Seats of the week: Swan and Dawson

Two seats which Labor might hope to gain if they can recover from historically poor results in their respective states in 2010.

As talk firms of a September 7 election, we review another two seats which might form part of a hypothetical Labor majority, being conservative marginals in the relatively promising states of Western Australia and Queensland.

Swan (Liberal 2.5%)

The perennially tight marginal seat of Swan covers areas of inner Perth bounded to the north by the Swan River and the west and south by the Canning River. It extends from South Perth and Como north-eastwards through Victoria Park to Belmont, and south-eastwards through Bentley to Cannington. There is a division in the electorate between the affluent and Liberal-voting west and lower-income Labor-voting east, reflected in the corresponding state seats of South Perth and Victoria Park which are respectively safe for Liberal and Labor. The combination of the two areas has left the federal electorate finely poised, being decided by margins of 164 votes in 2007, 104 votes in 2004 and 294 votes in 1993.

Swan in its present form is unrecognisable as the seat that was created at federation, which covered the state’s non-metropolitan south-west. The seat’s inaugural member was John Forrest, explorer, colonial Premier, federation founding father and senior minister in early non-Labor governnments. The electorate was drawn into the metropolitan area when parliament was enlarged in 1949, at which point it continued to cover the eastern suburbs as far north as Midland. Labor only intermittently held the seat until 1969 when it was won by Adrian Bennett, who retained it until his defeat in 1975 by John Martyr.

Swan returned to the Labor fold in 1980 with the election of 32-year-old Kim Beazley Jr, future party leader and son of the Whitlam government Education Minister and long-serving Fremantle MP Kim Beazley Sr. Beazley strengthened his hold on the seat with consecutive swings of 8.1% and 8.6% in 1980 and 1983, but the expansion of parliament in 1984 cut his margin by 4.1% by transferring inner eastern suburbs around Bassendean to Perth. A sharp swing at the 1990 election further pared back Beazley’s margin, and he began to cast around for a safer seat after surviving the 1993 election by 294 votes. A safety hatch opened when Wendy Fatin retired in the somewhat safer seat of Brand along Perth’s coastal southern suburbs at the 1996 election, which Beazley was nonetheless able to retain by just 387 votes.

Swan meanwhile fell to Liberal candidate Don Randall, who was tipped out by a 6.4% swing in 1998 before returning at the 2001 election in his present capacity as member for Canning. The new Labor member for Swan was former farmer and prison officer Kim Wilkie, who barely survived a poor performance by Labor in Perth at the 2004 election despite a disastrous campaign for his Liberal opponent Andrew Murfin. A correction after the Liberals’ under-performance in 2004 presumably explains the seat bucking the trend of the 2007 election, at which the seat was one of only two in the country to fall to the Liberals, the other being the northern Perth seat of Cowan.

The seat has since been held for the Liberals by Steve Irons, a former WA league footballer and proprietor of an air-conditioning business. Irons’ tiny margin was erased by a 0.4% redistribution shift ahead of the 2010 election, but he retained the seat with a 2.8% swing that was closely in line with the statewide result. Labor’s candidate is John Bissett, deputy mayor of the Town of Victoria Park.

Dawson (Liberal National 2.4%)

Extending along the central Queensland coast from Mackay northwards through the Whitsunday Islands, Bowen and Ayr to southern Townsville, Dawson has had a wild ride after the past two elections, firstly falling to Labor with an epic swing of 13.2% in 2007 before returning to the conservative fold in 2010. The swing on the latter occasion was 5.0%, approximately in line with the statewide result, which rose to double figures in the Whitsunday region booths around Airlie Beach and Proserpine. The seat was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, and has consistently been centred on the sugar capital of Mackay. While Mackay has consistently been an area of strength for Labor, the surrounding rural territory has tended to keep the seat in the conservative fold. The only Labor member prior to 2007 was Whitlam government minister Rex Patterson, who won the seat at a by-election in February 1967 and kept a tenuous hold until his defeat in 1975.

The Nationals retained the seat throughout the Hawke-Keating years, despite close calls in 1983 (1.2%) and 1990 (0.1%, or 181 votes). De-Anne Kelly succeeded Ray Braithwaite as the party’s member in 1996, become the first woman ever to represent the party in the House of Representatives. The swing that unseated Kelly in 2007 was one of three double-digit swings to Labor in Queensland at that election, and the only one to strike a sitting member. Labor’s unxpected victor was James Bidgood, a former Mackay councillor noted for linking the global financial crisis to biblical prophecy. Bidgood bowed out after a single term citing health problems, and was succeeded as Labor’s candidate by Whitsunday mayor Mike Brunker. Brunker however proved unable to hold back a statewide tide at the 2010 election which almost entirely undid the party’s gains of 2007.

Dawson has since been held by George Christensen, a former Mackay councillor and local newspaper publisher who sits in parliament with the Nationals. Christensen suffered an embarrassment during the 2010 campaign with the emergence of newsletters he had written as a university student containing what Tony Abbott conceded were “colourful” views on Jews, gays and women. He has more recently been noted for his hostility to Islamic radicalism, having been the only federal MP to attend rallies held in Australia by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders. His Labor opponent for the coming election is Bronwyn Taha, a former Proserpine restaurant owner and electorate officer to state Whitsunday MP Jan Jarratt.

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.

2,259 comments on “Seats of the week: Swan and Dawson”

Comments Page 4 of 46
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  1. [If There is a September 7 election then it would appear that Peter Hartcher was Rudd’s mole in Fairfax.]

    Hartcher always has been.

  2. Any election – two horse race – with both parties within the margin of error, can be won by either.

    While not every Federal election has fallen within the 52-48 set of numbers, most have.

    I would expect this to be the case in the coming election.

    In this regard the campaign will tell.

    Personally, I think Rudd will wipe the floor with Abbott in the campaign but whether this will translate is another matter which is keeping everyone interested I guess.

    The Devil you know versus the Devil you think you know.

    In any event, if Abbott gets up from here, it might well demonstrate that those acres of print/word going on about the most/least popular leader during the life of a government are all but worthless.

  3. Psephos:

    [Malcolm Fraser has announced that the Greens are now too right-wing for him, and has joined the Worker’s Revolutionary Bolshevik League …]

    With that apostrophe, he must be the only member, which raises the question of how he “joined”. 😉

    I’ll grant him this though — his action in 1975 and subsequently did expose for me the futility of reforming capitalism. More than any other single event, 11/11/75 urged me to look left.

  5. GARY – I totally agree with you. It’s Rudd’s to lose. However, Hartcher has to throw a bone to the Abbott supporters (before he says Abbott is totally hopeless).
    The libs are like a team that is about to play a world cup final with Messi on the bench and a pub-team player in his place.
    Thank you Nick Minchin, thank you, thank you, thank you. You will be in my thoughts throughout this election campaign.
    Let the great Lib unraveling begin.

  6. confessions@96

    I too don’t understand the timing of the bank levy announcement, esp as it doesn’t take effect for another 3 years. Why now?

    So he can show is path to a surplus. The major parties are obsessed with surpluses, but it’s their own fault because each side attacks the other over it.

    Centre, what Rudd has to do is figure out what date gives him the best chance, even if he starts behind. If he keeps waiting he might never get in front. One risk of waiting is that the boats might not stop, whereas he might get away with continuing boats so soon after the announcement if he goes quickly.

    I’ve just been out to the Victoria Market to get some fish. It’s nice to get home and put the heater on.

  8. P
    I was pointing out that you can’t trust SHY. In this case she was ignoring the obvious in order to score a point.

    You respond by attacking little old moi.

    Your Bludger modus vivendi is just sooooo obvious. Cut and paste: get a response then drool high-minded compassionate anger over the hapless poster.

    Vote 1 Informal Party.

  9. [OK, A question to the board,Pro-ALP bias notwithstanding, is there any body here who can honestly say that Abbott looks PM material ?]

    Not right now no but give him 3 years of the job and people may get used to him in the part.

  11. Learned just the other day that Jason Clare lives just a couple of streets away from me which means that he will not be voting for himself in Blaxland but will be voting in the seat of Banks.

  14. [The Govt intention would be to close down Nauru ASAP once the current PNG disincentive takes hold.]

    Sounds like a really really stupid thing to do, so I think you are right it would be their intention to do it.

    Why have offshore capacity elsewhere when you can play the Labor Spin Card? With the flood of boats PNG is already full but having token gestures like closing Nauru is what I come to expect of Labor only for them to find they shot themselves in the foot.

  17. Centre, You can bet your house on the vast majority of Australians agreeing with you on that.
    I have a sneeking suspission that it’s that perception that will play out on polling day and be the determining factor in their votes.

  20. I just wish the Greens would stop pretending to be an environmental party. They are willing to sacrifice Australian biodiversity so that the can play the asylum seeker compassion card.

  23. cch

    ‘Does anyone know if there is a half decent list of senate parties.. esp nsw’

    Phew. For a nanosecond I thought you were asking for a list of half-decent Senate parties.

  25. Oh that was the other thing. Do we still have this either put a 1 above the line on the Senate paper, or number every square below..

    Or are we now allowed to number preferentially above the line?

  27. [I just wish the Greens would stop pretending to be an environmental party.]

    Agreed. You hardly ever hear them talking about environment these days.

  32. Abbott PM material?

    Do we mean what he looks like or the inner Abbott?

    His looks can be compared with an undertaker on a bad day, but that, of itself should not be a decider. On some days he looks as though he has slapped on some embalming fluid in any event.

    As to the inner man?

    Simply, he is a divider and not a collaborator.

    This, in itself, makes him unfit.

    He has done nothing in three years but bad-mouth everything.

    The conservatives tell us “this is the role of the Opposition to oppose” which is fine, but they also want the kudos of being the “alternative government”.

    They can’t have it both ways.

    The conservatives tell us we “can’t trust Rudd” but as yet, the media have not asked how much Abbott can be trusted.

    The Gonski back-down said it all. Attacked in principle and detail, failed, and had absolutely nothing to offer after the back-down.

    It is beyond me why anyone votes conservative as it is such a lazy credo. Do nothing, venture nothing, attack everything.

  33. v
    Am hoping to catch the Australian channel this arvo for hawks v tiges.
    Looking increasingly like a Swans v Hawks gf with the big interest being whether tippet will make the difference.

  37. confession

    The Greens are too busy sticking it to people who have a more rounded interest in environmental sustainability to notice that the red rot at the core has hollowed out the green rind. Watermelon? All they have left is red pulp and pips.

    Did you know that they are the great Closers?

    The want to close Olympic Dam Mine, Manus Island, the Australian GMO industry, the coal industry, the coal seam gas industry, all modern means of producing protein cheaply and efficiently … the list goes on and on.

    Apparently there is a bit of policy conflict… industrial-scale tofu burger production requires the premature death, presumably involving vast suffering, of trillions of insects, lizards, birds and animals.

  40. Oh, and the Greens want to close down our air force and navy as well. But they are too devious to say so. They hope that by shouting unicorn loud enough and often enough people will not actually look at the Greens policies.

  42. And by the way BW, some of my comments in 182 could equally be applied to Rudd. But hey, this is 2013 and we have elections by media.

    Would the likes of JFK ever got be be president if the full extend of his back injury were known?

    On the other hand, while Nixon is thought to have won that famous TV debate, it was agreed that JFK “looked better”.

    There could be endless speculation about the role of charismatics in leadership.

    Maybe that is what was missing from PMJG? I don’t know.

  44. YB
    [OK, A question to the board,Pro-ALP bias notwithstanding, is there any body here who can honestly say that Abbott looks PM material ?]
    Abbott could look prime-ministerial in the same way that George W Bush looked presidential. Then again, in the past we have Billy McMahon as PM! And John Gorton, so I suppose capability is in the eye of the beholder.

  47. Cud chewer

    Good news, when the Sex Party gets in all fundamentalist wowsers (Muslims, Christians, Jews, greens etc) will be taxed to fund sex for all!!!

  49. As I suggested to Ruawake the other day, perhaps the Stable Population Party is the party for you.

    http://www.populationparty.org.au/

    But then again, perhaps you would not agree with its stance on asylum seekers:

    http://www.populationparty.org.au/Featured-Media?&riID=58
    [Although some politicians and media commentators would have you believe otherwise, ‘big Australia’ population growth is not about boats or refugees. It really boils down to planes.

    Australia’s total annual intake of around 14,000 refugees makes up only four per cent of our recent annual population growth of around 350,000 people. More importantly, asylum seekers arriving by boat (around 5,000 per annum) make up less than two per cent. In any case, boat arrivals do not increase Australia’s rate of population growth. This is because asylum seekers that are deemed to be genuine refugees are included within the total number of refugees we accept each year.

    The population issue is really about an excess of permanent immigrants over permanent emigrants, combined with a temporary excess of births over deaths. At present, including our open borders arrangement with New Zealand, our excess of permanent immigrants is nearly 200,000 per annum. Our excess of births is presently around 150,000 per annum. However, with the current fertility rate of around two children per woman, births and deaths will naturally find equilibrium over coming decades.]

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