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”

Comments Page 48 of 56
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  2. [Strong support for Obama’s proposals – where does that leave Abbott?]

    very well financed by vested interests and fully supported by that absolute greg hunt (& sorry – but sometime you have to pull out the big guns to fully express yourself) murdoch.

    it will be interesting to see whether the murdoch-fossil fuel industrial complex can get Ged Bush elected. No doubt they will go all out.

    I love that abbott is beating this drum at a time when his political capital and credibility in australia is shot – people will say ‘if that dickhead thinks that, then the opposite must be true’). I REALLY hope Obama goes against diplomatic convention and publicly lectures or even better debates him on climate change. Just a comment about the ambition to have economic growth with emissions reductions – perhaps even mentioning the same ‘economic’ arguments used against action are the same arguments given against the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, minimum wages, clean air acts, etc etc. I’d live a bit of a biblical mash-up while he’s at it – sating that ‘the economy is made to serve the people; not the people to serve the economy’

  4. RD@2346

    kezza has probably put it more succinctly. Another way of stating it is that you have failed the entry level test for political issues management 101.

    Anything – anything at all – that the ALP chooses to say about boat people at the moment is to their detriment. The Rudd Government created the current mess by dismantling the Pacific Solution. What Gillard and Rudd might have done since in terms of reopening Manus and Nauru is irrelevant: they should never, ever have been closed in the first place. And the public still knows it was Labor’s fault and gives all the credit for fixing it to the Libs.

    Secondly, most members of the public do not give a rat’s behind about how awful Manus is. Anyway, how confident can anyone be that whatever is happening there now isn’t largely the responsibility of the previous government. They reopened it, they appointed various people to run it. The people at the top of the Immigration Department are the same people who were there under Gillard and Rudd Mk 2.

    The only sensible approach for Labor to take re boat people is to quietly congratulate the Coalition for stopping the boats, and to be quiet about Manus and let the Greens make the running on that.

  5. [ Rex Douglas
    Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 1:15 pm | PERMALINK

    I cannot understand why the ALP aren’t hammering home 2 major points. ]

    Even if Labor did hammer those points to utter smitherines and beyond – you would still bellyacre.

    You gave your position away again yesterday when saying “I don’t like Labor”.

    That reflects in what you say day after day – run for orifce yourself and demonstrate just how it should be done?

  8. Sheridan has an article triggered by the shoot out at Karachi Aiport.

    Much of it makes sense: Pakistan is reaping what it has sown, the ISI has a lot to answer for; economic progress is going to continue to be slow while Pakistani society remains mired in the past, etc, etc, etc.

    Sheridan mentions the Afghanistan War as a related issue but only insofar as the ISI (and hence Pakistani governments) have been complicit in supporting the Taliban and the Haqqani network, for example. He notes Pakistani perceptions and hopes in relation to Afghanistan.

    Waziristan gets a run as well.

    This is all run of the mill stuff.

    The cute thing is that Sheridan completely ignores the elephant in the room: the destablising impact of western activities in Afghanistan. Nor does he mention the destabilising impact on the stability of Pakistani governance of US drone attacks.

    You have to watch the hawks and the NeoCons. They get things wrong going in, while they are in, and going out, and then blame somebody else every single time.

    The utter chaos in Mosul is a direct consequence of a huge Neocon Warhawk f***up.

    The Karachi Aiport Shootout is an indirect example of the same.

    In Sheridan’s world, it is as if the West has been completely absent from Afghanistan these last 11 years.

  9. dave

    Not vigorously pushing points such as those I listed is why I don’t like the current ALP.

    Having said that, let me say this – I still preference the ALP before the Coalition.

  10. In my pursuit of the $500,000 stolen from my father, I was lucky to have Dad’s archives. An office jam-packed with documents. The complete history of our family at Nar Nar Goon. That is, from December 2, 1940.

    This was not just folders replete with quotes or invoices, from Dad’s steel fabrication and construction business, but all the notebooks Dad always carried with him.

    These were of the small Spirax variety. In them was a treasure trove of information.

    From these notebooks I could cross-reference conversations he’d had, appointments he’d made, meetings he’d attended.

    What monies he’d received, what cheques he’d received, and the amounts. All meticulously recorded. All primary documents.

    Coupled with bank statements, and cheque butts, and after-the-fact bank reconciliations, I was able to create a forensic examination of Dad’s finances.

    And, meticulously recorded was also how much he had dodged taxation through cash payments. But, hey, the tax man couldn’t go after dad, or any of his beneficiaries.

    Still, Dad was of the old school. These notebooks began with his first business (outside farming) from the late 1950s, and continued to a couple of months before his death in 2009.

    (I have them all here, with me. I have them indexed and have stored for any family perusal.)

    And boy don’t those notebooks tell a tale.

    However, I find it strange that Athol James, after giving evidence to the Victoria Police, and after saving all these primary documents for so many years, including work diaries, would have destroyed them.

    It doesn’t make sense, considering he’d been questioned, and made a statement, by/to Vic Police.

    That would be the very time you’d make sure those documents and diaries were made especially safe.

  12. From Bernard Keane in Crikey

    [Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has extended his lead as preferred prime minister over Tony Abbott as the government continues its post-budget polling slump, today’s Essential Report shows.

    Having taken a one-point lead in May, Shorten now leads Abbott as preferred prime minister, 40%-36%, and has a bigger lead — 8 points — among women than among men (2 points). The Prime Minister’s disapproval rating has increased from 55% to 58%, while his approval rating has remained on 35%. Shorten’s disapproval rating has also increased, from 37% to 40%, but so has his approval rating, from 35% to 38%.

    The Coalition’s primary vote has also fallen a point to 37%, its lowest since January 2010, while Labor’s primary vote has reached 40%. The Greens are down a point to 9% and the Palmer United Party is steady on 6%, for a two-party preferred outcome of 54%-46% to Labor, its best since August 2010.]

    There is a lot of stuff on fairness as well which makes for some very interesting breakdowns.

  14. Abbott in NY claims he does not want to clobber the Aus economy. Yet confidence surveys show his budget has done exactly that.

  15. g

    I believe that business confidence might be increasing and consumer confidence might be decreasing.

    I other news, if I understood what I was reading which may well have not been the case, some Spanish Bonds are now more expensive than US Bonds.

  16. That’s a terrible Essential poll for the Govt.

    The public seem strongly opposed to the agenda deceitfully imposed on them.

  18. [ Boerwar

    Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 1:37 pm | Permalink

    In Sheridan’s world, it is as if the West has been completely absent from Afghanistan these last 11 years.
    ]

    ————————————————–

    Boerwar – Greg Sheridan is the sort of bloke that if he told you it was raining outside, you would need to go look out the window for yourself …

    ALSO – this puke …

    How I learnt to love Tony Abbott – A bromance for the ages.

    http://www.themonthly.com.au/…/greg-sheridan/how-i-learnt-love-tony-abbott

  19. [Rex Douglas
    Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 1:37 pm | PERMALINK
    dave

    Not vigorously pushing points such as those I listed is why I don’t like the current ALP.

    Having said that, let me say this – I still preference the ALP before the Coalition. ]

    Then take your bellyaching up with whoever you gave your first preference to.

    Run yourself and show everyone how it should be done.

  21. Rex

    Labor is doing the right thing. Let the government mess up. Let people know you will do your best to save them from the mess.

    Leave your big election winning strategies for the election.

    Greens are doing the same. So is Palmer.

    Its what ten months in and the government has primary number it had as an opposition. Very bad for them

  24. [Looks like either Shorten has a problem with men or Abbott has a problem with women… how do you sort that out?]
    I’m sure Denis Shannahan could tell us.

  26. Now we have the reason. Not a bad one at that.

    “@eleanorbloom: Wilkie calls on Greens and Labor to vote against the appropriation bills next week. Says is the only way to stop cuts to CSIRO.”

  32. “@AustralianLabor: “The paid parental leave scheme is not in the design phase its in the crazy inventor’s phase” @billshortenmp #auspol #Budget2014”

  33. [The public seem strongly opposed to the agenda deceitfully imposed on them.]

    Yes Rex. Glad you noticed. So let’s leave the asylum-seeker thing alone, while the government unloads an entire magazine into its own foot.

  34. Witnesses going on at length is something no barrister wants unless it is technical evidence or it is during cross-examination and the witness is digging.

    The job of the barrister is to control the speed of the evidence to make it comprehensible.

  35. [“@eleanorbloom: Wilkie calls on Greens and Labor to vote against the appropriation bills next week. Says is the only way to stop cuts to CSIRO.”]

    Wilkie’s Hobart-based seat will be hard hit by CSIRO cuts.

  36. Only 35% approve of Tony Abbott.
    55% disapprove of Tony Abbott.

    35% approve of Bill Shorten.

    BUT 37% Disapproval of Bill Shorten.

    Bit difference.

  37. Tony Abbott dropped 6% on Better PM (since last Essential Poll) to 36% (From 42%).

    Bill Shorten increased from 32% to 37% better PM (5% difference).

  38. [Witnesses going on at length is something no barrister wants unless it is technical evidence or it is during cross-examination and the witness is digging.

    ]

    Kernohan is close to reaching China

  42. [Getting himself tangled up or simply too verbose?
    ]

    too verbose, wants to insert little asides and segways into his flow of evidence. Makes it very hard to understand what he is saying.

  43. It reads dreadfully on transcript as well – just lines of stuff “bedding in, bbqs, bank loan” all in one interminable answer.

  45. Tom

    Kernohan strikes me as somebody who has never had conversation with anybody that wasn’t about the AWU. And he remembers every one of them!

    Obsessive.

    Talk about selling t shirts to raise funds.

    Relevance?

    I think we are, as they say, going via the Cape on this

  47. “@andrew_lund: Govt tries to shut down question. Speaker allows it. Napthine says punishment should be consistent with the precedent #springst”

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