Seat of the week: Maranoa

Covering Queensland’s south-western interior, Maranoa has been in National/Country Party hands without interruption for over 70 years, current member Bruce Scott having assumed the seat in 1990.

Teal numbers indicate size of two-party majority for the Liberal National Party. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Created at federation and fairly constant in its boundaries ever since, Maranoa covers a vast expanse of south-western Queensland accounting for about 40% of the state’s surface area. Most of its voters are concentrated at the inner end of the state’s populous south-eastern corner, including the centres of Kingaroy, Dalby and Warwick to the north, west and south of Toowoomba (which has formed the basis of Groom since 1984, and Darling Downs beforehand). Centres further inland include Roma and Charleville on the Warrego Highway, and Barcaldine and Longreach on the Landsborough Highway further north. The seat’s Liberal National Party margin after the 2013 election is 22.4%, making it the third safest Coalition seat in the country after Parkes in New South Wales and Mallee in Victoria.

Reflecting a familiar pattern in rural Queensland, Maranoa started life as a Labor stronghold and progressively moved to the other extreme with the decline of the shearing and railway workforce. The first changeover occurred in 1921 upon the death of the seat’s inaugural Labor member, Jim Page, initiating a by-election won for the Country Party by James Hunter. The seat returned to the Labor fold when Hunter retired in 1940, but Labor’s Francis Baker was unseated after a single term, emerging the only Labor member to lose his seat amid the party’s national landslide in 1943. It was then held for the Country Party by Charles Adermann until he moved to the new seat of Fisher with the expansion of parliament in 1949, which he would eventually bequeath to his son Evan in 1972.

Adermann’s successor at the 1949 election was Charles Russell, who quit the Country Party less than a year after his election and unsuccessfully contested the seat as an independent in both 1951 and 1954, falling 1.1% short on the latter occasion in the absence of a Labor candidate. That would mark the last occasion when the Country Party’s grip on the seat was seriously troubled, a 9.7% swing at the 1966 election pushing the margin into double digits where it has remained ever since. The National/Country members through this period were Wilfred Brindlecombe until 1966, James Corbett until 1980, and Ian Cameron until 1990. There were suggestions ahead of the 1998 election that a threat might loom from One Nation, but in the event they could only manage third place behind Labor on 22.4%. A 9.7% swing at the 1966 election pushed the margin well into double digits, where it has remained ever since.

The seat’s present long-serving incumbent is Bruce Scott, who served in the junior ministry as Veterans Affairs Minister for the first two terms of the Howard government, losing the position when the Nationals’ weak electorate performance in 2001 reduced its share of the spoils. In October 2012 he became Deputy Speaker, filling the vacancy created by Anna Burke’s rise to the Speakership following Peter Slipper’s resignation, and has retained the position in government. Barnaby Joyce had hoped to facilitate his move from the Senate to the House by replacing Scott in Maranoa at the last election, but Scott was determined to serve another term and Joyce dismissed the notion of challenging him for preselection, saying it would be “self-indulgent personality politics”. He instead opted to cross the state boundary and contest the northern New South Wales seat of New England.

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.

2,772 comments on “Seat of the week: Maranoa”

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  1. A Liberal mouthpiece got sacked as editor by The West for being too hard on the Liberal Party, but since he is still a columnist must clearly have been “owed favours”? Somebody fetch me a Bex.

  3. MTBW

    The link worked fine for me in the email and from my post using Safari. Sorry I can’t help.

    https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/President_Barack_Obama_Obama_to_Abbott_out_of_the_way/?btXyIab&v=40639

    Already nearly past 20,000 signatures. Abbott is a fool if he thinks he can dictate to the world’s leaders the way he does to Australia. Canada will be his only supporter at G20. He will have to rename it the G2, or perhaps the D2, for Dumb and Dumber.

  7. MTBW@156

    Thanks all it just worked and I am using Chrome.

    The petition is just rolling over and over – Poor Tone!

    Yes, I have never seen one move so fast before.

  11. mikehilliard

    Meet three of the most important financial people In the world ? Nah. Poonce around in lycra .Yep. Priorities dear boy?

  12. aCTUAlly, it is a pity Gillard didn’t rid us of the toxic little rudd toad earlier. Maybe before the gutless scoundrel sold Garrett down the river over the Home Insulation scheme. If he was a fish, we would be trawling for Yellow Belly.

  13. Dee

    Appalling! I gather the female was gathering up the money on the pathway.

    Glad he got nine years – this is not what Australia is all about.

  17. One thing we can say is that both Gillard and Rudd have post politics positions that Abbott would be incapable of doing.

    All he can aspire to is afternoons on 2GB.

  21. William@151

    Are you not so well?

    “Eyes rolling” a week or two ago, a “Bex” for today.

    Is it all a bit too much for you at the present?

    My central point, despite your sneering words regarding Murray, still stand.

    Haven’t you got better things to do than to waste your time on my infrequent (compared to some) contributions here?

  24. Puff, the Magic Dragon.@162

    aCTUAlly, it is a pity Gillard didn’t rid us of the toxic little rudd toad earlier. Maybe before the gutless scoundrel sold Garrett down the river over the Home Insulation scheme. If he was a fish, we would be trawling for Yellow Belly.

    Get over it Puffy.

  25. Tricot, I didn’t actually recall who it was that I directed the rolled-eyes at, so you can put to rest any notion that I’ve made a decision to pick on you. You just happen to have made two comments in a week that leapt off the page at me as being particularly silly. Granted though that they were probably no worse than most of the rest of what partisans have to say about journalists on the internet.

  26. Victoria

    Perhaps. But I think her subtext, that the video isn’t really particularly damaging because it’s not coming from sometime with influence, is accurate.

  27. adam abdool@166

    I see Puff is looking for a fight. Over to you, Bemused, not that you need an invite given the subject.

    Not interested mate. I have decided Puff and a few others are in need of psychiatric care.

  29. Change of mind or playing games ?

    [ Scott Morrison says family of dead asylum seeker can travel to Australia

    Officials contact family of Tamil who set himself on fire in Geelong, but relatives say they have not heard from Canberra

    …”Either Morrison is getting the wrong advice from his department or he is simply trying to misinform the Australian people,” he said in a statement.

    “Whatever is the case, it is an absolute disgrace that he won’t intervene to help this family in a moment of dire need.”]

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/07/scott-morrison-family-dead-asylum-seeker-australia

  30. Regarding Gilliard and Rudd, I have something to say….

    Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances is more enjoyable than any of the Symphonies outlined by K17. However I do see the point regarding the more famous 9th.

  32. MTBW@163

    Dee

    Appalling! I gather the female was gathering up the money on the pathway.

    Glad he got nine years – this is not what Australia is all about.

    What I found equally shocking was the people just walking by in full view of what was happening. 🙁

    Such cowards will usually turn and run if challenged.

  34. Bemused

    [I have decided Puff and a few others are in need of psychiatric care.]

    If another poster made that remark you would immediately be up in arms. I think you should withdraw it.

  36. lizzie@184

    Bemused

    I have decided Puff and a few others are in need of psychiatric care.


    If another poster made that remark you would immediately be up in arms. I think you should withdraw it.

    No.

  37. [aCTUAlly, it is a pity Gillard didn’t rid us of the toxic little rudd toad earlier. Maybe before the gutless scoundrel sold Garrett down the river over the Home Insulation scheme. If he was a fish, we would be trawling for Yellow Belly.]

    excuse me….Gillard is the little toad that hung on until she ruined Labor, having among other things tried to get rid of action on CPRS. The selfish gillard thinking of her own power…if only Rudd had acted earlier to wipe out factional scum…no?

  38. @170

    [I look back on my period of unemployment in the mid-’90s as an awful time. As a spirit-crushing fog in which day-to-day life was shadowed constantly by feelings of frustration, worthlessness and worry.]

    Abbott will never understand the nuance of that statement.

  39. MTBW@185

    Mike and bemused

    We have a lot to blame bloody Morrison for.

    If you are referring to that attack on the refugee, I am not sure how much is the Morrison generated nastiness and how much is caused by drugs, particularly ice.

    Both are toxic influences that should be removed from society.

  42. Translated from Indonesian but does this mean SBY is looking to move to Australia?

    [Abbott I will prove the existence of a new relationship between Indonesia and Australia as soon as possible before you come to Australia. SBY I am very pleased to join with that. And, we can meet before August, as in June, then we can prove the existence of such a relationship. I believe our relationship will be stronger and brings profits to one another. In June, I was prepared to do the same work meeting at Monash University.]

    Some very odd statements.

  44. poroti 161
    Meet three of the most important financial people In the world ? Nah. Poonce around in lycra .Yep. Priorities dear boy?

    It may because He’s a global warming sceptic but it could be because if he started talking about great big debt and financial crisis the would laugh their heads off and point out he’s an idiot.

  45. MTBW@190

    bemused

    I understand that but Morrison’s language is appalling and he calls himself a Christian/

    Yeah? Well I call him a fundy nutter.
    I see nothing in their beliefs that fits with my knowledge of the New Testament.

  46. Hopefully SBY may do some work etc at Monash on Indonesian – Australian Relations when he finishes up as Indonesian President ?

    Sounds a good idea to me.

  48. ruawake@192

    Translated from Indonesian but does this mean SBY is looking to move to Australia?

    Abbott I will prove the existence of a new relationship between Indonesia and Australia as soon as possible before you come to Australia. SBY I am very pleased to join with that. And, we can meet before August, as in June, then we can prove the existence of such a relationship. I believe our relationship will be stronger and brings profits to one another. In June, I was prepared to do the same work meeting at Monash University.


    Some very odd statements.

    Geraldine Doogue had a segment on Indonesia this morning that is well worth listening to.
    [Indonesia’s presidential campaign got underway this week, as Prime Minister Tony Abbott touched down for a flying visit to mend fences with the current leader Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono.

    Already leading the polls is the Governor of Jakarta, Joko Widodo over his opponent, former Special Forces General Prabowo Subianto.

    We discuss the issues driving contemporary Indonesian society and the status of Australia’s relationship in the context of the election and beyond.]

  49. bemused

    He’s a happy clapper. Seen a few docos on American happy clappers,. A common theme is that Dog wants you to be rich . Being rich is a sign he is on your side and a sign of how good a Christian you must be. If you are poor afflicted or downtrodden etc then obviously you are not much of a Christian.

    Oh and the more you give the church the more money dog will send you…………….aparently

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