Seat of the week: Leichhardt

Electorally volatile in recent times, the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt has generally gone the way of the winning party at elections in the modern era, an exception being present incumbent Warren Entsch’s win for the Liberal National Party after he returned from retirement in 2010.

Teal and red numbers respectively indicate booths with two-party majorities for the LNP and Labor. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Leichhardt consists of the northernmost part of Queensland, including Cairns at its southern extremity along with Cape York Peninsula and the Torres Strait Islands. Naturally marginal Cairns provides it with about two-thirds of its voters, the remainder coming from conservative-leaning rural areas along the coast immediately to the north, and Labor-voting indigenous communities beyond. The electorate ranks sixth out of the nation’s 150 electorates for the highest proportion of indigenous persons, behind the two Northern Territory electorates, neighbouring Kennedy, Durack in northern Western Australia, and Parkes in interior New South Wales. Another distinguishing features is a large number of voters over 55, reflecting the popularity of Cairns as a retirement haven.

The electorate was created with the expansion of parliament in 1949, prior to which its area was mostly accommodated by Herbert until 1934 and Kennedy thereafter. Herbert and then Kennedy were in Labor hands from 1928 to 1949, but Leichhardt was narrowly won by the Country Party at its inaugural election, which saw the Menzies government come to power. However, Labor won the seat at the subsequent election in 1951, and it remained in the party fold until David Thomson gained it for the National Country Party amid Labor’s statewide debacle of 1975. Warren Entsch became the seat’s first Liberal member when he unseated Labor’s Peter Dodd with the defeat of the Keating government in 1996, polling 31.8% to the Nationals candidate’s 20.4%. Entsch suffered only a 0.5% swing at the 1998 election, compared with a statewide swing of 7.2%, and subsequently built his margin up to double figures with swings of 2.3% in 2001 and 3.6% in 2004.

Entsch’s local popularity was further illustrated when he bowed out temporarily at the 2007 election, Labor gaining the seat in his absence with a towering swing of 14.3%, the second biggest of that election after Forde in Brisbane’s outer south. The result also underscored the local eclipse of the Nationals, whose candidate polled only 4.0%. Incoming Labor member Jim Turnour managed only a single term before falling victim at the 2010 election to the combined impact of a statewide Labor rout, which cost them seven out of their existing 15 Queensland seats, and the return from retirement of Warren Entsch. Labor’s margin of 4.1% was easily accounted for by a swing of 8.6%, to which Entsch added a further 1.2% at the 2013 election.

Warren Entsch came to politics after serving in the Royal Australian Air Force from 1969 to 1978, then working as a maintenance fitter and welder, real estate agent, farmer and grazier and company director. After winning election in 1996 and re-election in 1998, he was promoted to parliamentary secretary but thereafter rose no higher, and went to the back bench upon announcing his retirement citing family reasons in 2006. During his subsequent three-year interregnum he was director of Cairns construction company CEC Group and the Australian Rainforest Foundation, but talk soon emerged of a political comeback, first in relation to the 2009 state election and then for his old seat. With this accomplished he served for a term as the Coalition’s chief whip, before relinquishing the position to Philip Ruddock after the 2013 election victory.

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.

669 comments on “Seat of the week: Leichhardt”

Comments Page 6 of 14
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  2. Here we go, the solution to the problem of having enough teachers for a greater number of languages.

    The Internet.

    On ABC news they showed kids online to a teacher in Beijing.

  7. Having been one of the unfortunate people who were forced to learn latin at school I suggest it is a useless subject.

    Learning to cook and form a household budget would be much better subjects.

    Stick Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant where the sun don’t shine, Pyne.

  9. Latin in schools is really a gift from God. I remember years ago they interviewed on PM a classics professor from Finland who had made it his business to translate the songs of Elvis Presley into Latin, and record them. They actually played his rendition of Wooden Heart. He said that Blue Suede Shoes had presented difficulties, because there were Latin words for blue and for shoes, but not for suede.

    Honestly, this government is beyond parody.

  10. Chopping firewood on the night of the solstice (Briefly said) Great
    ______________________
    One of the joys of a Melb winter is the really European feeling at this dark cold time of year

    When I was kid many years ago,today was also my Grandmother’s birthday and the whole family used to gather at our home as we had a very big living room with a open fire place with a” grate”
    In those days one could obtain coke(from the local gas works) in Geelong_( no …not not the drink or the drug)

    The”grate” was a large iron box on legs … with holes in it… in which one lit a smsll fire then piled on the wet coke,which slowly watched it turn red hot and glow all night.and then one put more on..sometimes the living room became so hot we had to open all the doors and it warmed the whole house

    The birthday was quite a big family event,heaps to eat and drink(my father made a quite decent home brew of quite a high standard) and if weather permitted I was allowed to build a bonfire in the back yard
    I did notice tonight on TV a huge bonfire at the Collingwood Children’s Farm and one could see the joy on the faces of the kids

    I suspect fire reignites all our primitive instincts ,especially in such cold weather as tonight ….
    enjoy your fire Briefly

  11. And of course, Tom Lehrer spoke of a friend who had years before done the Latin translation of “The Wizard of Oz”, “which remains, even today, the definitive version”.

  12. Mind you, if Senator Brandeis could be persuaded to speak only in Latin from now on, it would likely save the government a bucketload of strife.

  13. ruawake

    Only appreciated having to do latin once. During the first of the state external exams there was a question about something we did not cover . It was about Silviculture and I was WTF? Until I remembered Silva , Silvae ,Silvae , Silvam .

    Apart from that ? Bugger all use.

  16. Ceasar had som iam forte

    Pompey aderat

    Ceaser sic in omnibus
    Pompey sic in hat

    I remember that from schoolboy nonsense…

  18. Having split a few chunks of jarrah and fired up the oven, and dined on lamb shanks….

    [254
    sprocket_

    Arabic would be more useful compared with Latin. As for Hindi, the lingua Franca in India is English.]

    I work with a woman from India who is literate and orally fluent in (at least) Hindi, Punjabi and English. She and her husband have been settled here for a few years and they have one child (very cute, just started walking). My local Caltex is owned by a family of Indian immigrants – all in their 20’s/ early 30’s. (They’ve mastered servo-lingo and offer the invariable greeting …”ow ah yah, mate…”)

    I think there’s going to be a place for Hindi too.

  19. paaptsef@267

    i never learned Latin so have to use Google Translate on a computer or phone or tablet all the time

    What? For all those latin emails and SMS messages you receive?

    The only exposure to Latin I can recall having was through ‘Billy Bunter’ books as a kid. Hic, Haec, Hoc springs to mind.

  21. 260
    deblonay

    The fire in its hearth…drawing breath in and whirring, cracking; purring. As warming to the face as the steamed fruit pudding is to the tum.

  25. [Perth must have had the month’s rainfall ration today in about half an hour.]

    Meanwhile we’re pining for it down south. Seems it hits Perth big time yet peters out by the time the front moves across the lower part of the state.

  26. [272
    poroti

    zoidlord

    Yay for storms!

    Perth must have had the month’s rainfall ration today in about half an hour.]

    Great deluge here too.

  27. http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml?type=mslp-precip&tz=AEDT&area=WA&model=R

    [275
    confessions

    Perth must have had the month’s rainfall ration today in about half an hour.

    Meanwhile we’re pining for it down south. Seems it hits Perth big time yet peters out by the time the front moves across the lower part of the state.]

    The rain band appears to stretch right down the west coast and into the Great Southern…hopefully you will get some!

  28. Briefly
    ________
    That crackling fire and the steamed pudding …and all that rain…sounds great

    here in Melbourne it’s very cold with a little rain…and the pudding seems a great idea for supper
    thanks

  30. deblonay@278

    Briefly
    ________
    That crackling fire and the steamed pudding …and all that rain…sounds great

    here in Melbourne it’s very cold with a little rain…and the pudding seems a great idea for supper
    thanks

    I call today in Melbourne mild.
    Min about 10 deg, max 16 deg.

  34. Looks like the Daily ToiletPaper has another beat up of the “first bloke” Tim Mathieson.

    It seems part of the Murdoch playbook is to continue to denigrate through foul means all those associated with the pre glorious Abbott era.

  35. Melbourne temperatures so far this month is tracking at 10 to 16 degrees respectively 3 and 2 degrees above the long term average and closer to Sydney’s long term average. Now the Melbourne office is probably as heat island affected as Sydney’s Observatory Hill, but even so it’s been a mild Winter. Most Sydney stations are tracking about 2 degrees above average.

    For once it’s a chilly night in Sydney – 13 degrees in the hothouse at Observatory Hill, 9 to 11 at most Sydney stations.

  37. [Looks like the Daily ToiletPaper has another beat up of the “first bloke” Tim Mathieson.]

    If so, the jeez, can they get more irrelevant?

  38. sprocket_

    [Daily ToiletPaper has another beat up ]
    Good to see they have other irons in the fire. This is their current N0.1 article.

    [Taxpayers funding jihadist killers]

  40. [
    Backroads
    First feature by Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, Rabbit Proof Fence, Bone Collector, The Quiet American). A tale of two outsiders, on the run. One white, one black. Heading for nowhere fast. Shot on location in north western NSW and features Bill Hunter in his earliest lead role, and Gary Foley, Koori political activist. An Australian cult film.
    ]

  41. The Winter Solstice was about an hour and a half ago. Days will start getting longer from now – a few seconds a day at first but picking up towards the end of next month.

  42. As a little girl, maybe age six or seven or earlier, I recall sitting under the table after school, for a bit of peace, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, all whatever number of volumes my parents possessed.

    Ten in number, I think.

    And reading the dictionary. For interest.

    I later studied Latin and French.

    As far as I am concerned, that exposure shaped my understanding of language and its derivatives. And enables me to interpret the meaning of English.

    I was not exposed to the Greek language, so much. Which is regrettable.

    I hardly love Christopher Pyne, yet any study of Latin is as far as I am concerned, commendable.

    I just wish that the incredibly boring stuff of Ovid, were replaced by, say, an interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson, for one.

    Fairy tales make more sense.

  45. It is probable that Geoffrey Robertson QC etc studied Latin.

    He ranks among the most erudite persons on the planet.

    And the most humane.

  46. [As far as I am concerned, that exposure shaped my understanding of language and its derivatives. And enables me to interpret the meaning of English.]

    Well, that’s fine for you I guess, CW.

    I studied Latin for two terms and couldn’t wait to get out of it.

    I’m happy with my understanding of the English language, bar my seeming inability to remember how to spell “exuberance” – as in, is there an “h” between the “x” and the “u”. I don’t know why I want to put an “h” in between the “x” and the u”, but I do.

    Does it mean I should have studied Latin as a kid. And/or if not Latin, should I have studied Classical Greek and perhaps even Aramaic (I went to the Christian Brothers, you see, and they were Catholics, and Jesus was the first Catholic, or so they say).

    And why not German? Much of English is Germanic, if not most of it.

    Really, I couldn’t give too much of a f**k whether “f**k” is German, Saxon, Celtic or Transylvanian.

    When I’m writing nasty things about Tony Abbott I don’t care about the etymology of the word “arsehole”. Or the same concerning “dopey” when I think of Joe Hockey. And what I think of The Parrot doesn’t translate into ANY language (except if there’s some foreign tongue somewhere that involves the sounds your foot makes as it kicks the dashboard of your car near where the car radio is).

    I can read Shakespeare and laugh in all the right places. I can get the subtlety of a Cole Porter song. I accept that “Love thy neighbour as thy self” is one of the most elegant and simple, yet compelling ethical architectures of all. And I don’t really care whether “love” is French, German, Juteish, Latin or Greek.

    What I guess I’m saying is that I’m happy with being an English speaker, with being able to figure out etymology when I feel the need, am really glad my mind is not filled with useless information on a dead language and ecstatic that when my grandson tells me he loves me I couldn’t care less WHAT language he said it in (even Wauchopian).

    In fact the only time I’ve ever regretted being an English-only speaker was when I couldn’t understand why an Italian taxi driver was charging me $70 to go from one Brindisian airport terminal to another. I still don’t. But I DID understand that his cousin was the Caribinieri telling me I’d be arrested if I didn’t cough up. I could read it in the, shall we say, “frown” on his face. No English, Italian or Latin required for that.

  47. I see that there has been predictable opposition to the government’s school chaplaincy program.

    Personally I am in favour of it. Secular counseling and psychology are heavily feminized professions and are not what young men and boys in school need.

    Teaching is another feminized profession but we have to abandon any hope of salvaging that at this stage. And boys will have to continue to suffer for it.

  50. @Zoidlord/298

    Men built this world. Everything you see, including the computer in front of you. And men still do almost all the work which makes the world run. It doesn’t leave many left over to be secular counselors and feminist academics.

    I always feel it is good to acknowledge this fact every now and then.

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