Wayne Swan’s electorate of Lilley covers the Brisbane bayside north-east of the city centre, between the Brisbane and Pine rivers – an area accounting for industrial Eagle Farm in the south and residential Brighton in the north – along with suburbs nearer the city from McDowall, Stafford Heights and Everton Park eastwards through Kedron, Chermside and Zillmere to Nundah, Nudgee and Taigum. The redistribution before the 2010 election had a substantial impact on the electorate, adding 26,000 in Chermside West and Stafford Heights at the northern end (from Petrie) and removing a similar number of voters in an area from Clayfield and Hendra south to Hamilton on the river (to Brisbane), but the margin was little affected.
Lilley was created in 1913, originally extending from its current base of Nudgee, Aspley, Kedron, Eagle Farm and Brisbane Airport all the way north to Gympie. It did not become entirely urban until the enlargement of parliament in 1949, when Petrie was created to accommodate what were then Brisbane’s semi-rural outskirts. Labor won Lilley in 1943, 1946, 1961 and 1972 (by a margin of 35 votes on the latter occasion), but otherwise it was usually safe for the prevailing conservative forces of the day. A decisive shift came with the elections of 1980 and 1983, when Labor’s Elaine Darling won and then consolidated the seat with respective swings of 5.2% and 8.4%.
Wayne Swan succeeded Darling as the Labor member in 1993, but like all but two of his Queensland Labor colleagues he lost his seat in 1996. Swan stood again in 1998 and accounted for the 0.4% post-redistribution margin with a swing of 3.5%. He added further fat to his margin at the each of the next three elections, although in keeping with the inner urban trend his swing in 2007 was well below the statewide average (3.2% compared with 7.5%). The 2010 election delivered the LNP a swing of 4.8% that compared with a statewide result of 5.5%, bringing the seat well into the marginal zone at 3.2%.
Swan’s path into politics began as an adviser to Bill Hayden during his tenure as Opposition Leader and later to Hawke government ministers Mick Young and Kim Beazley, before he took on the position of Queensland party secretary in 1991. He was elevated to the shadow ministry after recovering his seat in 1998, taking on the family and community services portfolio, and remained close to former boss Beazley. Mark Latham famously described Swan and his associates as “roosters” when Beazley conspired to recover the leadership in 2003, but nonetheless retained him in his existing position during his own tenure in the leadership. Swan was further promoted to the Treasury portfolio after the 2004 election defeat, which he retained in government despite suggestions Rudd had been promised the position to Lindsay Tanner in return for his support when he toppled Kim Beazley as leader in December 2006.
Although he went to high school with him in Nambour and shared a party background during the Wayne Goss years, Swan has long been a bitter rival of Kevin Rudd, the former emerging as part of the AWU grouping of the Right and the latter with the Right’s “old guard”. He was in the camp opposing Rudd at successive leadership challenges, including Rudd’s successful challenge against Beazley, his toppling by Julia Gillard in June 2010, and most recently when he sought to recover the leadership in February 2012, when Swan accused Rudd of “sabotaging policy announcements and undermining our substantial economic successes”. Swan succeeded Gillard as deputy upon her ascension to the prime ministership.
Swan’s LNP opponent for the second consecutive election will be Rod McGarvie, a former soldier and United Nations peacekeeper. McGarvie won a July preselection vote from a field which included John Cotter, GasFields commissioner and former head of agriculture lobby group AgForce, and Bill Gollan, owner of a Deagon car dealership.
[chris murphy @chrismurphys
Family pride young Miss Ramjan SRC Pres! 1yr in C’tees Abbott calls her ‘Chairthing’.I said’many witnesses’.Pals scared 2 deny #auspol ]
I’m going to send Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, a Condolence Card. 🙂
Am watching Pavarotti and Eric Clapton doing duet. If ever you have to listen to opera let it be with one of the greatest guitarists we’ve seen.
[1697
fiona
briefly,
LOTS of loud applause and agreement from me.]
I didn’t know you felt so warmly about public seduction, fiona 🙂
[1703
confessions
Am watching Pavarotti and Eric Clapton doing duet. If ever you have to listen to opera let it be with one of the greatest guitarists we’ve seen.]
Yes, confessions, Clapton is superb….Pavarotti quite good too …..;)
briefly:
How amazing is that! I was only referred to the site this week, and I have to say, from the horrendous wind events we’ve seen this week, it’s been fairly accurate.
[1700
victoria
I too have taken the time to call JG’s electorate office to offer support, during times when things were particularly dismal.]
I think things will turn around for her. I really think she deserves it and that the country is up to it as well….hope so!
briefly:
An opera-loving friend once said Pavarotti’s best years are behind him, and Nessun Dorma is the Spice Girls Hot 100 equivalent of the classical genre.
Listening to Pavarotti sing with Mariah Carey, I can kind of get where she was coming from. Bring back Eric Clapton!
I’m interested in the weather too….especially the coastal waters reports….seas, winds, swells….can definitely see a break in the winter cycles, I think.
c@tmomm
I actually sent an email. A condolence card is a lovely gesture.
Btw you mentioned something about the Liberal cracks appearing. Care to elaborate
C@tmomma @ 1698,
[Instead, what we have now, are women, in positions of power, enabled by their sisters’ struggle, working as Double Agents against them.
I just don’t get it, and I never will.]
I’m not trying to make excuses for Mses Taylor, Crabb, Murphy et al., but I wonder whether they are just too young to remember?
In other words, they think that the (relatively) good conditions that they have enjoyed for so long are the natural order of things, rather than something that their elder sisters and mothers (and brothers and fathers) fought long and hard for.
I could almost (but only almost) wish an Abbott government – one that goes the whole hog with putting wimmen back in their proper place – upon them: that might just give them a chop around the ears and put fire into their bellies.
[1708
confessions
briefly:
An opera-loving friend once said Pavarotti’s best years are behind him…]
Sadly, very much behind him, as he died in 2007. He was unbelievable for those of us who enjoy the whole stupendous tenor/passion/power experience….
victoria @ 1699,
Onya!
briefly,
What other response did you expect?
“Call the Midwife” has been superb!
briefly,
[He was unbelievable for those of us who enjoy the whole stupendous tenor/passion/power experience….]
He wasn’t as good as Placido, but.
BK
[“Call the Midwife” has been superb!]
Yes but bit too sad for me tonight at the end Miranda Hart is superb. Love her.
119 days since Peter Slipper last tweeted …. Prior to that he tweeted most days. Probably on lawyers orders, but one suspects when he does re-enter the twitterverse it will be with venom.
victoria,
In answer to your question
[chris murphy @chrismurphys
@eatatjoe2 I broke news on twtr pleased Marr chased it up while @vexnews abused my client MN then bshitd they’d flw up.#fail #auspol ]
Thanks SK
Interesting.
Rossmore
From recollection, the case is listed for further hearing on Oct 2nd. It has been awfully quiet on this front for quite some time now. I was really hoping that the LNP were going to be well and truly cooked on this matter
C@tmomma, I’ve been thinking about the same thing…about how some females are willing to indulge the Abbott-Machiavelli persona. I think male sexism is expressed in two ways: by gross disrespect for JG and a boys-will-boys free pass for Abbott’s dirty work in the ruck.
But the female disrespect for JG is hard to fathom. It is as if they do not see her as woman, but simply as a gender-less office-holder, a “thing”, or a “construct” to be assailed. It reminds me of the ritual followed at Italian weddings where an effigy is beaten until it disintegrates. That is what journalists do to JG. They beat her as if she is a political effigy.
briefly
Italian weddings have effigys?
[At every meeting in her UNI year as Chairwoman polite MsRamjan was addressed ‘Chairthing’ by TonyAbbott.Many witnesses. #auspol]
SK
What a knob!!
[1715
fiona
Posted Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
briefly,
He was unbelievable for those of us who enjoy the whole stupendous tenor/passion/power experience….
He wasn’t as good as Placido, but.]
I suspect this is correct, fiona. Purity and depth…but Pavarotti expresses so much humanity…sort of pointless to try to separate them….each marvelous.
[1722
victoria
briefly
Italian weddings have effigys?]
I’m trying to think of what they are called…..part of the fun….at the party, smack the thing (which symbolizes doubt and temptation) until it falls to bits….
briefly
My parents are Italian, and I have never heard of this practice. Wonder if it is peculiar to a particular region of Italy.
[1713
fiona
briefly,
What other response did you expect?]
I make no presumptions, fiona, being happiest when surprised.
SK,
Back in the 1970s, the degendering of university SRC/SA constitutions was a big deal. I still remember, with relish, the debates concerning the ANU Students’ Association constitution.
When every amendment had been passed – changing every reference to “Chairman” to “Chairperson”, I had the temerity to rise in my place and move a motion that every occurrence of “Chairperson” should be deleted, and the word “Chairperchild” substituted.
Amazingly, there were people who were prepared to treat my motion seriously.
A responsible use of firearms, I think not.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-09/hobart-homes-in-dark-as-shooters-target-powerlines/4251358
briefly,
We are both – as you are well aware – engaging in deliberate ambiguity regarding to which of your posts my original response was directed.
To clarify for any possibly interested PBer, I was responding with enthusiasm to briefly’s support of the Prime Minister.
😉
victoria,
It’s the barely-contained and simmering tensions between the two main F.A.C.T.I.O.N.S. in the Liberal Party, the Moderates, who are attempting a comeback, and the Christian Conservatives. The Moderates just want to be Capitalists, without the too-socially- conservative baggage.
We’ve had a few Liberals up our way defect to the Labor Party. Some of the crew handing out HTVs for us at the Local Council Elections were former Liberals. Also, centred around my federal seat, Robertson, their is an almighty, behind the scenes stoush going on over the candidate for the Liberal Party, a moderate who was parachuted in by Head Office. Against the locally-preferred Conservative.
It all sounds very ‘Sussex Street Labor’ but it’s going on over at the Liberal Party this time. 🙂
On which po-faced note I should take myself to bed.
Goodnight, everyone. Hugs to all who need them.
[1727
victoria
briefly
My parents are Italian, and I have never heard of this practice. Wonder if it is peculiar to a particular region of Italy.]
I will find out. I can remember doing my bit to dismember one very impish-looking example one year. It was hanging from the verandah and all those present were invited to give it a hearty whack until it eventually was nothing but satisfying shreds. It was a very merry occasion, but admittedly a unique one.
In any case, I think the media treat JG as if she is not the PM, but merely something to be smacked and whipped – torn at. For mine, she is treated as if she is just an object – the very essence of sexist conduct. I feel degraded by it when I think it through.
fiona, I didn’t mean to be ambiguous. In future I will be more attentive to the numbering….see you soon. 🙂
c@tmomma
Appreciate the feedback. Tres interesting indeed
briefly
Agree with your analysis re the PM.
Anyhow night bludgers. Catch you on the flipside.
briefly@1721,
Witches are not women, remember?
This is why I think the nod and the wink was given by the Regressives to unleash the dogs of verbal war against Julia Gillard. She was dehumanised, so she was then fair game.
You could probably go back centuries for literary and social examples of this practice.
I’m out for the count too! before my brain dribbles out my ear. 🙂
fiona,
I would have loved to have seen it!
[It reminds me of the ritual followed at Italian weddings where an effigy is beaten until it disintegrates. ]
I m not Italian but have known many Italian Australians. Never heard of this at all.
briefly,
My apologies – I thought that you were being deliberately ambiguous!
To be honest, if the roles had been reversed I would have done exactly what you did 🙂
It’s been a long day after a rather unpleasant night (well, that’s my excuse) and I still have eleventy zillion assignments to mark by Wednesday, so – once again – goodnight to this remarkable community, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Hugs – again – to all who need/want them 🙂
victoria,
Two final words on that subject. Malcolm Turnbull. 😉
Over and out!
Sorry, couldn’t resist this parting shot at Abbott by Ash Ghebranious:
😀
good night bludgers….sleep well…..to the books!!
sk,
It was both very funny (and I’m still not sure how I managed to escape alive), and very sad: that they didn’t have enough sense of humour to realise that they were being taken.
I think that it was at that point that I lost almost all respect for (student) politicians. Certainly, when I have seen some of them at state/territory level, I have never been able to forget their conduct at ANUSA meetings – and with reason.
fiona,
My leadership aspirations at uni were real serious. I looked after all the important stuff. I was the social secretary for my year. I was really good at hooking up freebies from the breweries and wineries, plus I lived on ten acres and had a mum who was a caterer.
Needless to say I was pretty popular! 👿 😀
I have had the Marriage ticking over in the background. We have reached the finale, the concluding moment at the end of Act 4…..when all the ploys and intrigues have been resolved, and all those involved then join in a declaring their mutual forgiveness. There is a not-long-enough passage of singular clarity and harmony, when all those present and may experience both the elation and the release of redemption….in itself something to be both mindful of and thankful for….and then silence.
Go Eagles, the colliwobbles next …
briefly,
One can and should have every hope for Figaro and Susanna, but I cannot see any joy for, in particular, the Countess.
I realise that that’s a deeply cynical view, but the older I get …
NO, I don’t want to become increasingly cynical. Realistic? Maybe. Cynical? No, no, a thousand times …
But then …
It is beautiful music, written by an extraordinary person, and it is to my mind ridiculous to look to someone who had as strange an upbringing as Mozart’s and as fraught relationships as he did as an adult to provide any sort of benchmark – apart from, don’t go there!
Definitely goodnight now.