Seat of the week: Lilley

With the inner northern Brisbane neighbourhood of Stafford fresh in the mind after yesterday’s by-election, a visit to the federal electorate that covers its northern half and areas further to the east, held for Labor by Wayne Swan.

Wayne Swan’s electorate of Lilley covers bayside Brisbane north-east of the city centre, between the Brisbane and Pine rivers – an area accounting for industrial Eagle Farm in the south and residential Brighton in the north – together with suburbs nearer the city from McDowall, Stafford Heights and Everton Park east through Kedron, Chermside and Zillmere to Nundah, Nudgee and Taigum. The redistribution before the 2010 election had a substantial impact on the electorate, adding 26,000 in Chermside West and Stafford Heights at the northern end (from Petrie) and removing a similar number of voters in an area from Clayfield and Hendra south to Hamilton on the river (to Brisbane), although the margin was little affected.

Red and teal numbers respectively indicate size of two-party majorities for Labor and the LNP. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room.

Lilley was created in 1913, originally extending from its current base all the way north to Gympie. It did not become entirely urban until the enlargement of parliament in 1949, when Petrie was created to accommodate what were then Brisbane’s semi-rural outskirts. Labor won Lilley in 1943, 1946, 1961 and 1972 (by a margin of 35 votes on the latter occasion), but it was otherwise usually safe for the prevailing conservative forces of the day. A decisive shift came with the elections of 1980 and 1983, when Labor’s Elaine Darling won the seat and then consolidated her hold with respective swings of 5.2% and 8.4%. Wayne Swan succeeded Darling as Labor’s member in 1993, but was unseated together with all but two of his Queensland Labor colleagues at the 1996 election.

Swan returned to parliament at the following election in 1998, when he accounted for a 0.4% post-redistribution margin with a swing of 3.5%. He added further fat to his margin at the each of the next three elections, although his swing in 2007 was well below the statewide average (3.2% compared with 7.5%), consistent with a trend in inner urban seats across the country. The 2010 election delivered the LNP a swing of 4.8% that compared with a statewide result of 5.5%, bringing the seat well into the marginal zone at 3.2%. Labor’s dire polling throughout its second term in government, particularly in Queensland, led to grave fears about his capacity to retain the seat in 2013, but in the event Lilley provided the party with one of its pleasant election night surprises by swinging only 1.9%, enabling Swan to hang on with a margin of 1.3%.

Swan’s path to parliament began with a position as an adviser to Bill Hayden during his tenure as Opposition Leader and later to Hawke government ministers Mick Young and Kim Beazley, before he took on the position of Queensland party secretary in 1991. He was elevated to the shadow ministry after recovering his seat in 1998, taking on the family and community services portfolio, and remained close to his former boss Beazley. Mark Latham famously described Swan and his associates as “roosters” when Beazley conspired to recover the leadership in 2003, but nonetheless retained him in his existing position during his own tenure in the leadership. Swan was further promoted to Treasury after the 2004 election defeat, and retained it in government despite suggestions Rudd had promised the position to Lindsay Tanner in return for his support when he toppled Kim Beazley as leader in December 2006.

Although he went to high school with him in Nambour and shared a party background during the Wayne Goss years, a rivalry developed between Swan and Kevin Rudd with the former emerging as part of the AWU grouping of the Right and the latter forming part of the Right’s “old guard”. Swan was in the camp opposed Rudd at successive leadership challenges, including Rudd’s move against Beazley in December 2009, his toppling by Julia Gillard in June 2010, and the three leadership crises which transpired in 2012 and 2013. As Rudd marshalled forces for his first push in February 2012, Swan spoke of his “dysfunctional decision making and his deeply demeaning attitude towards other people including our caucus colleagues”. When Rudd finally succeeded in toppling Gillard in June 2013, Swan immediately resigned as deputy leader and Treasurer. Unlike many of his colleagues he resolved to continue his career in parliament, which he has continued to do in opposition on the back bench.

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.

629 comments on “Seat of the week: Lilley”

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  1. davidwh@470

    There has been plenty of outrage over what’s happening in Gaza particularly when children get killed playing on a beach but then what were they doing playing on a beach in the middle of a war zone?

    They live there.
    The war was brought to them.

  4. ShowsOn, the numbers you require and more of interest besides are here, and the answer to your question is 99058.56. Remembering that enrolment is quite a bit lower in Tasmania and the Northern Territory and higher in the ACT.

  5. Why?

    Do Carlton have a 60% or greater success rate against North Melbourne in the last decade?

    I think they may?

  6. Bemused:

    “Roosevelt and Churchill agreed with Stalin to ‘spheres of influence’ post-war.

    Both sides honoured the agreement and Stalin did not lift a finger when communist movements were crushed in Greece for example or told them to accept they were in the western sphere of influence such as Italy and France.”

    More airbrushing. A complete, utter whitewashing of history. I thought better of you Bemused.

  7. You guys are all clearly being duped by the political scheming of the Reptilians. Of which, I suspect William is one.

    It’s true. An academic (he had the title “Dr.) wrote it on a blog! 😛

  8. Re Gaza: I know this goes against the prevailing mindset on here, but…

    The Hamas leadership are in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that – if they launch rockets at Israel from Gaza – the Israelis will respond with ten times the force. You might think that Israel shouldn’t respond in this way, but nobody can plausibly argue that a forceful response is unjustified.

    The rockets fired from Gaza only do sporadic damage in Israel. So I conclude that the intention of Hamas In firing them is largely to provoke the Israeli response and thereby gain international support for their toxic cause: especially in other Muslim countries.

    In other words, they are knowingly sacrificing their own innocent people.

  9. Bemused @ 460 is right about what happened in Russia after the USSR imploded.

    Specifically:

    [I am not going to defend Putin, but in part the Russia of today is a reaction to how it was treated in the West. Opportunities were lost.]

    If anything Putin is a symptom of the lack of proper engagement by the west.

    Russia’s entire system of statehood disappeared literally overnight. This doesn’t happen very often without a shooting war. WTF did people think would replace it?

    Western institutions have evolved over 10 centuries at least, especially if you consider the basis of common law and look at it from our perspective with the British legal tradition. In many cases its been centuries of struggle to build the democratic limits on power that protect us.

    Russia was left to the mercy of the most predatory and ruthless people inhabiting it, I imagine it was the IPAs wet dream.

    The worst sort of capitalism. Everything that is wrong with it basically.

    Surely the situation needed more than a few free market ideologues in the west nodding approvingly, masturbating to the Fountainhead and saying “Yes Virginia, this is how it should be done”.

    So you end up with a corrupt ruthless thug who will stop at nothing to claim and hold power. (Kind of like Abbott but Abbott is a shadow of Putin. Maybe if he’d grown up somewhere he could have had a career in an organisation like the KGB (instead of the church) he might have ended up very similar. Abbott is clearly limited by the infrastructure of democracy – institutions like a reasonable independent judiciary, free and fair compulsory elections and the like. And he seems to have a flair for thuggery and “getting” (as in “I’m gonna get you!”) people using whatever means. Probably would have thrived in the KGB or Stasi.)

    Then to claim the US isn’t involved in things like what happened in the Ukraine earlier this year, and primarily for its own strategic ends. It missed Tunisia (probably didn’t care) and Egypt in 10/11 but that’s about it. The US has its fingers everywhere. Of course they were involved in some way in both of Ukraines recent revolutions.

    So the US has contributed to the situation in Ukraine – specifically by supporting people who suit its interests, but even more so by a failure of leadership at the end of the cold war. Its wasn’t alone, but it certainly didn’t “step up to the plate”.

    A bunch of morons “in charge” of a victorious superpower decided that yes its true – ideology was over and somehow democracies spontaneously erupt from markets like universes out of nothing. Idiots.

    Vladimir Putin is the result.

    (It is a good example of what bad karma actually is, if anyone remembers me banging on about that.)

  18. Bemused at 499
    “I suggest you read a good history of the period such as “The Cold War and It’s Origins” by Fleming.”

    I’ve studied plenty of history. In any case my family is from Eastern Europe and lived under the Communists for a long time. Historical Theory you read in books is one thing, real life experience is another. I guarantee you that if you’d lived under the heel of your Russian friends you would have a very different opinion of how honourable they are.

  20. Swamprat happy to retract and apologise for that poor attempt at making a point. I certainly meant no disrespect to the children in Gaza.

  21. Jules, you can rationalise and justify the horror that is Putin all you like. At the end of the day, you have a choice, are you for or agin him?

  23. Rossmore@506

    Bemused:

    “Roosevelt and Churchill agreed with Stalin to ‘spheres of influence’ post-war.

    Both sides honoured the agreement and Stalin did not lift a finger when communist movements were crushed in Greece for example or told them to accept they were in the western sphere of influence such as Italy and France.”

    More airbrushing. A complete, utter whitewashing of history. I thought better of you Bemused.

    You are wrong.

  24. c @ 513

    Many reasons.

    Teams are more inclined to resign their preferred players for an extended period and build their team around them.

    Also culture and a psychological advantage comes into play. Some teams have the wood and believe they can beat others regardless of their ladder standings and current form.

  25. [The Hamas leadership are in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that – if they launch rockets at Israel from Gaza – the Israelis will respond with ten times the force. You might think that Israel shouldn’t respond in this way, but nobody can plausibly argue that a forceful response is unjustified.
    The rockets fired from Gaza only do sporadic damage in Israel. So I conclude that the intention of Hamas In firing them is largely to provoke the Israeli response and thereby gain international support for their toxic cause: especially in other Muslim countries.
    In other words, they are knowingly sacrificing their own innocent people.]

    Exactly. Terrorist regimes don’t really care for their own citizens at the end of the day; they will happily sacrifice them for political advantage.

    Likewise, Putin doesn’t really give a fig about the Russian speakers in Ukraine or Crimea, they are just “useful victims” to expend in order to expand and protect his regime.

  26. Simple centre – Carlton were never going to lose to the kangaroos on friday night. North are the worst front running team in the league – whenever they are favourites they always lose.
    You stick to the predicting the bumsniffers and the imminent demise of the greens and leave the best code to the experts.

  29. Russia is ruled by a tiny oligarchy, with most of its members now super rich and living in London. It will eventually implode, as all undemocratic regimes eventually do, to be replaced by I dont know what, but hopefully something better.

  30. [Hard to work out how Tyrion and Jamie can have any kind of relationship at all after that incident…]

    I’m a bit blurry on how this played out on the TV series, but in the book Tyrion has no idea Jaime had wronged him until he’s springing him from his jail cell. Tyrion asks Jaime why he’s doing so and he confesses to what he’d done and says he’s now seeking atonement. Tyrion is not mollified, and at this point makes his decision to pay daddy a visit.

  32. [“The Cold War and It’s Origins” by Fleming.”]

    Fleming’s editor and publisher obviously missed that “it’s” clanger!

    I’d hate to see what other mistakes may have made it into that publication.

  33. Henry

    Yes, I do not claim to be an expert in the Ballerina. Take it to Confessions, she supports Carlton yet expected them to lose.

    As for the Greens, the News Ltd papers are catching on – with their R.I.P. front page headlines 😉

  34. [Russia is ruled by a tiny oligarchy, with most of its members now super rich and living in London. It will eventually implode, as all undemocratic regimes eventually do, to be replaced by I dont know what, but hopefully something better.]

    It of course says it all that those who profited the most from “new Russia” cannot bear to live there themselves.

    Yet London, that hot bed of western decadence, seems to have some sort of allure for them! Funny that.

  36. William

    In both versions, when Tyrion tells the story to Shae and co, he thinks Jamie has played a nasty trick on him by hiring the girl.

    What’s revealed in the dungeon is that she wasn’t hired…

    But it’s a minor point in my thesis. The missing, recently deceased older brother simply makes the Lannisters make more sense.

    However, I strongly suspect (given the inordinate amount of time I spend brooding on the subject) that one could devote a life’s work to sorting out the various bits of GoT that don’t really make sense.

    The writer needed – and needed very desperately — a decent editor.

  37. Darren Laver@525

    The Hamas leadership are in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that – if they launch rockets at Israel from Gaza – the Israelis will respond with ten times the force. You might think that Israel shouldn’t respond in this way, but nobody can plausibly argue that a forceful response is unjustified.
    The rockets fired from Gaza only do sporadic damage in Israel. So I conclude that the intention of Hamas In firing them is largely to provoke the Israeli response and thereby gain international support for their toxic cause: especially in other Muslim countries.
    In other words, they are knowingly sacrificing their own innocent people.


    Exactly. Terrorist regimes don’t really care for their own citizens at the end of the day; they will happily sacrifice them for political advantage.

    Likewise, Putin doesn’t really give a fig about the Russian speakers in Ukraine or Crimea, they are just “useful victims” to expend in order to expand and protect his regime.

    I suppose it is a bit like those ridiculously defiant Jews in the Warsaw and other Ghettos who decided to resist and fight a hopeless battle.

    They should have just allowed everyone to slowly and peacefully starve in the Ghetto or take a train ride.

    Hamas are showing a spirit of defiance whatever else you may say about them.

  38. Darren Laver@532

    “The Cold War and It’s Origins” by Fleming.”


    Fleming’s editor and publisher obviously missed that “it’s” clanger!

    I’d hate to see what other mistakes may have made it into that publication.

    I take responsibility for my errant apostrophe.

  39. You may have missed it centre but those news ltd publications also had labor featured in the RIP carbon tax headline.
    Detail was never your strongpoint.

  40. [Hamas are showing a spirit of defiance whatever else you may say about them.]

    Hamas are now the Jews of the 1930s?

    God help us.

    Bemused, you’ve always been pretty nutty and cantankerous, but you have well and truly lost the plot now and joined TP in nut trolling house.

    That you still can post here shows William’s grace knows no bounds! He is a better man than me!

  41. Give the Palestinians the same quantity and quality of weapons as the Israeli’s.

    They won’t be firing rockets, in fact neither side would be firing anything!

  43. Darren Laver @ 525
    “Terrorist regimes don’t really care for their own citizens at the end of the day; they will happily sacrifice them for political advantage.”

    I think you could make the same criticism of many of the so called democracies. In any case this latest clash in Gaza is just another useless and pointless war. It will accomplish nothing just as the last war accomplished nothing and the one before that and the one before that and the one before that. Until the underlining reasons for the conflict are addressed these wars will continue for ever. Violence against the Palestinians, even overwhelming violence, will never solve the problem or bring peace. If you treat people like animals you shouldn’t be surprised they behave as animals.

  44. Henry

    Yes but Labor have now learnt their lesson.

    I don’t seem to recall you being the one to warn them to keep away – they’re bad news, well before any deal was struck with the Greens 😉 And don’t the likes of Gillard and Combet and everyone else in the Labior Party regret it 😎

  46. Random pop quiz:

    Who said “The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.”?

  47. In other words, [Hamas] are knowingly sacrificing their own innocent people.

    They probably are, meher baba@508. So they got the IDF to overreact and kill civilians. Maybe that’s part of their strategy. They did the same thing in 2012; the did it in 2009; they could do the same thing in 2016 and 2018 as well. Basically, the reputation of Israel is heading south like a rate of knots. This is no Six Days War, where the country came out looking like heroes (and deservedly so). This is inglorious massacre.

    Now you’re seeing the IDF doing its usual mix of Heavy + Cautious: launching 300 air strikes but not doing anything decisive. No matter what Israel does in the next few days, there’ll still be 1.7 million pissed-off people jammed into Gaza. It’s like kicking aimlessly at somebody tied up at your feet: they won’t stop trying to get loose, and when they do, you’re not going to be happy. Logically, in classical military terms, it’s simple: you’d massacre or expel the whole population. Israel doesn’t quite have the ruthlessness to do that, but they have enough to keep hitting Gaza, killing some of the people they want dead and, since it’s a crowded slum with a huge birthrate, a lot of women and kids who are just hunkering down trying to survive…

    In a situation like this, the real winner is likely to be the Gazans. But they will win ugly—very, very ugly, and very slow, with a lot of funerals and horror. It’s a good grim proof of the old guerrilla-warfare line: “Victory will go to those who can endure the most, not those who can inflict the most.” And there’s no doubt about who wins that contest. Gaza is a place that’s basically been driven insane. Imagine a strip of land about 20 miles long and five miles wide, with the sea on one side and the IDF on the other, with 1.7 million people festering in some of the world’s nastiest tenements, with no entertainment except the dream of getting a little payback on the people keeping you penned up.

    http://pando.com/2014/07/12/lessons-from-gaza-the-combat-power-of-any-high-tech-military-is-way-less-than-it-seems-on-paper/

    That was written in 2012; for some reason, it is up to date in 2014.

  49. peppy7 @ 543

    [If you treat people like animals you shouldn’t be surprised they behave as animals.]

    The most sensible thing said tonight!

  50. connie

    This weekend I backed the Cows (best bets), Broncos and smaller bets on the Titans and Raiders.

    I don’t have the statistical data base or the knowledge really to make selections on the AFL but would be more than happy to reveal expert selections and strategies on the NRL just for the likes of Henry, Outside Left and Farqu 😀

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