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| 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.
Victoria,
I’m interested to now see who GWS target.
This has thrown the cat amongst the pidgeons.
Hey, why don’t you let the Swans RORT the salary cap and I don’t mean by a little bit, I mean by stacks.
The Swans can go on and make the next 3 grand finals and win 2 of them.
WOW won’t all you dummy Victorians then fall madly in love with the Swans.
C’mon, the Swans are allowed – and they can’t be hated – they have to be loved 😀
Fair is fair 😛
Silly Hypocrites 😎
Centre
It is a pity that the Hawks forgot to mention the chronic joint, rapid and incurable joint degeneration that is afflicting Franklin. He has maybe six months left. Enjoy.
victoria
You got to admire Swans recruiting. They get Franklin for less than what GWS were offering.
GWS has turned back Buddy’s Boat.
Rex Douglas
The Swans were very vocal of late about offloading some of their players. When i heard that buddy was going to the Swans, It made sense to me. Him going to GWS never did. He is not the sort of player that could be like Gary Ablett and make the team better. If he went to GWS, he would be in a struggling team with little support.
It sort of makes sense all round. The Swans can buy a premiership with Buddy but Buddy will be long gone before GWS reach a GF. And Buddy becomes one of the wealthiest Indigenous persons in the land.
I think when it comes to shonky politicians then neither side is in a position to brag or accuse.
guytaur
I dont think that GWS was offering less. It was more a question of franklin preferring to go the Swans for the obvious reasons of a well established successful team.
Boerwar
As long as NONE of you Melbourne teams do the celebrating at full time in next years grand final, I’ll be pleased.
😛
dwh
‘I think when it comes to shonky politicians then neither side is in a position to brag or accuse.’
A damp unicorn.
Bishop and Brandis should both resign. If they don’t Abbott should sack them. And when he has sacked them, he should resign himself. He is not fit to be prime minister.
C
Go Hawks! Again! 2014 here we come!
victoria
GWS was offering more than the Swans. Which is why I agree with you on why Franklin chose the Swans over GWS
davidwh – both sides certainly have/have had very shonky politicians.
But the LNP are the government now. Brandis is the AG. There are standards to be upheld, and Brandis is not meeting those standards. No excuses, remember?
And as I’ve said before, Obeid and Macdonald have basically become Godwin-equivalent. If you have to use Obeid and/or Macdonald to justify LNP behaviour, you’ve already lost the argument.
“@ABCNews24: Now on @ABCNews24 PM Tony Abbott speaking to reporters a short time ago in Jakarta http://t.co/3YXdj7UeVK #auspol”
At least when the Lions lost it was to a SA team 🙂
I forsee Freo being knocked out in the 2014 preliminary final because Freo kicks 4 goals 26 behinds. The the Hawks knock of Sydney in the GF because Buddy kicks 10 straight behinds.
Jackol agree when you are the government then you have to cop the heat. It goes with the job.
Yeah, the Swans can buy a premiership.
Not like the Melbourne Storm 😆
They actually bought 2 but still couldn’t beat the 2008, 2011 and 2013 Premiers in the other one 😎
@newmatilda: The Coalition is already hitting snags on its core issues – carbon policy and asylum seekers, writes @beneltham http://t.co/F32bpuPkg9
Bishop looking … very uneasy next to Abbott.
Abbott attempting to justify his failure to achieve any of his stated goals.
david
No matter how flawed we all are we’re the only people around to hold each other to account.
Unless God exists :P.
Now Abbott denying he ever campaigned on tow backs
OMG this is hilarious. Blaming others for misinterpreting/misrepresenting coalition policy.
DN if God does exist then I am probably going to end up in a very hot place. In the meantime we Independents Democrats have to stick together.
Bishop to the rescue
Where’s Tisme?
Hey Tisme, has the monkey talked the Indonesians into letting them turn back the boats yet?
Abbott if nothing else is flexible and pragmatic 🙂
I have to say I can’t recall Abbott promising to either “Stop the Boats” or “Tow the Boats” but I amy be msitaken 😉
So much rage here ! It was only an election guys.
I suggested that the probable outcome would be that the boat issues would be shuffled off to a committee under the Bali process.
FAIL for Abbott’s unilateralism.
Boerwar
Yep turn the boats and buy the boats have already bitten the dust
Oh god. I have to get the transcript of this presser when it gets put online. It’s absolute gold for nailing Abbott on his pre-election rhetoric being total bullshit.
dwh
The best we can hope from all this is that a chastened Abbott Government has learned a lot.
Boerwar
There are far too many Victorian teams in the AFL.
They should permanently kick out Carlton and merge Hawthorn & North Melbourne.
That would allow Tasmania and Canberra to enter the competition.
You will never be a truly national competition without the ACT in the Ballerina 😀
Wow finally a Journo says to Abbott you are not answering the question.
I can’t recall Abbott saying “there will be no boats in a government I lead” but I may again be msitaken.
dwh
‘I have to say I can’t recall Abbott promising to either “Stop the Boats” or “Tow the Boats” but I amy be msitaken’
You are msitaken. He just referred to Stop the Boats…
Abbott disses serious questions from the MSM as ‘press banter’.
Abbott clearly LIED re boat tow backs before the election.
And to think he screamed for 3 years about a ‘LIE’…
Centre
I don’t care how many teams there are, or where they live, as long as the Mighty Hawks keep thrashing them.
Note: I still think the LNP will be able to stop the boats because the PNG solution was working and will work by itself, and if the LNP maintain it then the boats will stop.
But the LNP crap about turning back boats and buying boats and AFP operations to get intelligence from villagers… all crap. And we knew it was crap at the time.
Stop the Boats and Tent City by Toll Holdings.
BW we are stuck with them for at least three years so all we can hope for is that they perform better than expected. We do need to see some consistent improvement in confidence.
Abbott’s body language in this presser is shifty. His eyes dart from side to side. They lurk from under beetled brows.
“@arozenbachs: Buddy Franklin to head to Sydney Swans under AFL’s new ‘taking the piss’ rule. #afl #ALWAYS”
dwh
‘BW we are stuck with them for at least three years so all we can hope for is that they perform better than expected. We do need to see some consistent improvement in confidence.’
If they perform as expected we are buggered.
Haha. Abbott blames the electors of Indi for there being only one woman in his Cabinet.
Gold.
Abbott just flubbed his repeated committment to turning the boats back.
Surprise.
Another Sydney fire
david, it was one of his most repeated slogans!
From his victory speech “The boats will be stopped.”