Seat of the week: McPherson

The Gold Coast seat of McPherson has been in conservative hands since its creation in 1949, and has been served by a succession of low-key members since 1980.

Teal numbers indicate booths with two-party majorities for the Liberal National Party. Red numbers would indicate booths with two-party majorities for Labor, if there were any. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

McPherson is the southernmost coastal electorate in Queensland, covering the Gold Coast from Coolangatta at the New South Wales border north through Tugun and Palm Beach to Burleigh Heads, and extending inland to Robina and Merrimac in the north and the semi-rural Tallebudgera and Currumbin river valleys further south. An area of intensive and ongoing population growth, the most recent redistribution before the 2010 election saw it lose 5600 voters at the inland end of the electorate to the newly created seat of Wright without it needing to receive any new territory in return. The regional is demographically unremarkable on most measures, excepting a lack of ethnic diversity and a slightly above-average median age.

The electorate was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, prior to which the Gold Coast had been accommodated by Moreton, which was pushed over time into its present position in southern Brisbane. McPherson has since been anchored in the state’s south-eastern corner, at first extending much further inland to include Beaudesert and Warwick. Its inaugural member was Arthur Fadden, a leader of the Country Party who briefly served as Prime Minister after Robert Menzies’ resignation in August 1941. After six weeks in the role he was defeated in parliament when he lost the support of two key independents, although the beleagured United Australia Party continued to support him as Opposition Leader until the 1943 election defeat. Fadden moved to the newly created seat in 1949 after previously serving as member for Darling Downs, which has since been re-named as Groom. He held the seat until his retirement in 1958, at which point he was succeeded by another Country Party member, Charles Barnes.

The rapid development of the Gold Coast changed the electorate’s complexion in the decades following the war, drawing it away from its rural base and towards the coast and weakening its identity as a Country Party stronghold. When Charles Barnes retired in 1972, Liberal candidate Eric Robinson won the seat after narrowly edging out the Country Party candidate in the preference count. The electorate was at the centre of a political controversy in 1978 when it was alleged that Robinson, then a minister in Malcolm Fraser’s government, had sought to influence the electoral redistribution commissioners after they determined to change the electorate’s name to Gold Coast, which under the terms of the coalition agreement would have entitled the National Country Party to contest the “new” seat. A royal commission into the matter cleared Robinson of wrongdoing but found another minister, Reg Withers (who had won fame as the Opposition’s Senate leader during the 1975 crisis), to have acted improperly. This resulted in Withers’ dismissal by Fraser, to the chagrin of many in the Liberal Party. Robinson went on to resign from the ministry the following year over an unrelated falling-out with Fraser.

Robinson died in January 1981 and was succeeded at the ensuing by-election by Liberal candidate Peter White. White won an easy victory with help from Labor preferences over National Country Party candidate Glenister Sheil, who had resigned from the Senate to run at the by-election and would later return to it in 1984. Sheil had won a position in the ministry in 1977 only to lose it before being sworn in for expressing support for South Africa’s apartheid system. Peter White held the seat until his retirement at the 1990 election, by which time the National Party was no longer competitive in the area at the federal level. He was succeeded by John Bradford, who went on to quit the Liberal Party in 1998 to join Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, standing unsuccessfully as its Queensland Senate candidate at the election later that year. The seat then passed on to Margaret May, who won Liberal preselection from a field that included former Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson.

When May announced her retirement ahead of the 2010 election, Liberal front-bencher Peter Dutton sought to move to the seat in preference to his ultra-marginal existing seat of Dickson in Brisbane’s outer north. However, it quickly became apparent that local party operatives who had been jockeying for the succession were not going to be deterred, despite Dutton’s move having the backing of John Howard and then-Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull. The result was a rebuff for Dutton, who was said to have come within a handful of votes of victory on the first round of the local preselection ballot but was ultimately defeated by Karen Andrews, a Gold Coast businesswoman and chair of the party’s local federal electorate council. The prospect of the party’s state executive intervening by refusing to ratify the result was promptly ruled out amid talk of a potential rebellion in the local party. Dutton was accordingly compelled to remain in Dickson, which he had no trouble retaining amid the much-changed political circumstances which prevailed by the time the election was held. Andrews meanwhile picked up successive swings of 1.6% and 2.7% to hold the seat by a margin of 13.0% after the 2013 election.

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.

2,218 thoughts on “Seat of the week: McPherson”

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  2. DisplayName

    Posted Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 3:00 pm | Permalink

    Abbott is a flatterer. He tells people whatever he thinks they want to hear.
    ————————————-

    We’ll I’m still waiting ………………..

  3. Tricot 2083
    _______
    Re your post…I agree and think your feelings are widespread

    btw why are the conservatives here and elsewhere so worried and on the defensive
    Do they see …as we do..that Abbott has real defects which may bring him down…not to mention clowns lioke Barbarby Joyce who is a time bomb…great in opposiition but hopeless and a menace in govt
    I watch him with great joy as I see him being a cause of great problems for them…Julie Bishop is just a hopeless case..a twit…brainless… and will ammount to nothing much

    ao Abbott has problems and his supporters are starting to wake up…hence their anxiety and rage…it wasn’t going to be like this for them was it ?

  4. 1986
    Paddy O

    Labor needs to draw out a theme from the rorts saga that can seamlessly be transferred to other more substantial policy issues that will come. Cuts and backflips need to to have a link To underlying theme to rorts. Perhaps a build up of “They don’t tell the truth”. “untrustworthy in all their dealings”. ” you can’t believe what they say”.

    Labor are long overdue a break, and Rortgate is a big juicy one, that feeds into a whole lot of other stuff, and can help set a broad political narrative against Abbott and his whole style.

    Particularly nice it came so early, and during Labor’s leadership selection process. A welcome move of the spotlight back to one of the places it firmly belongs, Abbott’s bogus sense of entitlement and shameless hypocrisy, (at the average citizen’s expense, no less).

  5. It was only after the treacherous assassins struck that Labor really got into trouble.

    Bemused

    And despite Gillards treachery for all to see, the voters still gave Labor another three years.

    The libs have three years to change what they want before they have to worry about getting the boot.

  6. btw why are the conservatives here and elsewhere so worried and on the defensive
    Do they see …as we do..that Abbott has real defects which may bring him down…not to mention clowns lioke Barbarby Joyce who is a time bomb…great in opposiition but hopeless and a menace in govt

    I did not expect anything less. No doubt there is a chair sniffing incident happening now as we speak.

  7. bemused

    Perhaps we could send Fran to lecture the Taliban into submission?

    Regrettably, I don’t speak any Pashto but as Taliban means “students” perhaps they’d listen 😉

  8. deblonay

    Posted Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 3:03 pm | Permalink

    Tricot 2083
    _______
    Re your post…I agree and think your feelings are widespread

    btw why are the conservatives here and elsewhere so worried and on the defensive
    Do they see …as we do..that Abbott has real defects which may bring him down…not to mention clowns lioke Barbarby Joyce who is a time bomb…great in opposiition but hopeless and a menace in govt
    I watch him with great joy as I see him being a cause of great problems for them…Julie Bishop is just a hopeless case..a twit…brainless… and will ammount to nothing much

    ao Abbott has problems and his supporters are starting to wake up…hence their anxiety and rage…it wasn’t going to be like this for them was it ?

    ———————————————–

    Sadly, Deblonay – The *morning after* pill wont cure this complaint ….

  9. rummel@2104

    It was only after the treacherous assassins struck that Labor really got into trouble.


    Bemused

    And despite Gillards treachery for all to see, the voters still gave Labor another three years.

    The libs have three years to change what they want before they have to worry about getting the boot.

    Yeah, right! Now just who is going to lead them out of trouble?

    Australia now has it’s first bogan Prime Minister who is clearly not up to the job and they will be reluctant to replace him after seeing what happened when Labor did that. Hang on for a wild ride.

  10. Here, let me help.

    It was only after the treacherous assassins the traitorous Great Termite struck that Labor really got into trouble.

  12. Rummel

    Now I know you have a warped sense of humour, but “four terms”!

    I would think that within two terms we will see the death of a whole host of State conservative governments for starters.

    While it is unrealistic to expect Queensland to go down the gurgler next time, the time after that is another matter.

    Victoria is looking poor for the conservatives, the longer Abbott is in government improves the chances for SA and even WA come 2017 will not be all that wonderful.

    NSW is another matter as is probably Tassie at the moment.

    While conventional wisdom suggests most Federal governments get two terms, such is the plonking nature of Abbott just four weeks in, that it will all have to go his way for even two to happen.

    The electorate is nowhere near as forgiving as it used to be.

    The best thing for Labor is for Abbott to assume he will get two terms and watch the electorate cut him down – or more likely, his own party.

  13. Yeah, right! Now just who is going to lead them out of trouble?

    True, now JG has retired from politics. It won’t be The Termite that is for sure.

  14. Australia now has it’s first bogan Prime Minister who is clearly not up to the job and they will be reluctant to replace him after seeing what happened when Labor did that. Hang on for a wild ride.

    Ok then. Your just setting your self up for another ten years of let down like that under JWH.

  15. We always seemed to mess it up when Abbott was in a spot of bother and then the focus went back on to Labor.

    What would normally happen when Abbott came under pressure is Rudd would pop up with another round of whiteanting to put the focus back on Labor.

    Hopefully he keeps his trap shut this time and eschews his usual ‘look at me’ efforts.

  16. Puff, the Magic Dragon.@2109

    Here, let me help.

    It was only after the treacherous assassins struck that Labor really got into trouble.

    Oh Puffy, you will never make an editor.
    Not only did your edit make it factually incorrect but you had a ‘the the’ in it.

    I have no restored the correct text.

    One of these days I might give full vent to my feelings about Gillard and her cabal.

  17. Rummell

    And despite Gillards treachery for all to see, the voters still gave Labor another three years.

    The point is that the ALP was far more popular, as late as December 2009 than Abbott is now, and unlike Abbott, the ALP did get some popular reforms done while fending off the GFC. That counts.

    Unless Abbott can show some competence in government and the capacity to deal constructively with some problems he identifies his regime will rapidly give up support.

    It’s unlikely that “the boats” will abate but even if they do, this won’t win him many votes from ALP-inclined folk who voted against the leadersh|t circus or Rudd or corruption in NSW.

  18. , the Magic Dragon.

    Posted Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 3:13 pm | Permalink

    Yeah, right! Now just who is going to lead them out of trouble?

    True, now JG has retired from politics. It won’t be The Termite that is for sure.

    —————————————————-

    Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

    Albo or Shorten …… the NLP is on borrowed time ….

  19. How’s this for chutzpah:

    Prime Minister Tony Abbott has personally apologised to Malaysia’s leader for the way his country was caught up in the rancorous Australian political debate about asylum seekers.

    Mr Abbott says he offered an “act of contrition” to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak when they met for the first time on the sidelines of the APEC leaders summit in Bali on Monday night.

    “I said to Prime Minister Najib it was rather unfortunate that Malaysia had got caught up in a rather intense party political discussion in Australia,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

    It was Abbott’s fault entirely that the debate was rancorous and intense!

    I’m sick of this man and his bullshit.

  20. Puff, the Magic Dragon.@2112

    Yeah, right! Now just who is going to lead them out of trouble?


    True, now JG has retired from politics. It won’t be The Termite that is for sure.

    Knowing who you inaccurately refer to as the termite, I fail to see your point.

    I was asking who would lead the Libs out of trouble.

  22. Bemused

    One of these days I might give full vent to my feelings about Gillard and her cabal.

    Go for it, get it off your chest, you might feel a lot better.

  23. Bemused

    I think Steve Gibbons got it 101% correct, spot on, perfecto, and bullseye regarding your hero.

    I have thought about this long and hard and know it’s the correct view, the orthodox view, and the view that history will enshrine.

    JG is a classy lady and was a wonderful Labor PM.

  24. Now I know you have a warped sense of humour, but “four terms”!

    Yes. I reserve the right to change my mine after Kevin departs parliament. I still think there is a chance of Kevin running again.

  25. Bemused,
    Oh, I didn’t read your post properly.
    I just assumed your were spruiking for the Termite’s return. I expect it, but maybe it is too soon for you.

  26. The problems for the conservatives are all big ones.

    So far, the rorts issue is just entrees.

    *The Senate will be hostile for 8 months and then a circus. The Carbon Price/MRRT bits of legislation are largely symbolic issues now and if and when they are turned over, no one person will actually care that much. Tougher will be for Hockey to explain why $580 has not been reduced from power bills.

    *There will be no surplus in the foreseeable future. And, even if there were, yet another symbolic issue.

    *The world economy could go belly up. Of course, the conservatives are not responsible for this, but as they cut no slack during the GFC the can expect none in return.

    *Despite Abbott’s best efforts a Mushroom Government there will be a number of scandals and conflicts which will all debilitate his already weak government.

    There is no cheering in the streets for the conservatives and even their supporters here are still angry.

  27. Peter Brent ‏@mumbletwits 30m
    “They want to cane them!” was typical of Abbott’s parliamentary rants re Malaysia.

    Nobody held a gun to Abbott’s head and forced him to use the highly inflammatory rhetoric that he did.

  28. psyclaw

    Posted

    JG is a classy lady and was a wonderful Labor PM.

    ———————————————–

    ALL Labour PMs are wonderful !!! Now, more than ever – we need a Labour PM badly 😉

  29. rummel

    Yes. I reserve the right to change my mine after Kevin departs parliament. I still think there is a chance of Kevin running again.

    You’re obviously bored-batsh#t.

    Go and save a goat or something.

  31. psyclaw@2122

    Bemused

    I think Steve Gibbons got it 101% correct, spot on, perfecto, and bullseye regarding your hero.

    I have thought about this long and hard and know it’s the correct view, the orthodox view, and the view that history will enshrine.

    JG is a classy lady and was a wonderful Labor PM.

    :stifled vomiting:

    The reason I don’t bucket Gillard is that it is of no help to Labor to do so. Of course her backers have never shown any such restraint.

  33. rummel

    I still think there is a chance of Kevin running again.

    That is an evil curse to inflict on the ALP.

    What the hell do you think we are, masochists?

  34. Bridie Jabour ‏@bkjabour 2m
    It’s weird to see how this expenses story has “tipped”. So many journos were aware of pollie pedal for ages and nobody cared until now.

    I love how political journalists refer to this other media over there, that they aren’t a part of when it suits them.

  36. Puff, the Magic Dragon.@2124

    Bemused,
    Oh, I didn’t read your post properly.
    I just assumed your were spruiking for the Termite’s return. I expect it, but maybe it is too soon for you.

    I think Rudd will leave parliament at the next election or possibly earlier if offered a suitable job and if the polls are such that Labor will retain Griffith.

    There is universal recognition in Caucus that he will not lead again.

  38. Bemused,
    Rubbish, you bagged her for ever since she saved us from KR, and especially after she formed gov’t in 2010.

    As for Rudd, I couldn’t get hold of enough gold paper in all of China to gild that lily.

  42. Bmused

    One thing I can agree with you about is that Albo should get the gig.

    Both have been asked today for their view about wedding rorts.

    Shorten gave a wishy washy, vacillating, wimpy reply along the lines that these things are hard to decide and they need a good review. He spoke quietly, and “studious;y” about it.

    Albo when asked, said that they had done is wrong etc etc ….. and put the boot in, albeit mildly and calmly. But he did not back away.

    I think it is in Shorten’s nature to talk in a slightly wimpy way, a bit long winded, and not usually straight to the point. But at the present moment this approach appears to be amplified a bit and I think he is on a rehab campaign of showing hisself to be extra calm, extra non-aggro, extra wise, extra stable etc and not the allegedly prime enabler of the Rudd and JG demises.

    Shorten said today that in Opposition they need to be totally focussed on positive and good policy rather than being negative. I hope he doesn’t mean by that that as leader he would not put the boot into the Pug Monkey, swift and hard, as often as necessary.

  43. comfessions

    Abbott has no intention of paying back the ironman money cos he reckons it was a community event in a marginal seat. Ruddock also has no intention of repaying money to attend slipper’s wedding cos he reckons he was AG at time and Slipper was on legal committee. You know it makes sense

  44. The past IS the past

    All you get from looking back all the time is a bloody sore neck

    We ALL need to focus on this “dodgy brothers” PM and his Cabinet ….. and make his stay as short as his memory with his rorts

  45. Puff, the Magic Dragon.
    Posted Tuesday, October 8, 2013 at 3:24 pm | PERMALINK
    rummel

    I still think there is a chance of Kevin running again.

    That is an evil curse to inflict on the ALP.

    What the hell do you think we are, masochists?

    Desperate Labor members do very desperate things…. Get rid of a first term PM, get rid of a first term female PM, anything is possible with Labor.

  47. I think a few in the Coalition are coming round to the very cold and hard realisation that they’re not in opposition anymore … and Tony Abbott is their leader …

    Could get very funny very quickly

  48. Bemused

    Berocca or even a shot of Buscopan.

    I thought you were a man of steel and here you are vomittin just because you are faced with the truth.

    The truth always gets you, right in the gastro region! 🙂

  50. I think Rudd will leave parliament at the next election or possibly earlier if offered a suitable job and if the polls are such that Labor will retain Griffith.

    I don’t get Rudd. I would on a beach someplace sipping a drink, writing a book about Gillard.

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