Bowman covers Brisbane’s coastal outer south from Thorneside through Capalaba and Sheldon to Redland Bay, and extends across the southern part of Moreton Bay to North Stradbroke Island. It has existed in name since 1949, but did not include any of its current territory until 1969, instead being based in Brisbane’s inner south-east. The 1969 redistribution caused the redrawn electorate to extend from the mouths of the Brisbane River in the north to the Logan River in the south, the latter also marking the Bowman’s southern extremity today. The area now covered by Bowman began to acquire its suburban character at around this time. With the redistribution of 1977, the southern part of the electorate came to be accommodated by the newly created electorate of Fadden. Bowman’s present dimensions were established when its northern neighbour Bonner was created to accommodate the Wynnum-Manly area at the 2004 election, setting Thorneside as the northern extremity of Bowman.
Bowman in its various permutations has been a marginal seat for most of its history, having been held by the Liberals throughout the Menzies and Holt years outside of a win by Labor as part of its near-victory at the 1961 election. It next changed hands with the big swing to Labor under Gough Whitlam’s leadership in 1969, and would henceforth go with the government of the day until 1998. Leonard Keogh held the seat for Labor from 1969 to 1975 and again after 1983, and also contested unsuccessfully in 1977 and 1980. Keogh was defeated for preselection in 1987 by Con Sciacca, who lost the seat to Liberal candidate Andrea West in 1996 before winning it back again in 1998. The Liberal member during the Fraser years was David Jull, who re-emerged as member for Fadden in 1984.
The reorganisation caused by the creation of Bonner in 2004 boosted the Liberal margin in Bowman by 4.4%, prompting Sciacca to unsuccessfully try his hand in Bonner. Bowman meanwhile was won by Liberal candidate Andrew Laming, an ophthalmologist and World Bank health consultant who added a solid 5.9% to the notional Liberal margin of 3.0%. Laming spent much of 2007 under the shadow of the “printgate” affair, in which he was investigated for allegedly claiming $67,000 to print campaign material for state election candidates, before being cleared two months before the election. After rumblings that the affair might cost him his preselection, Laming survived an 8.9% swing to Labor at the 2007 election to hold on by 64 votes. He had a much easier time of it in 2010, his 10.4% swing being strong even by the standards of Queensland at that election. There was a correction in Labor’s favour of 1.5% at the 2013 election, going slightly against the trend of a 1.3% statewide swing to the Liberal National Party.
Laming was promoted to the position of shadow parliamentary secretary for regional health services and indigenous health after the 2010 election, but was dropped after the Abbott government came to power.
I’ve had it bookmarked for a few days and finally got around to reading Mark Latham Not dead yet: the future of Labor is in grassroots politics
I have never been a fan of Latham and have thought a lot of his ideas have been rather whacky, but there is a lot in this that makes sense.
This is particularly pertinent.
[It is in the DNA of the left to obsess about remaking the market and redistributing wealth, but in practical terms, redistribution is a dead-end for the Labor party. Labor should now think about its role in terms of what I call “light-touch social democracy.” Future governments will not need to be a whirring frenzy of activity, with senior ministers trying to juggle scores of issues simultaneously. Rather, with responsible economic policies and core social services intact, they can focus on three priorities: education, poverty and climate change.]
guytaur
So they should also have places to get drunk and shoot up, by that logic.
zoomster
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 10:53 am | Permalink
Banning smoking in jails could drive the tobacco trade underground and make more work for prison officers, Corrective Services Minister Joe Francis says.
So, on that logic, let’s legalise heroin and alcohol in jails as well.
===================================================
Oh dear. I did not expect such an immature simplistic comment from you.
Rex Douglas@98
Fixed it for you Rex, but I do think expelling Gillard would have been a tad extreme.
zoomster
Actually I think heroin should be legalised to take the business model away from the crime so that part of your argument does not wash with me.
The reality is though these substances have been banned from prison for at least decades. Cigarettes a legal product is another matter.
You are still arguing the lets not treat them as human beings and make sure the resentment grows and crime increases not decreases approach of tough on law and order.
The solution to smoking in prisons is not as simplistic as some would think.
And comparing it to the provision of alcohol or drugs is just plain dumb.
Can someone please set me on the right track. In the HoR a result under 100 triggers a recount (as an aside I would be interested to know how and when that figure was determined) but in the senate a recount is not automatic. Am I correct in saying the WA AEC was originally non supportive of the recount.
Assantdj
Fed AEC overrode State from memory
AussieAchmed
Colon Barnett is racking them up at one hell of a rate.
[Premier Barnett has a habit of forgetting his promises to the people of WA.]
http://www.brokenpromises.org.au/
Assanddj correct that a HofR recount is automatic if the result is under 100 and no fixed rule for the Senate. The AEC decided on the WA recount and probably wished they hadn’t now.
Another presser for Greens. Labor coming soon?
@emjay505: Chinalco says #mining boom has decades to run http://t.co/hWz8jVBTok via @smh
The real question is are the voters of WA having buyer’s remorse or are they going to emphatically endorse the Coalition.
I think the WA voters I know are vote ALP or Green but what about the rest of the electorate?
Stopping prisoners from smoking is almost a form of torture. I can’t see it ending well.
Did Milne fess up about the 1375 votes?
Who pays for the ciggies now?
Nice find!
[NEARLY 1500 paintings including works by Picasso and Matisse that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in a German flat, a newspaper has reported Sunday, putting their total value at around 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion). ]
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/germany-finds-1500-paintings-including-works-by-picasso-and-matisse-that-were-looted-by-nazis-report/story-fni6um3i-1226752453231
[Not just NBN. What other cuts are happening before the WA election?]
NBN was pretty much non existant in WA because the contractor had pulled out. Another Labor failure.
And besides this is a Senate election… more important things will be on the punters minds, like why is Labor and the Extreme Greens trying to block Tony Abbotts mandate to Axe the Carbon Tax?
Their ruthless tendencies have certainly been exposed in recent years
[ Julia Gillard’s nuclear destruction of the Labor vote is one thing but the lack of appropriate response (expulsion) to the destruction by the ALP shows a complete breakdown in its purpose.]
It is insane to imply Rudd had anything to do with destruction of Labor’s vote.
Rudd Labor was going along fine at 52/48 … better than the norm of previous governments and looking good like previous first governments to be comfortably returned…………..UNTIL………..
Labor’s vote was perfectly fine, the PV fine…all was well…..UNTIL the powerbrokers and Gillard thought it would be easy just to stab a first term PM, replace him with Gillard who would zoom to popularity…and nobdoy would notice….all for the sake of protecting factional power.
That stupid, self indulgent act of betrayal by the power brokers and Gillard was a dagger through the heart of Labor….and it bled to death after that until the very last…when then the reinstallation of Rudd puts blood back in the body….and the total and absolute wipe out of Labor avoided.
If anything…Gillard should be apologizing to Rudd, Labor and the Australian people for her supreme act of selfishness…not to mention her backers.
Stopping smoking in prisons.
It was done in some states of the USA. California banned them without any lead up time.
A single cigarette now fetches $25-$65 in USA prisons. More expensive than cannabis in some.
In WA smoking was banned in cells. All matches and lighters removed. Prisoners then started using 240v power outlets and light fittings to make their own lighters. No only the risk of electrocution but starting fire. Lighters became a contraband.
The WA Senate election will be a referendum on the Carbon Tax Mark II.
Will Labor listen after getting their arses handed to them twice in a row?
Abbott will try and make any election about the CPRS and MRRT.
[guytaur:
Rudd has been a destructive and divisive force within Labor for many years now. His craven cowardice and selfishness have done the party no favours at all, and the good things he did are far outweighed by the devastation he wrought.
He needs to retire from parliament.
by confessions on Nov 4, 2013 at 9:53 am]
Let me say that I think you are particularly dishonest, when the facts abound that Gillard and her backers were the prime divisive force within Labor. The destroyed a first term PM for no reason, set about a very long public camapaign of character assasination that did more damage to themselves and Labor than to Rudd….all in order to justify their betrayal of Rudd. It was Gillard and her backers leaking against and betraying Rudd in order to reinstate powerbroker control of the party.
But they are the facts and parts of history you want to ignore….your opinions only relate to the activities of rapists after the event, stating how good they were, and bad the victim was.
Bemused, your vocation of carrying the torch for Rudd displays considerable loyalty. However, it also displays an unwillingness to recognise and accept the truth. Rudd is a disloyal egomaniac who had done extensive damage to not only the ALP but also this country.
The vast majority of the responsibility for having a LNP Government today can be sheeted home to Rud and his three years plus of undermining the Gillard Government.
In my opinion he is not fit to collect the garbage let alone run the country.
You continual habit of taking the posts of others, bastardising them and claiming that you have “fixed” their post is extremely immature and annoying.
Rudd is not only yesterday’s man now he will go down in history as the “rat” that limited the ALP’s term in government to 6 years.
guytaur
I actually agree with you regarding drugs – if we can’t get rid of them, let’s make sure that those who are taking them aren’t risking their health further. However, the whole point of a prison system is that certain activities are forbidden. Some of these are quite legal activities in the wider world.
If you want to use the ‘it’s legal, let ’em rip’ argument, then it should also apply to alcohol as well.
AA
Hospitals (at least in Victoria) are now no smoking zones. Staff provide patients who are smokers with nicotine patches. Staff who wish to smoke have to leave hospital premises to do so (given the size of some hospitals, that’s quite a hike).
I’ve not heard a squeak from anyone anywhere that this causes major problems for hospitals, their patients, or their staff.
I’m arguing for consistency of approach. Alcoholism is an addiction, just as smoking is, and heroin is. We expect prisoners – and the prison system – to go cold turkey on two of them. Why not the third?
If a prisoner leaves jail having given up smoking because he’s had to, I can’t see why that’s a bad thing.
[ and the good things he did are far outweighed by the devastation he wrought.]
And of course that devestation was created by Gillard, not only in her stabbing Labor and Rudd in the heart but by then being one of Labor’s most incompetent national leaders. An administrator she was, a leader, abject failure where she fumbled even the most positive of policies.
Gillard so trashed Labor’s vote that 30 HOR seats would have been lucky.
[Abbott will try and make any election about the CPRS and MRRT.]
And WA is the perfect state to do it! 🙂
I have to laugh at the Labor hacks who think it will be about the NBN seeing the NBN was a complete and utter !FAIL! in WA under Labor… only a handful of the houses promised actually connected and the contractor for the state went tits up. If the election is on the NBN, Labor are in trouble 🙂
Ratsars@125
What drugs are you on?
Boerwar
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 11:25 am | Permalink
Who pays for the ciggies now?
=======================================
Prisoners buy their own smokes
AA
and similar problems – far greater ones – are caused by drug addiction in prisons.
As for cigarette lighters being contraband, I’m surprised they’re not already, regardless of whether smoking’s banned or not.
[What drugs are you on?]
See what I mean?
A Senate election will be a referendum on the Abbott Govt lack of performance.
The breach of the “no surprises, no excuses” promise.
zoomster
You keep arguing the tough on law and order line. We know that increases not decreases crime.
“@ABCNews24: Finance Minister Mathias Cormann holding a news conference in Canberra now http://t.co/3YXdj7UeVK #auspol”
How can prisoners earn money to buy their own smokes?
lizzie@132
Well how would you explain that level of delusion? 😛
I have been told its really hard to manage prisoners and prisons are managed through a series of rewards for good behaviour and denial of privileges for punishment. I pity the prison officers working in a smoke free prison – it would be a tinder box
zoomster
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 11:43 am | Permalink
AA
and similar problems – far greater ones – are caused by drug addiction in prisons.
As for cigarette lighters being contraband, I’m surprised they’re not already, regardless of whether smoking’s banned or not.
=====================================================
This were we go back as far as the early 1980’s when the then state Liberal Govt set the standard. Prisons will be have what is the community standard.
In the community people have a TV, DVD player, CD player, cigarette lighter etc. The punishment is the deprivation of the prisoners freedom. Denying access to things like TV etc is a form of punishment that goes further than intended by the law.
The WA AEC Commissioner sounds resigned to there being another election.
[“We’re left with a nagging and almost irreconcilable doubt about the outcome of the West Australian Senate election.”]
no, guytaur, I’m not arguing anything to do with how we should deal with crime at all – in fact, my original (sarcastic) post recommended doing nothing about crime at all.
I read a book (by a serious criminologist) about twenty years ago, which began with him saying with utmost seriousness that everyone had realised that jails were obsolete, and that they wouldn’t exist in a few decades time (he stated it as accepted fact, not opinion).
If it were up to me, I’d reduce the numbers in our jails almost overnight, by decriminalising personal drug use. I’d like to go further and see ‘hard’ drugs available on prescription.
However, arguing that we shouldn’t ban smoking in prisons -when it is banned in other publically run institutions – because it will create more work for prison authorities is simply silly.
If the aim is to make the lives of prison authorities easier, then surely we should wind back all the other items which we presently ban.
As for ‘removing cigarettes is a form of torture’, so is locking people up in cells.
Boerwar
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 11:50 am | Permalink
How can prisoners earn money to buy their own smokes?
=======================================================
Prisoners are required to work. For that work are paid a gratuity. Depending on their job depends on the rate they are paid. They can use this money to purchase items from a canteen that operates in the prison. They can purchase items like potato chips, chocolates, smokes, CD’s etc. Easiest way to describe a canteen is it is like a corner deli.
They do not have cash, it is like a bank account.
They can also use the gratuities money to pay off fines.
[I was with Rupert Murdoch himself in his office at the Sydney Daily Mirror when he sent for a pile of current expense chits and demonstrated how he went through them item by item.
I was also with him on many occasions when he tore parking infringement notices from the windscreens of company cars and threw the notices into the gutter. It was an even clearer demonstration to me that he considered himself above the law — any law!
When I explained to him that unpaid infringements would be subject to double the original charge, he simple shrugged and went on doing it.]
http://www.independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/following-the-murdoch-money-trail,5862
AA
and in the real world, people have access to drugs and alcohol.
AA #133 personally I doubt most people think the same as you do. I doubt very much that PB is a representative sample of the population and in particular the WA sub-set.
zoomster
Its not black and white. I don’t know why you are arguing like it is.
I gave my solution and as you can see from that its got nothing to do with what is easy or hard for prison management.
The whole argument for this ban is OHWS with a bonus health outcome for the prisoners.
This is all about what is safe for those that work in prison bugger the prisoners needs and wants.
Just like banning syringes bugger the death sentence or massive ill effects that brings with HIV and Hep C spreading. If that was truly recognised during sentencing no one would go to prison
In this case the workplace safety can be fixed by having the smoking outdoors just like we do for workers in entertainment venues
Poroti
“Sandgropia” – love it.
I would think any Liberal campaign for the Senate in WA, if it comes to it, will be just another set of slogans.
Something along the lines of “Don’t Trust Labor” or “Tony Really Loves You”, or “Look at the Reviews: Forget the promises”, or “Debt, what debt?” or “You Didn’t Make a Mistake” or “WA is Really Important to Us”….just so many options.
Meanwhile LRight” or “Send a message personally to Tony/Colin” or “Where is Our…NBN, light railway, railway to the airport (fill in all Liberal broken promises)?
For PUP the theme might be – “We’ve got the money” or “Clive will fix it for you”.
For the Greens….um? “Scott is a Nice Guy”.
For the minors: “Give us a go! Lucky dip! Take a chance!”.
I suppose that (ex-)prisoners with lung cancer are lining up to sue the government, aka the long-suffering taxpayer.
Whoops lost @147
Meanwhile Labor might come up with “We Will Put It Right or…..
zoomster@141
Yes, drug addiction is a health issue and should be treated as such.
Distribution of prohibited substances is rightly a crime and should continue to be treated as such.
I have always thought that the “Safe Injecting Rooms” were the exact opposite of what ought to be done. They allowed the use of illicit substances obtained from criminals.
We already have plenty of “Safe Injecting Rooms” widely dispersed throughout the community. They are known as Hospitals and Doctors Surgeries and they can safely inject any vaccine or prescribed medication. Absence of “Safe Injecting Rooms” was never a problem. What has been a problem is that addicts are forced to resort to criminals to obtain the drugs they are medically addicted to.
Solution? Register addicts, prescribe their drug as part of a treatment plan, and allow Medical Practitioners or Practice Nurses to administer injections of the prescribed drug of known purity and dose. Cut the crims out of it entirely.