Seat of the week: Blair

Blair has covered a highly variable area around Ipswich since its creation in 1998, having been substantially redrawn at three redistributions since. Originally covering areas inland of Ipswich and the Sunshine Coast, the redistributions of 2004 and 2007 saw it progressively take over central Ipswich from Oxley. Prior to the 2010 election it lost 28,000 voters in territory south of Ipswich to the new seat of Wright, in exchange for 13,200 voters in rural areas around Lake Wivenhoe to the north (previously in Dickson and Fisher) and 5500 in the eastern Ipswich suburbs of Collingwood Park and Springfield Central (from Oxley). As the areas lost were rural and conservative, Labor’s margin was boosted from 4.5% to 7.0%. The seat further recorded what by Queensland standards was a mild swing of 2.7%, the resulting Labor margin of 4.2% making it their fourth safest seat in the state.

Ipswich had been an area of strength for Labor since the early days of the party’s history owing to its now defunct coal mining industry, but it has more recently been prone to rebellion against the party’s efforts to appeal to new middle-class constituencies. The most famous such occasion occurred when Pauline Hanson won Oxley in 1996, scoring 48.6% of the primary vote as an independent after the Liberals disendorsed her for advocating the abolition of government assistance for Aborigines. The creation of Blair in the next redistribution did Hanson a poor turn, dividing her home turf between two electorates. Rather than recontest Oxley or (more sensibly) run for the Senate, Hanson chanced her arm at the new seat, but the major parties’ decision to direct preferences to each other may have sealed her doom. Hanson led the primary vote count with 36.0% against 25.3% for Labor and 21.7% for Liberal, but Liberal candidate Cameron Thompson pulled ahead of Labor on minor party preferences and defeated Hanson by 3.3% on Labor preferences.

Thompson went on to absorb most of the disappearing One Nation vote in 2001, more than doubling his primary vote without improving his two-party margin over Labor. A redistribution ahead of the 2004 election clipped this by 1.8%, but he went on to handsomely consolidate his position with a 4.5% swing. In 2007 the Liberals targeted Blair as part of its “firewall” strategy, a key element of which was a risky decision to fund a $2.3 billion Ipswich Motorway bypass at Goodna in the neighbouring electorate of Ryan. This proved of little use, with Labor picking up a decisive swing of 10.2% which typified the shift of blue-collar voters back to Labor on the back of WorkChoices.

Labor’s winning candidate was Shayne Neumann, a family lawyer and partner in the Brisbane firm Neumann & Turnour and member of the state party’s Labor Unity/Old Guard faction. His LNP opponent at the coming election will be Teresa Harding, who is “director of the F-111 Disposal and Aerial Targets Office” at the RAAF Base Amberley.

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.

2,255 comments on “Seat of the week: Blair”

Comments Page 3 of 46
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  2. gough1

    In other words you can see work to do to get a solution. This is how I see it too.
    I do not pretend to know the solution. However I am no expert and have never pretended to be an expert.
    I do think there is optimism for seeing a Labor Green solution to this problem.
    This is because, despite numerous claims to the contrary I think Labor and the Greens want the best humane solution here.
    I think it is the Coalition that are the ones playing politcs with peoples lives.
    Which is the point I was trying to make about Labor supporters attacking the wrong target.

  3. Gough

    Look the trial period on the Malaysia solution sounds attractive but what do you do at the end of the year if it does not work. I cannot see that once it is KNOWN to be a one year trial it would do much to stem the flow.

    However IF (and it is a bloody big IF) the Australian government promised consular assistance and ongoing protection in perpetuity for all deported refugees, I would look much more kindly on it. My problem with the Malaysia solution is that it risks many people getting lost in the system and losing out heavily. If for example the attitude of the Malaysian government changed, or there was an outbreak of racial violence or if some exploiter started to prostitute the girls etc then there would be CERTAINTY that the Australian government would intervene to protect the people.

    This is my problem with the so called Malaysia solution. It is just SO risky. This is why I think Nauru is still preferable. More certainty of long term protection.

    If the Malaysian government had been a little more enthusiastic and willingly SIGNED an agreement with Australia to protect the rights of the deportees I also would be more comfortable.

    BUT the Malaysian government WOULD NOT sign any agreement. To me that says they are unenthusiastic or at least very uncertain of its political acceptability to the Malaysian people.

    I fail to see how those of you on this site who tell how wunnerful it is really can ignore these objections.

    Look think of the POLITICAL repercussions if a deported child refugee in Malaysia is found to be sold to a people trafficker for sex work, dies because of lack of medical attention, has a disability of some kind that desperately needs high end medical care, is found to be working on starvation wages, is found to be homeless because they have no money for rent.

    These are very real possibilities and I just do not see many trying to address them. As I undertand it while the deal promises some medical care and education for kids, there is nothing about food or housing.

  4. Jacko

    Sorry, my fault.

    Pegasus’ “Aren’t we brave and wonderful” at the expense of the misery and/or death of refugees post fired me up

  5. [101
    Danny Lewis
    Posted Saturday, August 11, 2012 at 12:39 pm | Permalink

    LOL @ Briefly.

    If you read down in the comments you would see that photo has been exposed as a fake ;-)]

    Is it the solar system according to Tony Abbott?

    I have to admit, I didn’t read the comments 🙂

  6. I think both the Greens and the Liberals have been playing politics with boats.

    The Greens played politics with the CPRS and had a bit of a victory.

    Now let me give the Greens some really good advice:

    Believe me, QUIT while you are ahead!

  7. Atkins effort today is also startling. Maybe being so up close and personal to Newman has forced him off the fence, but it is a pretty startling thing for a reporter to straight out call a politician a liar. They’re usually pretty oblique about it using other people’s quotes or other means to leave the impression, but still unsaid.

    Atkins clearly doesn’t care for beating around the bush any longer.

    [Abbott proved in recent days he will not shy away from any untruth in his campaign to brand Gillard an untrustworthy liar. It is the most reckless and audacious politicking most observers including this one can remember.

    Whether Abbott makes a lie out of employment numbers by conflating June and July results or blames Gillard for an electricity pricing regime set up by the Howard Cabinet of which he was a member, the Liberal leader is taking the demeaning tactic of not caring what he says to new depths.]

    That is about the most explosive two paragraphs I can remember written about a Liberal party leader since the days of Ramsay giving the Rodent both barrels. And it’s in a Murdoch paper. The CM does from this distance seem about the best paper in the country, but still. We’ve passed a turning point for sure. Even Greens intransigence on boats might not be enough to keep Abbott afloat if the hacks start to expect more from him than the same old shit.

  10. Daretotread,

    Your comments on Malaysia are valid. In the perfect world you wouldn’t entertain it but the world isn’t perfect and I think everyone’s endeavours should be directed at looking at some of the issues you’ve raised and trying to address them or providing some other protections and safeguards.

    Your comments on Nauru though are way off the mark and they are a bit frightening because a lot of greens seem to get drawn towards Nauru lemming like. It is either because they do not understand thati t is no different to processing on Christmas island or they do and they are happy to go along with the con and have no change to the status quo of boat deaths.

    Like it or not the political atmosphere here needs to be taken into account. “Stopping the boats’ is a circuit breaker which would enable a more sustainable regional approach to arise or at least be discussed rationally. The greens should be using the opportunity of working towards that better outcome rather than doing the same old dance which will end up badly for refugees especially if the libs get up in 2013.

  11. I just wish the Greens would be honest and admit to all of us their ingrained truth.

    The child of someone who can stump up enough $US to pay for passage to Australia, bypassing crowded refugee camps close to their homeland, transiting other countries and entering into unlawful arrangements to obviate a nations laws, has greater precedent than a malnourished child suckling on an empty dug in some African hellhole.

    Think what you wish Greens…..but, if you do nothing else, at the very least, do the nation the courtesy of being truthful.

  12. [That is about the most explosive two paragraphs I can remember written about a Liberal party leader since the days of Ramsay giving the Rodent both baverrrels. And it’s in a Murdoch paper. The CM does from this distance seem about the best paper in the country, but still. We’ve passed a turning point for sure. Even Greens intransigence on boats might not be enough to keep Abbott afloat if the hacks start to expect more from him than the same old shit.]

    Never thought he would write that, I’ve seen him on insiders sounding sensible but those comments are incendiary. Hope his super is sorted.

  13. If the Greens had their way, we would have thousands of boat arrivals every month.

    The people smuggling business would absolutely boom.

    Oh and more deaths of course.

  14. Briefly: it probably would have sucked me in as well had I not already been sent it – and had the error pointed out – by someone else!

  15. Yes Abbott’s Coalition is rubbing its hands in Glee!

    The architects of using boat people as a political wedge just watch as Labor attacks the party supporting them in Parliament. Rather than attacking the Coalition for its No No No

    A good thing that Labor has a Prime Minister that is better than that.

  16. Guytaur:

    [Greens are less responsible for those deaths at sea than Labor and the Liberals are.
    Without the wars less refugees would come and thus less deaths.]

    Nobody in Australian public life is directly responsible {i.e no part or group of people making public policy is the proximal cause} of those deaths, so arguing about who is least responsible is simply an invitation to an argument similar to angels on the head of a pin. No use can come of it.

    Deaths at sea have their origins in a complex mix of proximal and distal causes. Australia’s policy (especially between 2001 and now) in context has been one of those distal causes. The Greens have had nothing at all to do with this policy — and have sharply opposed it and in so far as the proposed policies of the major parties don’t substantially depart from past policy, this distal causation is likely to remain. That said, while Australian policy somewhat predisposes IMP (irregular maritime passage and therewith, fatalities) it’s wrong to expect that any policy we could adopt would prove to be a complete solution to the problems of forcible displacement. To set that as the standard is to stymie all policy that would somewhat mitigate the problem, and in this sense is not that dissimilar from Barnaby Joyce claiming that he couldn’t see who Australia bring in a carbon “tax” would fix the climate.

    If Australia through the UNHCR did a lot more forward processing, and much more rapidly and helped place people processed not merely in Australia but in a range of complying host countries, flying people where they needed to go at the most apt moment, there’s no doubt in my mind that the problem would substantially ease. The challenge is to develop a policy that is humane, effective and politically sustainable.

    Malaysia as it stands cannot do that, because at best, it would simply impose more misery on people driven by misery to engage in IMP. Nauru is self-delusion — a purely political fix which would be exposed within a month of trying it. Some variant of the Greens solution is the starting point for clearing up this policy mess. Our solution begins to depoliticise the issue, would cut IMP numbers and costs associated with the policy.

    Amidst all this, arguing about who has blood on their hands may be momentarily satisfying for those playing the culture wars, but in the end, it can only distort public policy and drive politics to the right, as moral panic always does.

  19. Blogger Drag0nista’s selection of the best political journalism this week. Worth a browse to see what you’ve missed.

    http://nocrapapp.com/2012/08/11/no-crap-app-wb-6-aug-2012/

    [August 11, 2012
    No Crap App: w/b 6 Aug 2012
    The week that was…]

    Also see this great overseas articles. Definite parrallels here.

    http://pressthink.org/2012/08/everything-thats-wrong-with-political-journalism-in-one-washington-post-item/

    [Everything That’s Wrong with Political Journalism in One Washington Post Item
    Aug.5
    So what is the job of a political journalist today? Is it to describe the reality of American politics, as a “straight” reporter would? Or is it to defend reality and its “base” in American politics… more like a fact checker would?]

  22. For the rise of Abbott you have to look to the political ineptitude of the single issue extremism and moral hubris of the Brown-Milne, Wilderness Society-United Tasmania Group’s totalitarian domination of The Australian Greens.
    Glad I got out of the party after twenty years and no longer had to defend these un-Green, enviro fa—st scum in their tacit dictatorship. They are indefensible.
    CLue, Milne is not “The Leader” of The Greens because The Greens do not elect leaders.
    All it is takes is an honest clarification Christine, and the honesty is just not there is it?

  23. @sarahinthesen8: Heading off to the #adelaide #marriageequality rally.  The time for change has come and it’s about time JGillard & TAbbott caught up

  24. [Latika Bourke @latikambourke 31m
    NSW halting goldplating spend implemented by Labor. RT @bradburden1: @latikambourke we are already looking at doing that. Report underway]

  25. HH

    Wow you been drinking the News Limited KoolAid as Americans put it.
    Greens have their faults. Undemocratic is not one of them.

  26. From America

    By Monday we will know Mitt Romney’s running mate. He is announcing over US weekend its all over the US breaking News.

  29. Interesting discussion

    [Mike Kelly MP @MikeKellyMP 4h
    Joe Hockey says Coalition wants 2 privatize the Snowy Hydro. Have a feeling there will b a little bit of interest in that around these parts]
    View details ·
    [James Massola @jamesmassola 51m
    @MikeKellyMP Bill Heffernan not so sure it’s a good idea though.]
    View conversation ·
    [Mike Kelly MP @MikeKellyMP 34m
    @jamesmassola and who might win that argument?]
    View conversation ·
    [James Massola @jamesmassola 31m
    @MikeKellyMP your guess as good as mine. The Heff arguably rolled Minchin in ’06.]
    View conversation ·
    [Mike Kelly MP @MikeKellyMP 24m
    @jamesmassola Joe Hockey doesn’t seem to like Eden-Monaro. Wants to hack 30,000 jobs in 96 repeat. Now coming after the Snowy Hydro workers.]
    View conversation ·
    [Craig Emerson MP @CraigEmersonMP 18m
    .@MikeKellyMP @jamesmassola Hockey eyeing CanDO Audit Commission as process for justifying slashing jobs&services AFTER an election #auspol]
    View conversation ·
    [Mike Kelly MP @MikeKellyMP 11m
    @CraigEmersonMP @jamesmassola yup. Only have to look at QLD & NSW to see what future could be Abbott. Reckon my mob might reject that!]

  30. victoria

    I think it will be Ryan. Too much Tea Party control for him to choose a moderate. For mainstream America Ryan would br the most palatable of the right wing nuts.

  32. [For the rise of Abbott you have to look to the political ineptitude of the single issue extremism and moral hubris of the Brown-Milne, Wilderness Society-United Tasmania Group’s totalitarian domination of The Australian Greens.
    Glad I got out of the party after twenty years and no longer had to defend these un-Green, enviro fa—st scum in their tacit dictatorship. They are indefensible.
    CLue, Milne is not “The Leader” of The Greens because The Greens do not elect leaders.
    All it is takes is an honest clarification Christine, and the honesty is just not there is it?]

    Word, I was a hippy, the Greens still think hippies don’t grow up.

  33. Twenty years in the party, guytaur, and a founder member of the Australian Greens tells me you are talking indefensible, arrant, sh-t clothed in an opinion.
    The real Greens do not worship glorious leaders. The Clerk of the Parliament demanded a name on the correspondence directed to The Greens when they became a Party with five members. By parliamentary convention those achieving party status must have a named leader for the correspondence. A vote around the nation acceded to this. It did not represent a vote for Brown or make him leader. The hate media did that.
    Brown put himself at odds with the principle of grass roots democracy when he suggested that the two Greens in the ACT assembly should not call themselves co-leaders but have a single “leader” like himself, They told your hero to get stuffed.
    Around the planet Greens Parties have rotating leadership in deference to the grassroots democracy principle. It is one of the things on which The Greens are deemed to be different. As the PM says stop writing crap or, better, stop consuming it, then feeding the result to other posters.

  34. @denniallen: Pope decrees Catholics can use condoms now…(like they werent anyway)…There goes one of Tony Abbotts policies into the garbage bin…

    @sarahinthesen8: SA Premier has just backed passing Greens #marriageequality thro SA parliament. Well done SA!!

  35. HH

    Given the enemies the Greens have any allegation like that would have been seized upon by Limited News in its ca,mpaign to destroy the Greens.
    So we know you are talking BS.

  37. Guytaur, he is not talking BS, the Greens want to be left and full of peace , love and understanding but they aint. They are an obstacle to it. Bob Brown better get back in and rattle these posers.

  40. The problem with a no leader model for running a political party is that everyone is the Leader so no one is the Leader. It allows the Greens to avoid decision making responsibility while always criticising their opponents for lack of principle.

  41. Joe2

    Channel 7 seemed to rely on the BBC sailing coverage last night. Thus we copped an understandably biased coverage of the gold medal winning sailing event that focused on the English, who won silver and kind of cut out the Australian celebrations.

    It is what we do to people from countries in our region who take our broadcast feed, except ours is considerably more biased. According to our commentators, no other nation exists in this neck of the woods.

    The difference is the British coverage was only mildly biased in comparison to ours, and made a point of discussing our sailors in glowing terms and they were gracious in defeat, which in our coverage, our jingoistic self-centred arrogant sore-loser commentators are not.

    I prefer the BBC coverage to our embarrassing, cringe-worthy efforts. If Ch7 had given the commentary, I would have muted the sound.

  42. Appears Romney will announce vp in the next 8 hours

    [Peter Black @peterjblack 1h
    foxnews is reporting that mitt romney will announce his vice-presidential pick at 11pm tonight (brisbane time) (or 9am saturday in america)]

  43. [In 1976 he fasted for a week on top of Mt Wellington in protest against the arrival at Hobart of the nuclear powered warship USS Enterprise.]

    Christine Milne would never do that.

  49. Why are the #MSMhacks, #Shockjocks, #TheirABC and Tony Abbott are so so afraid of PM Gillard, especially she aint got a swinging big dick

  50. guytaur,

    It’s the self evident taste of truth. Something dipped in reality. Neither of which are favourable to the palate of the Greens.

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