North American English, got and gotten are not identical in use. Gotten usually implies the process of obtaining something, as in ‘he had gotten us tickets for the show’, while got implies the state of possession or ownership, as in ‘I haven’t got any money’.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gotten
Greensborough Growler@161
Hahahaha… Very clever… they just put out all their unappealing policies and no-one believes any of it. 😀
sceptic @ 152
My first thought exactly.
I have written before that the blessing of the GST absent from processed foods is that I can live cheaper.
Jamie’s idea about teaching children to cook has a lot of merit.
I think Costello’s point is that the rich are getting a tax break because they buy more fresh food than processed food.
[“Gotten” is yet another ugly Americanism that is starting to pollute our language.]
Speaking of language pollution, I’m contacting Macquarie Dictionary to recommend they include a new word which our gaggle of television journalists have coined this month whenever they interview Labor’s shadow ministers: “yesbutlabor”.
No matter how mendacious, iniquitous, ignorant, irresponsible, cruel or nonsensical Abbott and his ministers actions are, the first sentence which these crack tv interviewers utter in response to a Labor person’s criticism always starts with “YesbutLabor ……….”.
don@158
Yes, I had previously heard that history of it.
I would prefer it completely died out.
The Michael Gordon article in the Age previously linked to is pathetic.
Is Gordon the last Abbott apologist left standing?
The rich don’t buy fresh food they dine out.
bemused
Michael Gordon is a liberal apologist
bemused
I read Gordon’s article this morning but chose not to include it the Dawn Patrol.
Bemused,
You interest is appreciated. I’m a US Air Force Vietnam Vet who came to Sydney for the R & R week, and 3 years later migrated here. That’s the most wise decision of my life except for the choice of partner, who was Wollonong born and raised. My gratitude to this country for allowing me to spend my life among you is boundless, and I owe the future generations here to try to fight the good fight for their fair-go Australia. Cheers!
“”Kevin Fuller’s 25-year-old son Matthew was electrocuted when the metal staples he was using to fit foil insulation in a southern Queensland roof pierced a live wire on October 14, 2009”
Try blaming the installers boss, metal fasteners were banned.
Blame the installing companies NOT the government, Geez!.
Mike Carlton’s piece is the top story at the Age online
http://www.theage.com.au/
Warren,
Not according to the statixtics which apparently show poorer people spend a larger proportion of their income on processed food, (a la Maccas or the local greasy Spoon and tinned and packaged food).
The rich do eat at home, listen to nutritional notions and buy their vegies fresh.
I think Costellos point is that if the GST exemption isnt changing peoples behavior to healthier eating then would it be better to broaden the GST and protect those on tighter budgets thru appropriate safety nets, better pensions and reduced low-income income tax.
Lizzie? How would you feel about that?
In the face of a decades long massive marketing campaign by processed food manufacturers (etc) it is hard for a 10% price difference to change many peoples eating habits – especially as we are not talking the difference between apples and oranges, but corn and corn chips. I agree that education and perhaps healthy eating marketing is more likely to have an effect.
I think the GST should be replaced….. preferably with a cash flow tax or something like that, something which will make our tax system fairer and simpler
Atticus@172
I recently listen to an audiobook about Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew – wherein he commented about “Americans high tolerance for inequality” as a positive.
The obvious comment being – yeah – so long as you are the one who has the bucks and some else gets the inequality and of course if you are poor and trapped there – there may well be little you can do about it but get on with life.
From your experience – what is your take on said so called “US high tolerance for inequality” ?
im just thinking outside the box, we could have done just fine without having the GST in the first place but it makes no sense to abolish it now and go back to the way it was before 2000 as Beazley wanted – it should just be replaced, a simple evolutionary step
Atticus@172
An interesting story.
We get a few migrants/refugees from the US. I met one a couple of years ago, Donald Betts Jr, a former state Senator from Kansas, and keep in touch with him.
I have liked most Americans I have met and am saddened by what has been happening over there. But we have seen some of the same trends here.
You mentioned beggars in the street. Like you, I recall this as unknown in my childhood, but now it is commonplace in major cities. What on earth is going on? It is a disgrace to any society that calls itself civilised.
So, the MSM narrative now is “we NEED to have a mature discussion about the GST”.
Very predictable.
I would have thought we NEED to have a mature discussion about closing tax loopholes for big business and the wealthy.
1934pc@173
Ummmm… isn’t he the guy who was told not to use metal staples, given plastic staples by his employer, and then persisted using metal ones in his own staple gun because they were faster?
Much as I am saddened by the death of any young person from any cause, there is an element of Darwin at work here.
His parents need appropriate grief counselling.
Rex,
Mature, in what sense.
My ideas are ripe for picking.
Your ideas are old, mature and out dated.
Class warfare and socialist dogma is so “mature”.
Not much point getting upset about how the Americans chose to use English.
Bill Bryson writes in an entertaining way about the way they do things.
I don’t think speakers of English, using either the UK model or the Oz one, have a lot to be critical about when we blithely make “Left-tenant” out of “Lieutenant”, call the things that railway tracks run on as “sleepers” while the Americans use the much more sensible word of “tie” – that is the “sleepers” do actually ‘tie’ the rails together, while the gems of ‘denier’ and ‘denier’ could be anything from measuring yarn thickness to being one who disagrees.
Just like ‘line’ for queue, ‘looking glass’ for mirror, ‘side walk’ for footpath and ‘trash/garbage can’ for rubbish bin, and ‘gotten’ (not quite sure what that replaces) I suspect, without deep knowledge on the subject, that some Americanism are actually relics of the 17 Century English they took with them to the colonies at the time.
There are probably thousands of other examples better than mine but not worth getting oneself in a knot about them I would have thought.
The beauty and strength of English is that is pillages and borrows from other languages and feasts off them.
Simon
I’m probably not the best judge of it all.
I objected to GST being on fresh food for several reasons.
But I have always rejected most processed foods because they are pale imitations, taste horrible and salty and in my mind are too expensive. Adding “vitamins” to cardboard doesn’t turn it into good food.
Every 5 years or so I try a ‘pre-made’ meal and can’t believe that people buy the stuff.
As for “dining” on instant flavoured noodles. Yuck!
Tom Hawkins@174
In its rightful place!
I can’t say I recall this occurring before.
Did a quick scan and can’t see it at all in the iPad version which is supposed to mirror the dead tree version.
Atticus
We are very pleased that you are here!
bemused 182
“” there is an element of Darwin at work here.””
We should not forget WE are evolved ANIMALS!.
Prone to cockup’s and mistakes!.
Lizzie,
I was all for the exemption when it came in too. And I choose fresh food because its cheaper (regardless of the GST) and I enjoy cooking. But I have access to good quality cheap fresh food via the Adelaide Markets and farmers markets.
Jericho wrote something recently suggesting broadening GST to education would be a good progressive idea….
http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/feb/06/paying-gst-education-unpopular-but-progressive
I dont think Costello is losing it. These seem reasonable options to be looked at.
Unitary State@179
What on earth is your proposed “cash flow tax”?
The GST replaced a messy wholesale sales tax system and was an improvement IMHO. Beazley’s stance was nuts.
One argument in favour of a GST is that it is a much more stable revenue source for governments than other forms of taxation.
Rex
[I would have thought we NEED to have a mature discussion about closing tax loopholes for big business and the wealthy.]
Spot on but not likely under this Government – they will never touch the wealthy.
SK,
We could demonise “carrot chompers” as being un-Australian tax avoiders exploiting a loop hole in the tax system to promote a particular lifestyle.
Vegetarians should be summarily executed of course.
Tweet from Brendan OConnor MP from a few days ago
[24 year old on Newstart will lose $2496 a year while someone on $200,000 will lose $400 a year. Who’s doing the heavy lifting? #auspol]
[ MTBW
Posted Saturday, May 17, 2014 at 1:18 pm | PERMALINK
Rex
I would have thought we NEED to have a mature discussion about closing tax loopholes for big business and the wealthy.
Spot on but not likely under this Government – they will never touch the wealthy. ]
They are really saying we are going to introduce it – so just rollover and cop it.
The next phase is called T.I.N.A. – as in “There is no alternative”.
All nonsense of course – voters just need to harshly punish any government that tries to increase or broaden the GST.
Did anyone hear Prissie Pyne ranting about the privileged students this morning?
1934pc@188
Indeed we are and we also do stupid things which most of us somehow survive.
IIRC that bloke had already had a couple of close calls and was a qualified electrician who should have been very well aware of electrical hazards.
Bemused at 182 asked about Matthew Fuller :
he was not the one with his own staple gun, that was Sweeney. Fuller was a qualified electrician though and this report from the Oz gives more detail. It is odd that a qualified sparky is described as untrained but that’s the Oz for you.
MATTHEW Fuller was inexperienced and inadequately trained when he was fatally electrocuted installing insulation under the Rudd government’s pink batts scheme, an inquest has heard.
Fuller, 26, died on October 14, 2009, just two weeks after he started working for QHI Installations Pty Ltd. His girlfriend, Monique Pridmore, was badly burned in the incident, which occurred when Fuller pierced a live electrical cable with a metal
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland principal inspector investigations Douglas Innes said QHI had been warned twice in the week before Fuller died about its workers having electrical problems in roofs.
One incident had involved Fuller himself, who nicked a cable in another house, causing sparks to fly. In the second incident, a worker drove a staple through a cable causing the home’s power to switch off.
The inquest heard one of QHI’s senior executives had gone to a Master Builders course in September 2009, which warned there was a “high risk of electrocution” when using metal staples with foil insulation.Fuller died in that situation one month later.
Contrary to the federal scheme, the inexperienced workers were not supervised. They received a morning briefing from a senior staffer and were then sent to job sites alone. The “supervisor” was then available by phone if something went wrong.
The inquest heard QHI was fined $100,000 and its executive officer was fined $10,000 in relation to Fuller’s death. It was the first company prosecuted over the botched scheme’s rollout.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/pink-batts-worker-matthew-fuller-was-untrained-unsupervised-inquest-hears/story-e6frg6nf-1226636706730
Keatingwas asked about the GST on LL last week
[TONY JONES: OK. I’ve just got to – we’ve got little time left, but Jeff Kennett, former Victorian Premier, was on this program a little over a week ago and he said, “Well, you can actually fix the whole problem really quickly in fact by Tony Abbott breaking a promise and just raising the GST or broadening the base of the GST,” and he gave the figures which he indicated would actually fix up the budget deficit within a year or two years.
PAUL KEATING: Yeah, well I don’t agree with that. I like Jeff, he’s a good fellow, but I don’t agree. Look, I’ll tell you why, Tony: the average person, their income and their expenditure are one and the same. So when you hit their expenditure with a 10 per cent tax or a 15 per cent tax, then they’re carrying another 15 per cent tax burden, whereas a wealthier person and many more wealthier people who don’t spend all of their income and save a large proportion of it, they’re not taxed by the GST. You can’t build a society where the low to middle income people carry the greater burden of the tax system.
TONY JONES: Margaret Thatcher did it, of course. She doubled her sales tax and brought down income tax. That was the kind of model for how to actually do it in Thatcher …
PAUL KEATING: Yeah, but we did it – look, I had outlays growing at one to two per cent less than the inflation rate for five years up to 1990. I mean, it can be done by a studious attention, and also, in a growth economy, the revenue starts to pick up. We don’t need to do these kind of very nasty things in the tax system.]
victoria:
I saw that tweet the other day and thought it was pretty damning.
“”What on earth is your proposed “cash flow tax”?””
Perhaps he is referring to:
http://www.fnq.cc/debit_tax.html#Advantages%20of%20the%20Debit%20Tax
One way to fix the countries problem!.