Seat of the week: Wright

Because nothing says Merry Christmas like a review of a safe-ish conservative seat in south-eastern Queensland.

Wright was created at the 2010 election as the latest new seat to be gained by Queensland as part of its ongoing population boom, taking on territory from the Gold Coast electorates of McPherson, Moncrieff and Fadden together with rural areas out to the New South Wales border, which had previously been in Forde and to a smaller extent Rankin. The Gold Coast area had historically been covered by Moreton and later by McPherson and Moncrieff, which were respectively created with the enlargements of parliament in 1949 and 1984, while the north-western areas were covered by Darling Downs and its successor Groom after 1984.

The electorate is lacking a clear centre, combining the inland edge of the Gold Coast and Brisbane’s southern hinterland, Warrego Highway towns to the east of Toowoomba, and rural territory in between. All of its component areas have traditionally been solid for the conservatives, but double-digit swings in Forde and Blair at the 2007 election gave the seat a relatively modest notional Liberal/Nationals margin of 4.8% going into the 2010 election. This has since been boosted by successive swings of 6.4% and 1.7% at the 2010 and 2013 elections.

Wright has been held since its inception by Scott Buchholz, who had previously been chief-of-staff to Barnaby Joyce. Although his background was with the Nationals, the seat had been reserved for the Liberals under the terms of Liberal National Party merger and he sits in the Liberal party room in Canberra. The LNP’s original choice for the seat had been Hajnal Ban, a Logan City councillor who ran for the Nationals in for Forde at the 2007 election. However, Ban was dumped for failing to disclose Civil and Administrative Tribunal action against her over her use of power-of-attorney over the finances of an elderly former council colleague, for which a conviction was recorded against her in 2012. An unsuccessful contender at both preselections was Cameron Thompson, who held Blair for the Liberals from 1998 until his defeat in 2007. Buchholz attained the position of government whip following the election of the Abbott government in September 2013.

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.

1,040 comments on “Seat of the week: Wright”

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  1. GG

    [I hope the meds are working for you!]

    That remark from you is both unnecessary and unwarranted.

    There are none so blind as they who will not see.

  2. Victoria,

    [Abbott is devout only to Auntie Gina and Uncle Rupert. And of course, the evil George Pell]

    Would that be his not-so-Holy Trinity?

  5. Mad Dog

    I think Pell’s evil actions that you speak of had been derived by his protection of the church which he finally acknowledged was wrong.

    Pell might be an ideological and religious fruit loop but he can be whatever fruit loop he desires, like anyone else I suppose.

  7. GG

    No! Put a case for what you stand for if it is important to you.

    Dissing everyone who doesn’t agree with you is not really intelligent behavior.

  9. GG, No answer, I see, just groundless abuse, as is your wont. All other bludgers have you sussed by now. Thanks for acknowledging Pell’s evil nature. No slander, since he admitted it, and apologised for it. Doesn’t make it any less evil. You assessing me as mentally ill follows your normal pattern. I’ll let others judge. The people who pay me thousands a day to generate optimisation models for them don’t think I’m mentally ill. Nor do my family and friends, and I’m certainly not on any meds. I believe your assessment to be faulty. Perhaps you have difficulty in discerning truth from falsehood. I’ll leave that to others to decide, as well. Spifflicate away, I have pleasant things to do.

    Don’t be too sad.

    MD

  11. GG ‘I hope the meds are working for you!’ You can’t stand hearing any criticism of the CC can you? You will try every trick (in this case ridicule) to silence critics. As I said earlier, it was people like you that let them get away with their heinous crimes.

  12. Tricot,

    [Golly, I hope we can put the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War, the Battle of the Boyne and the St Valentine’s Massacre behind us today?]

    That reminds me of the old Hagar the Horrible cartoon:

    (ferocious battle scene between Hagar and his Vikings and some enemy)

    Hagar’s mate: I’ve forgotten what are we fighting for!

    Hagar: Who cares…keep going – we’re winning!!!

  15. Tricot 921

    [Golly, I hope we can put the 100 Years War, the 30 Years War, the Battle of the Boyne and the St Valentine’s Massacre behind us today?]

    I think you mean the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The St Valentine’s Day Massacre was a mob massacre led by Capone in the 1920s.

  16. Mad Dog,

    And your dissertation was anything but mindless abuse, lies and provocation. You come on here all bile and bitterness and expect instantaneous agreement to your emotional claptrap.

    Seriously, why would anyone take you seriously?

  18. @smssiva/851

    No, because most of those are outside of my control – cost wise.

    Things like Rego, Insurance, Bills are always increasing (regardless of Labor/Lib Goverment).

    Also, $28,000 is not $25,000, so I be in the RED.

    3,000 per year in the RED.

  21. O poor GG and his loyalty is to be admired, only yesterday he declared that workplace accidents were the faults of the workers and St Vinnies had no requirement to look after injured workers 😉

  24. GG, try as you might to be flippant, ‘I started the Middle East crisis’ unless you come out and condemn the Catholic Church for its terrible crimes, you are implying what they did is ok. Simple.

  25. MTBW

    True many of Vinnies workers are volunteers but they also have many paid employees particularly in other parts of the organisation.

  28. Interesting discussion about wages last nite.
    I put it to Sean, that 25 K P.A is not a level of income that anyone can live on.
    Betya Sean would whinge the loudest if he was forced to live on it.
    How does he expect people to feed their families on an income that low, let alone pay the Mortgage/pay the bills.
    What about any emergencies ?
    They don’t call it a Living wage for nothing, Sean.
    There is only one reason for your reluctance to employ people because you “can’t afford to pay more than 25 K, and that’s greed.

  34. [Look has Pell actually been convicted of any crimes or is this just the usual mad prosody
    “Beast of Babylon” stuff.]

    Whatever it is, it is so frickin boring!

  40. I would like to know how it is that every year for their Christmas message these religious fruit loops seem to know exactly what God is thinking and what he wants.

    It’s just too silly, the older I get the sillier it all sounds!

  41. [Betya Sean would whinge the loudest if he was forced to live on it.]

    Mate I built my business from the ground up and have worked hard for years to get it to where it is now.

    What I’m suggesting with a $25K pa wage is taking someone off the unemployment queue… off centrelink… into the workforce.. training them… so they can work their way up.

    You seem to think people should be paid top dollar from day 1.

  45. MTBW,

    The Kevin Rudd airhostess school of charm.

    Same answer every time to that repetitive question.

    I know you went to a Catholic School. So, you’re clearly uneducated.

  47. I.T services mate mainly for business.

    Would love to hire an additionally techie.. but this countries excessively high base rates mean I can’t and they will have to stay in the dole queue.

  49. OK Tisme

    What salary would you feel comfortable paying a so called “techie”?

    Surely you realise that you must compete for their services with other organisations.

    The Liberals want to take money out of education and training so their no help to you.

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