Seat of the week: Moreton

Before I proceed, a plug for the Westpoll WA state poll post, which this post is bumping from the top of the page.

Moreton extends from the southern Brisbane riverside suburbs of Oxley, Sherwood and Yeronga out to Runcorn and Acacia Ridge in the south, the latter area being the more favourable for Labor. It was one of nine Queensland seats gained by Labor at the 2007 election, of which it and two others stayed with the party in 2010. The seat has existed in name since federation, but was based on the Gold Coast and Brisbane’s southern outskirts until the creation of McPherson in 1949. It then began a long drift north into the inner suburbs, making marginal a seat that had once been safely conservative. The first near-miss came with Jim Killen’s famous 130-vote win in 1961, achieved with help from Communist Party preference leakage, which allowed the Menzies government to survive with a one-seat majority. Labor would not get over the line until 1990, when Liberal veteran Don Cameron was unseated by Garrie Gibson.

Gibson suffered a small adverse swing in 1993 before succumbing to a further 4.9% swing amid the Queensland tidal wave of 1996. The new Liberal member was Gary Hardgrave, a former children’s television host and media adviser to Senator David MacGibbon. Hardgrave held junior ministry positions from 2001 to 2005 while maintaining a tenuous grip on his seat, surviving a 4.2% swing in 1998 and an unfavourable redistribution in 2004. Redistribution further chipped away at his margin before the 2007 election, and he was unseated by a 7.5% swing to Labor in 2007. He has since kept in the public eye as the drive presenter on Fairfax Radio’s Brisbane station 4BC.

The seat has since been held for Labor by Graham Perrett, previously an adviser to the Queensland Resources Council and earlier a state ministerial staffer and official with the Queensland Independent Education Union. Perrett enjoyed what proved to be a decisive 1.4% boost at the redistribution before the 2010 election, at which a 4.9% swing cut his margin to 1.1%. He made the news in his first term with the publication of his “erotic novel”, The Twelfth Fish, and in his second when he threatened to quit parliament if Labor changed leaders again, a position he backed away from when Kevin Rudd was marshalling his unsuccessful leadership challenge in February 2012.

The Liberal National Party has gain preselected its candidate from 2010, Malcolm Cole, a former Courier-Mail journalist and late Howard-era staffer to Alexander Downer and Santo Santoro. For the 2010 election the LNP initially preselected Michael Palmer, the 20-year-old son of Clive, which was seen as a measure of the Coalition’s bleak electoral prospects at the time. This together with the preselection of Wyatt Roy in Longman drew considerable derision, and some skepticism was expressed when Palmer withdrew on health grounds.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,169 comments on “Seat of the week: Moreton”

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  1. Still on the Rudd rubbish I see.

    When will people wake up to the realisation that whether you think Rudd is or isn’t better placed to defeat Abbott it is irrelevant and is a futile debate.

    Gillard WILL NOT step down.

    Rudd has committed NOT to challenge.

    Therefore, NO RUDD!

    Now can those urging a challenge to Gillard please choose another candidate to push……PLEASE…….rather than continuing on with this absurd debate.

  2. my say

    One of my favourite artists, Paul Klee, had scleroderma.

    He is considered one of the three greatest artists of the 20th century, along with Picasso and Kandinsky.

  3. [ABCnews24 audio of PM presser is dreadful. I can barely understand it. No they have cut it off because they could not get the audio working. :mad:]

    There’s a lot of this lately. Very unprofessional (at the least).

  4. Puff, the Magic Dragon.
    [Can PBers please meet on the lawn at 4pm for High Tea and viewing of the Inaugural Ruddista V Gillardian Tug-of-War contest.]
    Across the lawn ? The Karajini Gorge looks the perfect venue 🙂

  6. Rex

    [Gillard WILL NOT step down.

    Rudd has committed NOT to challenge.

    Therefore, NO RUDD!]

    Rudd said he wouldn’t step down, until he did.

    Gillard committed not to challenge, until she did.

    Therefore there was going to be no Gillard PM, until there was.

  8. [Rudd said he wouldn’t step down, until he did.

    Gillard committed not to challenge, until she did.

    Therefore there was going to be no Gillard PM, until there was.]

    Diog, just make sure you have the $500 ready

  9. [viewing of the Inaugural Ruddista V Gillardian Tug-of-War contest.

    ]

    What about us Alternative Candidate supporters? Can we make it a three way tussle?

  13. Flipper Boy

    Which US president as nominated by the Republicans as their candidate without him nominating or being on the ballot and with him refusing to accept the nomination during the delegate conference?

  15. One of the classic marxist liberation tactics was that the insurgent group would hit out so that the government would hit back harder and by doing so alienate the population. The tempo of the conflict would increase so that the government would get more and more repressive and drive the population into the arms of the insurgents.

    I sometimes wonder if the Greens have accepted a similar theory on asylum seekers. Advocate a liberal policy or open slather which would allow more and more asylum seekers to come by boat. This would abrogate control over the whole immigration policy and immigration generally would become more and more unpopular – and politically unsustainable – to the point where public opinion would force immigration levels to be reduced to zero. Thus achieved by a roundabout way would be the Greens aim of a zpg Australia.

  16. So no one got the Odyssey challenge right?

    The answer is:

    No one wrote the Odyssey. It was never written as it was composed because it was entirely an oral composition, it pre-dates literature.

    Over 1200 lines of poetry. Recited unforgotten, again and again.

    Now the relevance to the modern politics… The poem followed basic rules of oral tradition (the basis for ancient and then modern rhetoric) and because it followed these formulas it was able to be remembered and retold , without even the need for a written form.

    The lesson
    Modern politicians and their speech writers need to get in touch with these ancient and still valid rules about how people listen and remember if they want to outpersuade and outcommunicate their opponents.

  18. [spur212
    Posted Monday, July 16, 2012 at 12:17 pm | Permalink

    Gorgeous Dunny

    I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the Coalition are planning for an election in 2013. They’ve given up the idea of an early election. Now it will be all about trust, lies, mandates, democracy etc

    The stability issue was resolved once we past July 1st. That’s part of the reason they’ve turned off the Slipper and Thomson issues while people on here are still focused on them like hawks]

    Actually, I wasn’t aware of much change, apart from them back-pedalling furiously on Slipper and Thomson. But if the Insiders interview with Barrie Cassidy was anything to go by, there’s not all that much to go on, apart from as you suggest possibly abandoning the Election Now! meme. It was more of the same old, same old non-answers plus Cassidy as the MSM rep mostly letting it pass through to the keeper.

    It didn’t represent much of a departure, apart from Abbott finding enough courage to front up to a more ‘difficult’ interview. And telling porkies about the current Australian economic conditions is going to get increasingly difficult in the face of the evidence in front of you.

    It’s good if they have accepted that they’ve missed the bus on an early election, although I suspect that it is the likely blowback that has led to the change of plans on Thomson and Slipper. I suspect they’d still prefer the shortcut of the government disintegrating on itself, which is probably the reason for the Ruddstoration revival.

    But good luck to them if they want to run with Who Do You Trust? It didn’t work too well for Latham. And the She Lied theme, apart from being a lie itself
    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/taxing-the-truth-why-we-must-not-let-abbotts-dogmas-lie-20120706-21mlz.html
    …also it exposes Abbott somewhat for his Medicare Safety Net “Rock Solid, Cast Iron Guarantee”, abandoned within a few weeks of the election.

    They’ve yet to show that they can run with a positive campaign, and the danger if they do is that it exposes their lack of economic credibility.

    15 months is a very long time to keep going on simple slogans.

  21. blackburn

    [Thus achieved by a roundabout way would be the Greens aim of a zpg Australia.]

    often thought this myself. a true Greenie (in fact Bob Brown has often expressed this) is to cap human being growth, through limiting population increase.

    seems at odds with the “open doors” policy expounded by SHY

  23. Sorry Showy I did try to get you 50 abuse points.

    Essential not good. The trend since July 1 is in the wrong direction.

  24. @JuliaGillard @SwannyDPM @CraigEmersonMP Dear PM, just received my Council Rate (Bradfield) for 2012/13. It went up by 5% not 15, 20 or 50

  25. Nassios defending how long the report took.

    Righty so. From the FWA report, it is clear that SFA co-operation was received from most persons approached and lawyers were heavily involved.

  27. Oh. ABC radio refers to PM’s speech but then says it’s overshadowed by more important issues from conference, and segues into discussion about political donations.

    Which – if it was discussed at NSW Conference – doesn’t seem to have been a major point of discussion…

    Anyone noticed glowing media reports (or indeed, any) of Julia’s speech?

  28. From Essential

    Performance of the Greens: Good 17%, Bad 47%, Neither 27%

    Greens Policies: Too Extreme 53%, Represent the views of many voters 26%, Don’t know 21%

  30. spur

    Just proof that the mainstream are extremists!!

    (Because we all know that the Greens represent the mainstream…)

  32. Due to popular demand (meaning I like the idea), Inaugural Ruddista V Gillardian Tug-of-War has been moved to The Karajini Gorge. High Tea will be replaced by billy tea and damper.

  33. This is a problem. Peeps don’t believe pollies, therefore Coal voters don’t really believe anything Abbott says, so will vote for him with ears covered and eyes blindfolded.
    [The Coalition will call a double dissolution election if it wins government but is prevented by the Senate from getting rid of the carbon tax, says frontbencher Christopher Pyne.

    Mr Pyne was responding to a report in The Australian Financial Review that research by both major parties showed voters don’t believe Tony Abbott will be able to repeal the tax if he becomes prime minister.

    The Opposition Leader has repeatedly made a “blood pledge” to scrap the price on carbon, saying “such political future as I have got rests entirely on beating this tax”.

    Focus group research revealed that Coalition voters are less inclined to trust promises by politicians – a scepticism that was ironically accelerated by the Prime Minister’s change of policy on the carbon tax.

    Separate research conducted by Labor showed that the participants overwhelmingly believed the tax was here to stay.]

  34. [seems at odds with the “open doors” policy expounded by SHY]

    Sprocket, that is part of the process. The open doors policy would make immigration overall so unpopular that the curtains would come down on the whole policy.

  35. Greenbashing here.

    Live on 24 PM exposing the sham of Abbott’s boat policy and no vote in Parliament.

    I guess that is why she is PM and the Greenbashers are not. PM Gillard knows who has to be beaten to be in government.

  37. Lizzie

    Coalition can only repeal tax if

    A) the win entire control of Senate

    or

    B) the ALP folds in opposition

  39. [Inaugural Ruddista V Gillardian Tug-of-War has been moved to The Karajini Gorge]

    Does this mean that supporters of each side can throw rocks down on to the tuggers from the other side?

  41. Bluegreen @ 2137

    An extra way:

    Have the senate reject legislation (3 times ?), call DD (win of course) and then pass through joint sitting. Probably the only way.

  42. One of the interesting things Essential does is rate leaders with strongly approve, approve, disapprove, strongly disapprove.

    If you look at Gillard and Abbott’s personal ratings from around September last year, you’ll notice a bit of a spike in the strongly disapprove rating of both leaders.

    If voters were soft, this probably wouldn’t be the case

  44. z

    [except Gillard never actually challenged. Rudd stepped down.]

    Of course she didn’t challenge him.

    She just told him she was applying for his job.

  49. bbp
    What do you mean ‘down on’? This tug is across the Gorge. The losers get the drop! Of course if they don’t let go of the rope, they could pull the winners down with them.

  50. Finns

    [According to PM at her Presser Morrisscum now saying the Refugee Convention is now no longer relevant]

    Are you sure she wasn’t referring to Psephos rather than Morrison?

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