Seat of the week: Kennedy

One of the election’s surprises was the tough fight Bob Katter had getting re-elected in his north Queensland family fiefdom of Kennedy.

Teal numbers indicate majority for Liberal National Party. Grey indicates Katter’s Australian Party. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Bob Katter’s seat of Kennedy covers 568,993 square kilometres of northern Queensland, accounting for over 30% of the state’s surface area. It covers two disconnected coastal areas, one being a 250 kilometre stretch of the east coast from the southern suburbs of Cairns through Innisfail to Toomulla 35 kilometres north Townsville, the other being the thinly populated Gulf of Carpentaria coast from the Northern Territory border to the southern part of Cape York Peninsula. The remainder encompasses rural and outback territory including Mount Isa and most of the Northern Territory border.

Kennedy was one of 16 seats out of 75 which Labor won at the first federal election in 1901, and it remained in Labor hands until Nationalist candidate Grosvenor Francis was elected unopposed after sitting member Charles McDonald died during the 1925 election campaign. This prompted the change in the Electoral Act which causes the poll for a given electorate to be cancelled and held at a later time if a candidate dies during the campaign, which most recently had effect in Newcastle at the 1998 election. Francis retained the seat at the 1928 election, but it returned to Labor when Jim Scullin’s government came to power in 1929. It next changed hands in 1966 when the national anti-Labor swing combined with the loss of retiring veteran William Riordan’s personal vote delivered a narrow victory to the Country Party candidate, Bob Katter Sr.

Katter’s majority increased at each of the next five elections, and he was further boosted when the 1969 redistribution removed Labor-voting Bowen and added Charters Towers. The 1984 redistribution was less kind, returning the seat to the marginal zone by pushing it into the southern reaches of the Cape York Peninsula. It returned to Labor for one term when Katter retired in 1990, the winning member being Rob Hulls, later to return to politics in Victoria as a senior figure in the Bracks-Brumby government. Hulls was defeated at the 1993 election by Bob Katter Jr, who had represented the local area in state parliament since 1974. Katter cemented his position with a double-digit swing in 1996, and his primary vote increased further after he parted company with the Nationals ahead of the 2001 election.

Katter comfortably topped the poll at next three elections, although he faded from 47.1% to 39.5% in 2007 before rebounding to 46.7% in 2010. The 2010 election result left him as one of three rural independents holding the balance of power in a hung parliament, and he appeared to play the most adroit game of the three in unenthusiastically declaring his hand for the Coalition after the determination of the other two to back Labor had rendered it a moot point. He then set about expanding his political empire with the establishment of Katter’s Australian Party, which polled 11.5% at the Queensland state election of March 2012 amid a collapse in support for Labor and elected two members: his son Robbie Katter to the seat of Mount Isa, and former Liberal National Party member Shane Knuth to his existing seat of Dalrymple.

However, the rise of Katter’s Australian Party was firmly checked at the 2013 election, at which its vote across Queensland was just 3.7% and its bid to get country singer James Blundell elected to the Senate was singularly unsuccessful. Most disappointingly of all for the party, Katter struggled to win re-election in Kennedy for the first time, his primary vote down 17.4% to 29.3% against 40.8% for Liberal National Party candidate Noeline Ikin, the former chief executive of the Northern Gulf Resource Management Group. Katter prevailed after preferences by a margin of 2.1%, down 16.2% from 2010. The poor performance was variously attributed to the advertising budget and related electoral success of the Palmer United Party, and a poorly received preference deal with Labor. The terms of the deal delivered Labor preferences to Blundell in the Senate, and Katter preferences to Labor in six Queensland lower house seats it was desperate to win, though in no case would it do so.

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.

3,264 comments on “Seat of the week: Kennedy”

Comments Page 2 of 66
1 2 3 … 66

  2. [Prime Minister’s office is referring all enquiries on asylum boats to Immigration Minister’s office, which is so far not responding to calls]

  3. William any views on how your prediction model performed ? Seems to have done very well bar a seat in qld and NSW and the increase of 2 seats to non majors.

  4. And ESJ’s adults are “on the job”

    [Andrew Greene ‏@AndrewBGreene 3m
    Prime Minister’s office is referring all enquiries on asylum boats to Immigration Minister’s office, which is so far not responding to calls
    Retweeted by Matthew Ross]

  5. Doesn’t matter sprocket.

    Pretty simple equation

    Stop boats = Abbott wins
    Boats keep coming = Abbott loses

    The rest is just white noise.

  6. Good Morning

    @AndrewBGreene: Prime Minister’s office is referring all enquiries on asylum boats to Immigration Minister’s office, which is so far not responding to calls

  8. [ For example if he can’t stop the boats he will pay the price and if he can he will reap the benefit. One would think he’s locked himself so strongly into these positions that he must be extremely confident of delivering – it would seem from recent events in Indonesia he has good reason for this confidence.]

    The lefties are squealing like pigs stuck in the mud 10 days into Sovereign Borders that it “hasn’t worked” so that’s how I know we are onto a winner 🙂

    We’ll kindly ignore the lefts vocal minority and continue to surge on with Operation Sovereign Borders!

    As to the whinging media… this is what happens when you feed the chooks only once a week when they are used to their daily feed.

  9. Psephos

    Demonising Asylum Seekers is the dog whistle of Abbott and Co.
    Any AS that come to Australia to be assessed on a case by case basis.
    There are people in Lebanon who can rightly fear for their life.

    Do not join the Dog Whistlers in demonising AS. Let the professionals do their job and assess AS cases rather trying to paint all AS as economic refugees.

    This falls into the LNP trap.

  10. If the boats genuinely stop setting sail, that’s one thing. If they continue setting out and are simply not counted because they were turned back that’s entirely different, smugglers will still be operating, people will still be risking death at sea and we will still be spending money ineffectively.

    The latter is what Labor was being judged on and the Liberal’s solution is mechanically no different to Labor’s – we catch boats on their way here and take the occupants to another country that we are paying.

    Even if I disagree with both Labor and Liberal solutions, at the very least they should be judged by the same metric. If the media won’t do that – and I have no faith that they will – then Labor had better make a good case.

  12. [Even if I disagree with both Labor and Liberal solutions, at the very least they should be judged by the same metric. If the media won’t do that – and I have no faith that they will – then Labor had better make a good case.]

    There is only 1 metric.

    Boatpeople arrivals to Australia that we have to process(whether in Nauru, PNG or Australia)

    Labors record between the 2012-2013 Financial Year was 25,000 illegal arrivals

    This will be the mark that the Coalition will be judged against in the first 12 months of Operation Sovereign borders and anything else is just fluff

  15. [Adam Collins ‏@collinsadam 49s
    I’ve seen some awful North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast speeches over the years. But this phoned-in effort from Abbott the clear worst]

    the National Embarrassment

  22. Thank you Tisme, your position is clear. Smugglers, drownings and wasting money, all irrelevant.

    Edward StJohn. PNG, Nauru, and “no settlement in Australia, ever” didn’t stop them. Maybe being taken to Indonesia is a psychological thing?

  23. This from George Bludger. Lol

    [Seems the only thing this new “adult government” has done since taking power is shit in its disposable nappy]

  25. The message is now clear… Sink your Boat… get taken back to Indonesia and transferred at sea to Indonesian Navy.

    Don’t sink your boat… be towed back to Indonesia, with only enough rations and fuel to make it back to Indonesia.

    Operation Sovereign Borders is a go and the leftie squeals that everyone will just “sink their boat” is now irrelevent.

  32. Will Steffen, of the Climate Council, busting the “myths and distortions”:

    [What actually are the key messages of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report?

    There is stronger evidence that the Earth’s climate is warming – rising air and ocean temperature, loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets, and rising sea level.

    Scientists are more certain than ever that most of the warming since 1950 has been caused by human activities, primarily the emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion.

    A warming climate is influencing the frequency and severity of many extreme weather events and is changing rainfall patterns, creating risks for human well-being, the economy and the environment.

    Stabilising the climate system will require substantial and sustained reductions of carbon dioxide emissions, and those of other greenhouse gases.]

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-27/steffen-ipcc-report/4984656

  33. Morning all. If anyone is keeping count of broken Liberal election promises, this one should be added to the list. Especially as it will cost us $1.5 billion of MORE DEBT.
    [Prime Minister Tony Abbott will hand over $1.5 billion in federal funding for the east-west link without seeing the full business case for the controversial massive infrastructure project, despite an election promise that any investment of more than $100 million would require a published cost benefit analysis.]
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tony-abbott-says-he-doesnt-need-to-see-the-eastwest-links-full-business-case-20130927-2uih8.html#ixzz2g8ib3GUP

  36. Are these AS allegedly being tranferred at sea in Australian waters or Indonesian waters?

    I’m pretty sure having our boats at sea engaged in these pseudo military maneouvres is probably the most expensive option going.

    This is nautical equivalent of having “cops on every corner” with a paddy wagon on call.

  37. Confessions @ 61. That is brilliant! Although I can picture Maxwell Smart pushing a button while asking ‘ what does this red button do?’

  38. Napthine has also told a big lie about the East west tunnel.
    [Premier Denis Napthine has defended the lack of transparency, saying that the the public release of details would place in jeopardy a competitive advantage as it sought bidders for its construction.]
    http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tony-abbott-says-he-doesnt-need-to-see-the-eastwest-links-full-business-case-20130927-2uih8.html#ixzz2g8ja7Mdf

    How can hiding the details of how this might or might not make money possibly induce a private bidder to offer a better deal?? Surely it will make them more cautious.

    I’m off to get organised for this afternoon. Have a great day all. Good luck Freo 🙂

  39. Greensborough Growler

    Posted Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 9:46 am | Permalink

    Are these AS allegedly being tranferred at sea in Australian waters or Indonesian waters?
    ——————————————————

    The transfer took place outside Indonesian territorial waters and nowhere near Australian territorial waters

  40. guytaur

    🙂

    [He now has to figure out how to reverse the impression he gave Australian voters that Operation Sovereign Borders and a few quick forays north by the navy could “stop the boats” almost straight away – a repositioning begun already with the post-election revelation that we won’t in fact be told if any boats have been turned back at all.

    Because having promised Australians he will “turn back the boats” on hundreds if not thousands of occasions, Abbott makes his first overseas trip as prime minister to Jakarta on Monday still unsure whether the policy is diplomatically possible.

    Indonesia has been absolutely clear it will countenance no breach of its territorial sovereignty.]

  42. [Psephos
    Posted Saturday, September 28, 2013 at 8:25 am | Permalink

    Death is not worse than a life that promises nothing but misery.

    I’m sure the drowned children on the boat will appreciate your lofty philosophical view of their fate, Fran.]

    The problem with Fran’s argument here, also, is the fact that if you’re prepared to say people should risk their lives to come to Australia then you’re essentially advocating an open-door policy.

    Should all the crappy countries in the world just be abandoned or should the residents, perhaps, make an effort to do something about it. Sure, perhaps they are risking death, but isn’t that better than a life of abject misery?

  43. If the overriding goal of Australian government policy was to minimise the risk of people drowning while attempting the crossing to Australia; if we put that goal ahead of everything else, regardless of all other considerations; what would we do? We’d have agents in Indonesia (at least, if not elsewhere as well) offering to arrange safe passage to Australia to anybody who wanted it. I don’t know of anybody who’s advocating that policy, it hasn’t been the policy of any previous government, and I’m certainly not advocating it.

    But not advocating that policy means admitting that we are taking into account other considerations apart from minimising the risk of deaths by drowning, and there’s no point even discussing what is the best policy without some open discussion of what the goals of the policy are supposed to be.

  44. Pynes latest brain fart

    ASPIRING teachers will need to pass an interview and show off previous work to gain entry to teaching degrees in a radical training shake-up being considered by the new government.
    ————————————————

    Given most go straight from school to University there could be a small problem with the ‘previous work’ history

  48. J-D

    Setting government processing in other countries will not stop the attempts by some to get to Australia.

    The waiting list would be long and the transfer to Australia could be years with the immigration figure at current levels. And looking at the conditions of the refugee camps people will still jump on the boats to get away from those conditions

    Those refused but still wanting to get to Australia would still be trying the boat trip.

    There is no three word rant solution to what is a global problem

  50. So glad that the adults are now in charge.

    It’s just a pity that these adults happen to be reactionary half-wits whose limits of expertise in the real world would be running a particularly mediocre small business.

    In Abbot’s case he’d make a reasonable fitness centre manager but that would the end of it.

    It won’t take long for all but the hard core cretins like Tisme and ESJ to realise what a mistake this country’s made.

Comments Page 2 of 66
1 2 3 … 66

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *