Seat of the week: Petrie

Petrie covers a narrow strip of Brisbane’s northern suburbs from Carseldine north to Burpengary. This includes three distinct areas: at the centre, the Redcliffe Peninsula; further north along the coast, Deception Bay and the developing suburb of North Lakes; and, on the southern side of Pine River which separates the Moreton Bay local government area from Brisbane, the suburbs of Bracken Ridge, Fitzgibbon and Carseldine. The redistribution before the 2010 election added the Deception Bay area (previously in Longman) and transferred coastal suburbs at the southern end to Lilley, which boosted the Labor margin by 2.1%.

The electorate was created with the enlargement of parliament in 1949 and held consistently by the Liberals until 1983, barring a surprise defeat in 1961. It again changed hands from Labor to Liberal in 1984 and back again in 1987. Gary Johns held the seat for Labor for the next three terms, until the Queensland Labor wipeout of 1996 powered a 9.8% swing to Liberal candidate Teresa Gambaro. Gambaro’s margin was reduced to 0.8% when the elastic snapped back to Labor by 7.5% in 1998, but she was strengthened by successive swings of 2.7% in 2001 and 4.4% in 2004. Gambaro had a 7.9% buffer going into the 2007 election, but it was not enough to save her from a 9.5% swing to Labor’s Yvette D’Ath, who had previously been an official with the Right faction Australian Workers Union. Gambaro was back at the 2010 election, when she unseated Labor’s Arch Bevis in Brisbane.

A Liberal National Party preselection last weekend was won by Luke Howarth, managing director of Sandgate Pest Control and a past candidate for the state seat of Sandgate (which is actually located over the boundary in Lilley). Howarth prevailed out of a preselection field of 10, of whom the presumed front-runner had been John Connolly, former Wallabies coach and unsuccessful state candidate for Nicklin, who had the endorsement of John Howard.

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.

1,470 comments on “Seat of the week: Petrie”

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  1. TheFinnigans天地有道人无道 ‏@Thefinnigans
    @CraigEmersonMP @juliagillard No way Jose, the magnificent BISONs will always serve the Nation as they have survived for million of years

  7. k2

    [Boerwar
    Posted Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 2:23 pm | Permalink
    Adding one per cent to the GST, from 10% to 11%, would just about cover the NDIS. I suggest we have a question added to the next poll. 1%+ to the GST to cover the NDIS: yes/no.

    So, asking the poorest in society to contribute the biggest percentage of their income to funding the NDIS?

    Good plan. Not.]

    Everyone pays the GST.

    To make the prospect of the NDIS real in the next term of government, we have to find an extra $6 billion a year by way of revenue, or find programs to cut to offset the $6 billion.

    I think we can safely say that the state and territory budgetary situations fall somewhere between parlous and passable. With increasing social costs as the boomers age, the states and territories will be less, and not more, able to pay for the NDIS. So, assume they are not going to be able to come up with the $6 billion.

    Mr Abbott is being cagey about the NDIS. He has already said that the Coalition will only pay for the NDIS if they can afford it. They have some sort of monster budget black hole, so they will not be able to afford it. There is no way the Coalition would support an increase in either the company tax or income tax to cover the NDIS. They will already have cut programs massively, so it is unlikely they would find the extra program cuts to fund the $6 billion per annum.

    So, forget the states, forget the Coalition.

    Labor has already said that it wants to cut company tax, not increase it. Labor is not going to go to an election promising an increase in income tax. Labor has been cutting personal income tax. It is impossible to think it would go to an election promising an increase in income taxes.

    In sum, there is no prospect of company tax increases, personal income tax increases or program cuts to an equivalent of $6 billion a year by either of the federal parties. Of course a Greens government would support full funding of the NDIS. The only way they would be able to fund it would be to give their magic pudding another flogging.

    That leaves a de facto referendum on increasing the GST by 1% to cover the NDIS. I consider this to be unlikely as well, so I doubt whether we will get an NDIS in the next term of government, regardless of which party runs it.

  9. William

    That is an odd-shaped electorate which triggered vague memories of Mr Gerry’s original salamander.

    This raises a question: Which Australian electorate has the smallest area:boundary ratio?

  16. TLBD _ I’m tempted to hit causaulty for a brace now before the real rush starts – Andrew may claim available stocks although he’s slowed down.

  21. Just noticed that Ashby’s Pr flack Anthony McClennan’s firm, AMC Media, calls itself

    [“The Reputation Protection Company”.]

  24. BW from the earlier topic:

    [To make the prospect of the NDIS real in the next term of government, we have to find an extra $6 billion a year by way of revenue, or find an extra $6 billion worth of programs to cut to offset the $6 billion.

    No prizes for guessing what I’d be cutting … but that aside … the net impact on revenue would probably be a good deal smaller than that because in many cases, the support would facilitate greater workforce participation either by the disabled themselves or their carers. Of course, to the extent that new services are offered and these are taxable, there is revenue clawback.

    ]

  25. Karen Doane wrote to Anthony McClennan saying she can’t see anything wrong with Slipper’s “travel FOI” documents, that “stands out” to her.

    What is Anthony McClennan doing asking about Slipper’s travel records? What business of his are they?

  27. One thing came out of that survey. Who knew that Ron Paul rejects the Theory of Evolution?

    Wow …

    It’s tempting to cite him as an example of someone who hasn’t evolved since 1850 but that’s just too darn easy.

  28. 27

    Ron Paul is Southern and supports states rights. It is not a surprise that he is not big on evolution..

  29. Hahahaha… did the quiz and here are the results.
    Obama 89%
    Stein 81%
    Alexander 74%
    Paul 18%
    Romney 1%

    No joy for Republicans there!

  31. from previous thread:

    BW

    Can’t make ends meet at the moment without another 1% added to my cost of living.

    Newstart was increased by $11 a fortnight. And that would have given me a buffer, the tiniest of buffers.

    However, the rent was increased by $14 a fortnight from July 1.

    Percentage-wise of my income, I pay a helluva lot more GST than probably you do.

    What about tweaking the MRRT?

  32. Karen Doane emails her colleagues saying she is confident the “FOI story” on Slipper will blow over, after conniving with McClennan to release them, and having at least foreknowledge from Lewis about them.

    Nice lady. Comes complete with two faces.

  33. kezza2:

    I heard the Treasurer interviewed a couple of weeks ago and he ruled out raising the GST (as per calls at the time from some business sectors and economists), because he said the GST disproportionately hits the lower income households. He said for that reason Labor would not countenance increasing it.

  35. BB

    I found it endearing that Ashby suggested to Slipper that it would be great for him to become the speaker of the house. What a pal

  38. TLBD:

    [Mitt gets 3% from me. How did he manage that much?!]

    What did you say about Sudan? The UN?

    There was a joke going around about Mitt’s position on marriage: It’s between a man and several women, none of whom are black.

    Fun Romney fact: His father gave him the name Willard, after the hotel magnate Willard Marriott, who was a family friend and that of his father’s cousin, Milton (Mitt) Romney. As a child, “Mitt” was called “Billy” but apparently preferred “Mitt”. Trivia night gold …

  39. [Bushfire Bill
    Posted Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 3:45 pm | Permalink
    Karen Doane wrote to Anthony McClennan saying she can’t see anything wrong with Slipper’s “travel FOI” documents, that “stands out” to her.

    What is Anthony McClennan doing asking about Slipper’s travel records? What business of his are they?]
    I read that. I took it to mean she saw nothing wrong with Slipper’s travel entitlements.

    I suppose McClennan thought it was in his ‘client’s’ best interests to have something on her boss.

  40. Doane fields emails from Ashby telling him she can’t even drive a car she is so sick, much less come to work.

    On the same day (April 10, 2012), indeed within minutes she sends her resume off to Mal Brough, saing she can’t send a cover letter with the resume as she has an appointment in Brisbane to go to.

    She also mentions Steve Lewis is waiting for the all-clear from Ashby’s lawyers before running the story.

    All on the same day, in the same hour.

  41. Centre:

    Either the survey is dodgy, or the Greens in the US are immeasurably more sensible than their Australian counterparts.

  43. fess

    yep, even the disabled pay GST.

    Nothing like upping their contribution to pay for some of their support themselves!

    Good old Swannie.

  45. Do you really want to know how to raise taxation revenue?

    😎

    Cashless society 😯

    Um girls, no matter how much you spin it, I’m saner than you two 🙂

  46. [BB

    I found it endearing that Ashby suggested to Slipper that it would be great for him to become the speaker of the house. What a pal]

    He seems such an endearing and loyal kind of guy. He told Slipper that himself.

  47. Slipper to Ashby (March 31):

    [James,

    While Karen is good at doing what she does I am concerned at the number of sick days.In particular I am concerned at the new approach of being uncontactable…]

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