Welcome to the latest instalment of Call of the Board, which probes into every seat result from the May federal election region by region. Earlier instalments covered Sydney, here and here; regional New South Wales; Melbourne; regional Victoria and south-east Queensland. Today we look at the electorates of Queensland outside of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
The posts dealing with the big cities have featured colour-coded seat maps and the results of a model estimating how the results would have looked if determined by demographic factors alone. Unfortunately, colour-coding doesn’t get you very far when zooming out to vast and unevenly populated regional terrain, and the model hasn’t proved to be much use in producing plausible results for regional seats, in which elusive factors of local political culture appear to loom large. However, I can at least offer for purposes of comparison Labor two-party estimates derived from the Senate results, potentially offering a pointer to how much candidate factors affected the lower house results.
Seat by seat alphabetically:
Capricornia (LNP 12.4%; 11.7% swing to LNP): Labor held this Rockhampton region seat for all but one term from 1977 to 2013, but history may record that it has now reached a tipping point akin to those that have excluded the party from former regional strongholds including Kennedy (Labor-held for all but two terms from federation to 1966, but only once thereafter), Grey in South Australia (Labor-held for all but one term from 1943 to 1993, but never again since) and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (Labor-held for all but three terms from 1922 until Graeme Campbell quit the party in 1995, and now divided between the safely conservative seats of O’Connor and Durack). The 11.7% swing to Michelle Landry, who has held the seat since 2013, was the biggest in the country, shading the 11.2% swing to the beloved George Christensen in Dawson. Landry’s primary vote was actually little changed, reflecting the entry of One Nation, who accounted for most of Labor’s 14.3% collapse. The rest came from a halving of the Katter’s Australian Party vote from 7.1% to 3.7% and the absence of Family First.
Dawson (LNP 14.6%; 11.2% swing to LNP): Dawson behaved almost identically in swing terms to its southern neighbour, Capricornia, as voters showed themselves to be a great deal more concerned about Adani and its symbolism than George Christensen’s enthusiasm for life in the Philippines. As in Capricornia, the LNP primary vote was little changed from 2016, but the arrival of One Nation soaked up 13.1% which neatly matched Labor’s 12.5% decline. Katter’s Australian Party held up better here than in Capricornia, their 6.3% being only slightly down on 2016.
Flynn (LNP 8.7%; 7.6% swing to LNP): Labor narrowly won this Gladstone-based seat on its creation at their 2007 high-water mark and sliced the margin back to 1.0% in 2016, but hopes of going one better this time fell foul of the party’s region-wide disaster. The swing in this case was fairly typical of those suffered by Labor outside the immediate range of proposed Adani mine, though in this case One Nation were not a new feature, their 19.6% being slightly higher than their 2016 result. The seat was a bit unusual in that Labor’s score on the two-party Senate estimate was 2.8% stronger than their House result.
Groom (LNP 20.5%; 5.2% swing to LNP): The 5.2% swing to John McVeigh was a bit below the regional Queensland par, despite him being a sophomore of sorts – although he may have arrived in 2016 with a ready-made personal vote due to his background as a state member. Nonetheless, it was sufficient to catapult the seat from fifteenth to second on the national ranking of seats by Coalition-versus-Labor margin, reflecting the narrowing of margins in many blue-ribbon city seats. The 2016 result was remarkable in that Family First polled 10.0% in the absence of right-wing minor party competition – this time the newly arrived One Nation polled 13.1% in their absence. The LNP primary vote was little changed and Labor was down 3.5%, the rest of the swing bespeaking a more right-wing minor party preference pool.
Herbert (LNP GAIN 8.4%; 8.4% swing to LNP): Labor’s most marginal seat pre-election, following Labor member Cathy O’Toole’s 37 vote win in 2016, the Townsville seat of Herbert was one of five seats across the country and two in Queensland that were gained by the Coalition (balanced to an extent by Labor’s gains in Gilmore and, with help from redistribution, Corangamite and Dunkley). While the swing was lower than in the Adani epicentre electorates of Dawson and Capricornia immediately to the south, it was sufficient to produce the most decisive result the seat has seen since 1954. O’Toole’s primary vote was down 5.0% to 25.5%, while LNP victor Phillip Thompson added 1.6% to the party’s 2016 result to score 37.1%. High-profile Palmer candidate Greg Dowling did relatively well in polling 5.7%, and One Nation were down from 13.5% to 11.1%.
Hinkler (LNP 14.5%; 6.1% swing to LNP): Keith Pitt, who has held this Bundaberg-based seat since 2013, picked up a swing well in line with the regional Queensland norm. He was up 2.2% on the primary vote, while Labor was down 3.8%; One Nation fell from 19.2% to 14.8%, mostly due to an expansion in the field from seven candidates to ten, including three independents, none of whom did particularly well individually.
Kennedy (KAP 13.3% versus LNP; 2.3% swing to KAP): Bob Katter had a near death experience at the 2013 election, at which time he was presumably tarred with the minority government brush despite being the only cross-bencher who backed the Coalition after the inconclusive 2010 result. However, he’s roared back to dominance since, picking up successive two-party swings of 8.9% and 2.3%, and primary vote swings of 10.5% and 2.6%. On the latter count at least, he’s been assisted by the fact that One Nation have declined to challenge him. In Coalition-versus-Labor terms, the seat participated in the regional Queensland trend in swinging 7.8% against Labor.
Leichhardt (LNP 4.2%; 0.2% swing to LNP): The negligible swing in favour of LNP veteran Warren Entsch was an exception to the regional Queensland rule, and was generally attributed to the centrality of tourism to the economy of Cairns, giving the region a very different outlook on issues like Adani. The result was generally status quo in all respects, but the seat had the distinction of being one of only three in the state where the Labor primary vote very slightly increased, along with Ryan and Fairfax. With Entsch’s primary vote down slightly, the two-party swing, such as it was, came down to an improved flow of preferences.
Maranoa (LNP 22.5% versus One Nation; 6.6% swing to LNP): For the second election in a row, Maranoa emerged with the distinction of being the only seat in the country where One Nation made the final preference count. One Nation and Labor were down on the primary vote by 3.2% and 2.7% respectively; at the last preference exclusion, One Nation led Labor 21.3% to 19.0%, compared with 23.6% to 22.9% in 2016. The other story here was the strong sophomore showing for David Littleproud, who was up 6.8% on the primary vote and by similar amounts on two-party preferred against both One Nation and Labor. The 25.4% margin versus Labor is now by some distance the biggest in the country, compared with the electorate’s ninth ranking on this score in 2016. Equally impressive for Littleproud is the distinction between his 25.4% margin and the 20.4% recorded by the two-party Senate measure.
Wide Bay (LNP 13.1%; 5.0% swing to LNP): Llew O’Brien may also have enjoyed a sophomore effect after succeeding Warren Truss in 2016, as his primary vote was up 3.2% while One Nation fell from 15.6% to 10.8%. However, the Labor primary vote held up unusually well, and the two-party swing was at the lower end of the regional Queensland scale.
Wright (LNP 14.6%; 5.0% swing to LNP): So far as the major parties were concerned, the result here was typical of regional Queensland, with LNP member Scott Buchholz up 3.1% on the primary vote and Labor down 4.0%. Independent Innes Larkin, who appears to have made his name locally campaigning against coal seam gas, scored a respectable 5.3%, which presumably helps explains the drop in the One Nation vote from 21.8% to 14.0%.
I don’t even care about Canavan’s attitude to energy. I just think he must have been a very unattractive child.
“And you belly arching because Victoria couldn’t make the Labor number a little higher.
NSW make it across the line but only just.”
No bellyaching: rebutting. I accept that Victoria is a high water mark. Perhaps like Canberra, Victoria doesn’t really represent the cross section of Australia that needs to be won over. Ergo – it’s probably not a good idea of trying to foist Victorian idealism onto the western suburbs of SYDNEY – or suburban and regional Queensland. Just a thought.
NSW Labor did not let down ‘the team’. In fact the federal result was clearly better than the state election result 6 weeks before (had those results been replicated at a state level then at a quick guess I’d say that Michael Daley would be premier). Conclusion: the internal party woes of NSW state Labor were irrelevant. We shouldn’t be distracted by them.
Confessions @ #44 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 9:12 am
Have they put LSD in the Kool Aid at the White House!?!
lizzie @ #49 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 9:23 am
In more ways than one.
Andrew_Earlwood
says:
NSW Labor did not let down ‘the team’. In fact the federal result was clearly better than the sate result 6 weeks before. Conclusion: the internal party woes of NSW state Labor were irrelevant. We shouldn’t be distracted by them.
___________________
You are just trying to defend your little gang. Just because the federal result was better than the state result doesn’t mean that decades of the NSW ALP shit show haven’t impacted their support.
C@t:
It’s in the Dictator’s Checklist: you must always, ALWAYS praise Dear Leader.
Andrew_Earlwood
says:
No bellyaching: rebutting. I accept that Victoria is a high water mark. Perhaps like Canberra, Victoria doesn’t really represent the cross section of Australia that needs to be won over. Ergo – it’s probably not a good idea of trying to foist Victorian idealism onto the western suburbs of SYDNEY – or suburban and regional Queensland. Just a thought.
__________________________________
I suppose you could go all out in appealing to the prejudices of those bogans but then the ALP would be vulnerable to the Greens in a range of inner city seats. Choose your poison.
Barnaby Joyce, Drought Envoy. Useless. Equals, ‘Build more dams’. Useless.
Confessions @ #54 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 9:26 am
Oops, sorry, forgot. It’s true though, because you get kicked out the door toot sweet if you don’t.
Don’t mention the war, Laura and Phil! It’s called Climate Change!
I do believe Labor can win seats in this region, at the very least Leichhardt. It needs to develop policies to economically transition these regions, into a post fossil fuels economy. I believe these policies would appeal greatly to the people in the region, who don’t see fossil fuel’s as a part of identity and way of life.
Also, One Nation and other right-wing populist parties (expect Katter’s outfit) needs to be attacked without mercy, exposing them as anti-worker (which often they are).
Anyway the Morrison government I argue could profit electorally for being against any action on climate change. The government faces a real risk of a surge in One Nation support, if they are seen as ‘sitting on the fence’ on the issue of climate change and fossil fuel’s. Labor faces a similar challenge from the Greens when it comes to this as well.
This is creepy yet intriguing at the same time.
Tristo, Labor had policies to transition workers in Queensland. It lost. Big time.
Don’t you do historical reality, Tristo?
Andrew_Earlwood @ #36 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 8:55 am
Abandoning whole sections of the electorate by lying to them about their future prospects is probably not very clever either. That approach could easily come unstuck even before the next election.
Given the shambles Labor is in at both state and federal level, it is likely to be in opposition for the long haul. They need to think long term and start addressing now those issues that will be critical in 4 to 6 years time. And we pretty much know what those issues are – climate change, population and immigration, inequality, economic tranformation, health & welfare. Meanwhile, they need to do root and branch reform of their party machinery at state level – particularly NSW.
C@tmomma @ #62 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 9:39 am
Quite obviously they were ineffective.
Do it properly next time without trying to appease polluters.
Well, Queensland is and has been a disappointment for Federal Labor but then we are talking about the Deep North for some of those seats….The old joke about the further north you go the slower they speak and think, has been a source of much fun to so-called progressive voters in the south.
What Labor has to do, as some have suggested, is to tailor its policies to suit the regions.
WA is a prime example………..no matter who is in power in Canberra, the WA locals love to bash the Feds………….
There are a minimum of 3 seats here in WA which Labor should work really hard at getting on its side of the ledger – 3 more for Labor here, three less for the Liberals – even that would bite into the narrow lead in seats the Coalition has. Mind you, with some 800,000 PV harvesting 21 seats for the Nationals, Labor is never likely to make much progress on that front.
The comment here from some dreamer that Labor should kind of disband and quietly go away is a Liberal wet dream….
Old Charlie Court once gloated that Labor was out of office both at the State level and federally and was finished as a political force.
Much to the pleasure of many, he lost at the next WA State election.
A question for any regional Queensland bludgers.
Is climate change taken seriously in local schools and are the kids being educated on its effects ?
So, Angus ‘Pretty Boy’ Taylor is going to stonewall the NSW Police investigation into #documentgate? Typical.
C@t
Tingle suggests he’ll “do a Michaelia Cash” when asked for cooperation. Sounds likely.
C@tmomma @ #67 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 6:45 am
How are they able to get away with this?
Are we to be stuck with Liberal Fan Kelly until David Speers takes over Insiders!?!
“I suppose you could go all out in appealing to the prejudices of those bogans but then the ALP would be vulnerable to the Greens in a range of inner city seats. Choose your poison.‘
Quite.
In NSW Labor is already vulnerable, and will be no matter what it does, to the inner city greens. For pretty much the same reason that a 90 year old lock on the same seats by centre unity was swept away by the socialist left steering committee in the late 1970s and early 80s. It’s interesting to see some of the same faces recycled from being a socialist left labor activist to greens warrior 40 years apart.
For all of that I reckon NSW labor is only at risk of losing three federal seats to the Greens in NSW: SYDNEY, Gryndler and perhaps Richmond. Those changes, if they happen, will only likely happen upon the retirement of the sitting member. Victorian labor is similarly vulnerable in a couple more seats as well.
It is possible that a Greens candidate will also eventually replace Wilkie in Dennison (or whatever that seat is now called). Maybe the Greens will pick up Brisbane off the Libs. That’s the entire extent of the potential Green wave across the country. The greens are stuck between 8-12% of the National vote. Elsewhere they are repellant, and this is perhaps Labor’s biggest problem: how to convince low interest low information bogans that it isn’t captive to the Greens. This perception is exploited daily by ScoMo and the MSM to good effect. It’s what has sustained this government in office.
Labor will just have to take its chances on the left because any prospect of progressive government of any stripe is unlikely unless someone – namely Labor – steps up and wins back the middle in all those seats we have been talking about since May.
A green new deal would offer incentives to environmentally responsible business to employ and grow thus appealing to business minded centrists whilst also taking back primary votes from the Greens.
I don’t even care about Canavan’s attitude to energy. I just think he must have been a very unattractive child.
____
He still IS!
Rex
There’s very little point in taking primary votes from the Greens if Labor isn’t taking them off the Liberals as well – and in far greater numbers than the Greens can supply (without ceasing to exist, of course).
You’ve got to wonder whether any of these inner city Melbourne Greens get out of their comfortable eyries from which they take potshots at Labor and the rest of us?
Andrew_Earlwood
says:
For all of that I reckon NSW labor is only at risk of losing three federal seats to the Greens in NSW: SYDNEY, Gryndler and perhaps Richmond. Those changes, if they happen, will only likely happen upon the retirement of the sitting member. Victorian labor is similarly vulnerable in a couple more seats as well.
_______________________
One interesting trend in the maps William supplied was the pretty uniform small swings to the ALP in wealthy liberal metro seats in Melb and Syd. I wonder about the long term implications of this if it is sustained. Will the ALP be in a position to pick up some of these seats in a few election cycles? It is one thing for the ALP to get swings to them in these areas in a big win, but these swings in a losing election indicate something else is going on. Could be just some wealthy people pissed off about Coalition climate policies.
C@tmomma
says:
Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:25 am
You’ve got to wonder whether any of these inner city Melbourne Greens get out of their comfortable eyries from which they take potshots at Labor and the rest of us?
_________________________________
Usually no. It is confronting for Greens to encounter outer suburban and regional types who are just standing around chain-smoking and swearing at each other. Moving beyond the Melbourne tram network is dangerous and alarming.
In Vic, the Greens have a good chance of taking votes from the Andrews govt over the question of forests. As others have said before, giving jobs priority is a Labor strength, except when it slams up against preserving the environment. It’s possible to do both but it needs a lot of political skill.
“A green new deal would offer incentives to environmentally responsible business to employ and grow thus appealing to business minded centrists whilst also taking back primary votes from the Greens.”
I agree with this as a strategy for marrickville, Strathfield and Five Dock (and their equivalents in MELBOURNE and Brisbane). It had limited application outside the inner and middle suburban belts of the major cities, I suspect: in other words, your idea is a useful thread in a tapestry, but not a complete answer.
I am actually more attracted to Nicholas’s jobs guarantee as a possible platform to make common cause with.
Whitlam intervened in Victoria in 1970 but it was against the interests of the dominant SL faction at the time. In the present case the “intervention” in NSW is being stage managed through the dominant faction. In reality the turkey does not ever vote for Christmas – it will be a cosmetic intervention designed to give the impression of change without disturbing the factional power balance.
Only a dissolution will result in real change and open the pathway to proportional representation which will restore faith in the democratic process.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #80 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 10:31 am
Your sense of resistance is telling.
Incentives and subsidies would absolutely need to be offered to environmentally responsible business to establish manufacturing/R&D hubs in regional areas to compete with polluters.
The need for Labor to, dare I say, ‘manage out’ the Joel Fitzgibbons of the party would also be required for a green new deal to be legitimate in the eyes of voters.
lizzie @ #79 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 10:31 am
Hit the nail on the head, lizzie.
This is what it looks like if you actually believe in global warming …
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-27/britains-coal-free-future-as-old-power-plants-close/11635548
And this is a conservative government. Makes Australia look just a little stoopid by comparison, doesn’t it?
Player One
But – but – nuclear…
Although I’m reading that their windfarms are very productive indeed.
Player One @ #84 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 10:45 am
I watch a fair bit of Sky News UK and they look like Greenies compared to our polity.
lizzie @ #85 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 10:46 am
Nuclear is not an answer for Australia. But Britain already had nuclear, and (unlike Germany) they didn’t fall foul of the idiot Greens demanding they shut it down and replace it with coal.
In Australia, wind and (in the short term) gas would need to do the heavy lifting, with solar also making a significant contribution.
Player One
I have no idea of the correct answer to this, but I’m assuming that some UK nuclear plants have a use by date.
lizzie @ #88 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 10:53 am
Yes, I think most are due to close in the 2020’s. Maybe some will be extended, but they should last just long enough to allow the UK to convert to wind and other renewables.
Labor have to make sure they are not seen to be selling Greenware. Then they might succeed in Queensland. The greater the distance between themselves and the Greens the more likely it is that Labor will be able to revive their fortunes.
“The need for Labor to, dare I say, ‘manage out’ the Joel Fitzgibbons of the party would also be required for a green new deal to be legitimate in the eyes of voters.”
Lols. The folk that need to be ‘managed out’ to achieve a ‘green new deal’ would be the voters themselves, not just Shitgibbon. A policy platform – no matter how brilliant – would be electoral suicide if presented in the woke language of the perceived inner city elites. The word ‘green’ should not be attached to any policy if Labor is serious about cutting through to the voters it needs to bring home. The word ‘Green’ is repellant.
For a guy who complained about Labor’s messaging being the key problem Rex, you seem totally committed to a program of toxic messaging. That’s because you are a Liberal and you want Labor to shoot itself in the head.
Andrew_Earlwood @ #91 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 11:18 am
Yes, given the mindset of the briefly’s of this country, you probably have a point.
Call it what you like but the substance of the policy is what matters.
https://newpolitics.com.au/2019/10/27/another-nail-in-the-coffin-for-democracy/
lizziesays:
Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:46 am
Especially those circling the Palace of Westminster. 🙂
Phew! I don’t like those swings in Qld, William. Thanks for your work on them but … I’ll now have nightmares about how the seats can be whipped off the incompetent LNP bums holding them.
It is interesting that journalists, whose SOP is to have multiple sources confirming a story, will so often blindly accept a single source when it’s this Government.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/26/boris-johnson-no-brexit-until-january-block-christmas-general-election
Looks like Boris might get his pre-Christmas election.
Labour would be wise to campaign on a soft-Brexit and green new deal foundation.
Barney
So lazy they only have one source of info and they’re afraid it might dry up!
PvO and Farr are copping huge criticism for arguing about the meaning of “lying”.
“Call it what you like but the substance of the policy is what matters.”
Behold. We are as one.