Seat of the week: Wide Bay

Warren Truss’s seat of Wide Bay encompasses Noosa, Gympie and Maryborough, and has been in National/Country Party hands for most of an existence that dates back to federation.

Wide Bay has covered a variable area around Maryborough about 300 kilometres north of Brisbane since its creation at federation. Maryborough is currently at the northern end of an electorate that extends south along the coast to Noosa, which was gained at the redistribution before the 2007 election as its southern neighbour Fairfax was drawn southwards by population growth on the Sunshine Coast (which Wide Bay accommodated in its entirety for most of the period prior to 1949). The electorate also extends inland through Gympie to Murgon and Cherbourg.

Now a secure seat for the Liberal National Party, Wide Bay was one of 15 seats across the country won by Labor at the first election in 1901. Its member from then until 1915 was Andrew Fisher, who served three terms as prime minister and won the party’s first parliamentary majority at the election of 1910. Labor was narrowly defeated at a by-election held after Fisher retired due to ill health, and for the next 13 years the seat was held by Edward Corser, first as a Liberal and then in the Nationalist Party that succeeded it in 1917. The seat passed to the Country Party upon Corser’s death in 1928, when his son Bernard Corser was elected as the party’s candidate without opposition.

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

Brendan Hansen’s election in 1961 gave Labor its first win in Wide Bay in nearly half a century, and he retained the seat until defeated amid a statewide swing against the Whitlam government in 1974. The seat has has since had two National/Country Party members, the present incumbent Warren Truss succeeding Clarrie Millar in 1990. The general trend over this time has been for increasing Nationals margins, with Truss retaining the seat by 8.5% amid Labor’s strong statewide result in 2007 and boosting his margin to 15.6% in 2010, before a narrowing to 13.2% at the 2013 election.

Warren Truss emerged through local Nationals ranks as a councillor for the Shire of Kingaroy from 1976 to 1990, before winning the party’s endorsement to succeed Joh Bjelke-Petersen as member for Barambah at the by-election which followed his retirement in 1988. However, Truss suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Trevor Perrett, a candidate of the eccentric Citizens Electoral Council who joined the Nationals a year later. He was amply compensated with endorsement for Wide Bay at the federal election two years later, and was elected without incident despite a 3.9% swing to Labor.

Truss served as a junior shadow minister in the consumer affairs portfolio after November 1994, but was cut from the front bench when the Nationals’ reduced share of seats within the Coalition reduced its share of the spoils of the 1996 election victory. His opportunity came in October the following year when the travel rorts affair garnered three ministerial scalps including Nationals MP John Sharp, resulting in Truss’s return to the consumer affairs portfolio together with customs. After the 1998 election he was reassigned to community services, and he then attained cabinet rank in July 1999 with his promotion to Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Minister. In July 2005 he secured his party’s deputy leadership and traded his portfolios for transport and regional services, and was again reassigned to trade in September 2006.

Truss was elevated to the leadership of the National Party when Mark Vaile resigned in the wake of the 2007 election defeat, although it has often been noted that his profile is a good deal lower than that of Barnaby Joyce, who moved from a Queensland Senate seat to the New South Wales lower house seat of New England at the 2013 election. As well as being Deputy Prime Minister, Truss has served as Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development since the election of the Abbott government.

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.

1,168 comments on “Seat of the week: Wide Bay”

Comments Page 19 of 24
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  2. Dio

    The submarine bit ‘rings a bell’. I’m a fairly indiscriminate reader and must have read something about him in the past.

    Turing we can write off then. 😀

  3. fran

    malapropisms are not cognates. Puns are not cognates.

    Really, occasionally you have to face up that you’re simply wrong, instead of digging yourself a deeper hole.

    You have accepted up until now that ‘petard’ came from the word for ‘fart’, which goes back to the original Latin word meaning the same thing, and that ‘petre’ comes from the word for ‘rock’.

    Now you’re trying to argue that they’re both from ‘petre’.

    At least one of your arguments is thus clearly wrong.

  6. [roger bottomley
    Posted Monday, August 4, 2014 at 10:11 pm | PERMALINK
    Wow, I can just see the next instalment by Marvel – Kezza2 vs BB.

    I like reading both of you, by the way.]

    Oh, good on you.

    I guess your familiar with the Horrid Step-Son Chronicles – by BB.

    You know, the never-ending saga of how he was put-upon by his HI’s (Her Indoors, didncha know?) son.

    The thousands of dollars spent, the inglorious house-guests they were, the penalties (fines – incurred and paid) for the car, the dead battery, the pole-dancing, heroin-addicted girlfriend, the late night hospital jaunts, you name, the never-ending court cases, BB did it.

    Then, one day, he kicked the bastard Step-Son out. After, who knows thousands of years, despite his HI’s wishes, and it’s never been so good.

    Yet in all that sorry saga, BB never had an emotion invested, other than what he felt for his HI. None of these people were blood relatives.

    Yet, he put up with this for years and years and years. And regaled us with stories about it for years and years and years.

    And, then when he was fed up with it – as you surely would be – that was the end of it. Full Stop. No correspondence will be entered into.

    And, because he was over his shitty experiences, he decided everybody else should be over theirs. Until then, though, telling your own was OK.

    And how the screw turned.

    It was then only OK to tell about other experiences, like his job. Or your job.

    Or his hobbies. Or your hobbies.

    Or funny situations with neighbours. Or with dogs.

    After unleashing Pandora’s Box he was sick of it because it didn’t include him.

    And so it will continue.

  7. Awww… I’m just tonight’s whipping boy. Someone has to justify Kezza’s existence. Tonight I drew the short straw.

  8. Guy they’re talking about on Qanda suicided.

    You want to ping pink batts deaths on a govt, then the Vibe funding cuts hit home to the Abbott govt.

  9. [ At least one of your arguments is thus clearly wrong. ]

    Fran is never wrong. It is clearly the rest of the universe that is mistaken.

  11. Ken Wyatt said he would cross the floor if Brandis persists with his softening of racial discrimination laws.

    Some decency in the Liberal Party… how surprisement!

  12. zoomster:

    I want to steer my fellow branch members your way in terms of a national rural membership presence, that cool with you?

  13. [Bushfire Bill
    Posted Monday, August 4, 2014 at 10:38 pm | PERMALINK
    Awww… I’m just tonight’s whipping boy. Someone has to justify Kezza’s existence. Tonight I drew the short straw.]

    Sooky sooky la la.

    Bit upset because someone said something that could have been perceived as being in support of me rather than bowing down to your self-confessed superiority?

    Why don’t you return to Over the Road and get the accolades you deserve. I’m sure everyone over there will tell you how good you are. And how bad I am.

  14. I’d rather have funny situations with neighbours, dogs or even The Bogan than endure another turgid explanation of why you feel it necessary to pick fights with everyone here, Kezza.

    You always go over the top, as you probably will tonight.

    Getting over things is a part of life. We don’t leave off writing or talking about them because we can’t be the center of attention anymore, or because we’re no longer shitty. We leave off talking about them because we’re over them. We’ve moved on. Learned to accommodate them.

    The greatest gift you can ever give someone is to leave them a bit happier than they were when you first met them. You can’t always succeed, but at least you can try.

    It’s positive waves that move the world forward, not endless recitations of the same story and the same miseries, as if you’re trapped in some kind of one-dimensional forbidden zone that won’t let you out.

    Rotten things happen to everyone, but we don’t all blame everybody else for ou rtroubles, no matter how bad those troubles may be, or may have been.

    In other words Kezza: get a life.

  15. Zoomster

    [Now you’re trying to argue that they’re both from ‘petre’.]

    No, I’m not arguing that. I’m accepting that the words for farting and rock were and are distinct and have distinct provenance. I am arguing that the term petard was contrived from ‘peter’ (rather than pedere) (Shakespeare’s famous text originally said ‘petar’) and that the apparent similarity of the two terms and the object of their description may have caused them to be used for the one thing.

    My original claim was that petroleum and petard were cognate, not that petroleum and farting were.

  17. fran

    so, rather than admit you were wrong to begin with, you’re simply making stuff up.

    Fair ’nuff.

    (I don’t know whether citing Shakespeare proves a thing, given that it is well known that spelling was a fairly random process in his times – to the extent that he himself spelt his name several different ways…)

  18. Player 1

    [Fran is never wrong. It is clearly the rest of the universe that is mistaken.]

    Oh I am sometimes wrong. I doubt that I’m wrong on this though, though I’m open to someone showing me persuasive reasons for thinking petard ought to be linked to flatus rather than saltpetre.

  19. Next week guests on Qanda include Greg Combet and motor-mouth-with-an-edge-of-malice Susan Ley.

    Already excited about the thought of Greg Combet calmly and succinctly cutting her off at the knees.

  20. Zoomster

    [so, rather than admit you were wrong to begin with, you’re simply making stuff up.]

    Amusing. Why go there?

  21. [Fran is never wrong. It is clearly the rest of the universe that is mistaken.]

    LOL

    True though! She not been wrong before.

    So I’ll back Fran (even at $1.01) in this, even if I stopped following it in detail a few screens ago.

  22. BB you don’t get to make judgements like this:

    [Bottom line: she trades on it. There IS a difference between that and the alternative method, which is to get some therapy and move on without blaming everybody else for her troubles.]

    Who the fuck are you to judge when someone is trading off their trauma?

    Even if you are a victim of childhood sexual abuse and rape, even torture you are still not in any position to judge someone else’s reactions to their own abuse. Your attitude borders on openly saying “how dare you have the temerity/uppityness/bad taste/whatever (balls even) to mention this in public let alone survive.”

    Don’t do it.

    If kezza is being a feckwit then its easy enough to criticise kezza for being a feckwit without constantly referring to horrible shit that was inflicted on her by a man who she should have been able to trust when she was a kid. She survived it – more power to her. I doubt you keep bringing it up to reinforce her empowerment.

    I’m not sticking up for her btw, she seems to be doing fine on that score herself.

    I’m just pointing out that you constantly referring to it isn’t on.

  23. [Already excited about the thought of Greg Combet calmly and succinctly cutting her off at the knees.]

    Jesus!

    Figuratively speaking, I hope!

  24. BB
    [Getting over things is a part of life. We don’t leave off writing or talking about them because we can’t be the center of attention anymore, or because we’re no longer shitty. We leave off talking about them because we’re over them. We’ve moved on. Learned to accommodate them.]

    I agree.

    But just because you got over your shit sooner than I got over my shit, doesn’t mean you have the right to tell me when to get over something.

    You’d spent a great deal less time with your Step-Son situation than I had with what had happened to me.

    You had no emotional investment in that situation. I lived with my family for most of 20 years, and was still in contact with them for the past 40 years. I had lived this for a long time.

    And, just as you took time to come to grips with a situation, and then let it go, then I needed time to come to grips with a situation, and then let it go.

    You, and a lot of others on PB, were part of that. And I appreciate it.

    Who do you think you are, now though, that you can sit there in judgement about how long it should take. And not only that, come here to this blog and demean me, yet again.

    I didn’t come to your blog and have a go at you. You came here, specifically, to have a go at me.

    What did you expect from that blast?

    That I would be so submissive as to not reply?

    You started it tonight, and you can bloody well finish it. An apology wouldn’t go astray.

  25. [The federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has weighed in to say farmers overwhelmingly hate the vegetation laws. But much of the tension is between farmers and farmers, not farmers and blow-in greenies or bureaucrats. Sometimes it is between the smaller family farms and the bigger “agribusinesses”. Some dare to dob in neighbours for illegal clearing.]

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-farmers-rights-tensions-that-preceded-fatal-shooting-of-environmental-officer-glen-turner-20140801-zzfxh.html#ixzz39Qb3Rues

    Yeah right, which makes vigilante farmers defending their right to whatever on their property in the face of state laws all the more numpty.

    Sorry Barnaby, but the laws are relatively expalicity on that front, complete with inspectors.

  26. Ok … It’s after 11PM on a work night. I’m either getting the sleep I need for tomorrow or talking about something new. Really, I should just put away the iPad and get some sleep.

  27. [Who the fuck are you to judge when someone is trading off their trauma?]

    Jules, don’t know who you are, but your heart seems to be in the right place. Go back the last couple of years and read the literally hundreds of posts written by Kezza about Kezza’s problems, for which she blames the male gender loudly, remorselessly and at large.

    Then come back here, put your hand on your heart and tell us she doesn’t trade off it.

    Sure, all of us get cranky and indulge in a bit of argey-bargey from time to time. But Kezza has turned it into a way of life.

  28. Repeatedly parading ones own past trauma as a justification for berating any other view on completely unrelated issues sorta wears thin after a while Jules. Past trauma is not a guarantee of wisdom.

  29. Anyway, not running from an argument, but I think it’s time for bed, and I’m pretty sure tonight’s Kezza has done its dash.

    Ciao.

  32. Alan Koehler just presented a graph on the ABC showing how Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings shot up after he set out to annex parts of Ukraine. Maybe Abbott will take a leaf out of his book and try to annex parts of NZ or PNG.

  34. The problem with scrolling past the increasing level of personal vitriol is that you’re never quite sure who the goodies and baddies are.

    To find out, you’d have to stop scrolling past it all while you look for the political analysis and discussion.

    Can someone post a list of good guys and bad guys for us scrollers and lurkers, please.

    Alternatively, it would be greatly appreciated if someone could post a brief, but amusing, bio of the main characters here, with their factional allegiance.

    The only request is that it doesn’t kick off further discussion about the Greens or Rudd/Gillard.

    Thank you.

  39. I just saw Hockey bellowing/blustering that high income earners ‘pay half their income as tax and low income earners pay no tax’. Tomorrow Shorten should say what % tax he pays as a high income earner, ask Hockey to do the same, and challenge Hockey to produce single high income earner that pays half their income as tax.

    I’d suggest the likes of Twiggy Forest may pay a lower % of income than the average lower-middle income earner paying tax and GST.

    My wife and I are well paid/high income (our combined income puts us in the top 10% of household incomes), and receive (& expect) little direct middle class welfare (school kid bonuses were about it, and we scored one of Howard’s pre-election panic bonuses twice because we have different surnames – these were donated to the Greens). With GST and the medicare levy (we choose to remain in the public system because my wife has worked in the private health system and seen to inefficiencies and rent seeking there) we’d still pay only about 30-<35% of our income in tax (we earn enough that we save money – so we don't spend and incur 10% GST on everything we buy – unlike those on lower incomes). Our income taxes are less than 30% of all earnings. We don't use the various tax dodges built into the tax system for higher income earners. if we did, I have no doubt we could drop our tax lower. I know of people using negative gearing and other investments to not only pay no income tax, but also to qualify for benefit payments for their kids due to their 'low income'.

    Can someone please ask Hockey if he and his very well paid partner pay 50% of their income in tax? and ask – 'is the actual amount more or less than 30%'. if he tries to claim 50% he should be asked to prove it. His accountant will be torn – does he/she support Joe's claims or defend/promote their ability to minimise tax for their clients?

    I hope there is some press on how much tax Australia's wealthiest actually pay as a % of earnings.

  41. Swing Required most on here broadly support the ALP, a tiny vocal minority support a Turnbull LNP. There’s a longstanding clash that erupts occasionally between the Rudd Gillard supporters. There.s a few self obsessed crazies with axes to grind. Occasionally some LNP troll appears. Then there’s the Green faction. All part of the rich tapestry of life I suppose. Oh and there’s a separatist ALP Catholic faction split three ways among the Jesuits, Anglos and ex Catholics who frequently argue the toss.

  42. It is acknowledged that Shakespere was making a toilet joke by using petar’ (which did mean fart in French) rather than petard (which was originally a fart but had come to be used for bomb).

    Fran is just hoisting herself even more.

    There is no basis to say that petard came from peter, petra or petros.

  43. From what I’ve found (having checked back posts) I’m going with this:

    [You started it tonight, and you can bloody well finish it. An apology wouldn’t go astray.]

    Sheezus, talk about insensitive?

    Kezza you keep sticking it up them :kiss:

  44. Thank you, Rossmore.

    Put me with those who support the ALP, quite OK with the Greens.

    Gillard supporter, quite enjoy most of BB’s contributions, along with several others, especially BK’s morning summaries.

    Also a failure so far to attend an SA Chapter get together, despite my best intentions.

  47. Did anyone else watch the interview on lateline on the effects of war on the soldiers?

    The cost of their rehab should be factored in before sending them off to be traumatized.

    Or we could stop this stupid fighting which benefits no one.

  48. Re Fran and petard. Not that I care that much or expect to settle the matter to Fran’s satisfaction, but Fran is wrong, as anyone with access to the OED is free to determine for themselves should they wish. Incidentally here, aptly enough, is the word ‘pet’ used in English as meaning ‘fart’: ‘Though all their cunning scantly be worth a pet’ (Alexander Barclay, ‘Certayne Eclogues’, 1515). Just like ‘petard’, it is a loanword from French.

  50. Rossmore @ 937

    The departed candidates brings to mind lines from the Tom Lehrer song “My Home Town”:

    “I remember Sam, he was the village idiot, and though it seems a pity, it was so;

    He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow, but nothing could be done, because he was the mayor’s son”.

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