Tweed
Margin: Nationals 21.7%
Region: North Coast
Federal: Richmond
Candidates in ballot paper order
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KERRIE COLLINS RON GOODMAN GEOFF PROVEST MICHAEL SICHEL ANDREA VICKERS |
2011 BOOTH RESULTS MAP |
PAST RESULTS
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DEMOGRAPHICS |
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Two-party preferred booth results from 2011 state election showing Nationals majority in green and Labor in red. New boundaries in thicker blue lines, old ones in thinner red lines. Boundary data courtesy of Ben Raue of The Tally Room.
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Tweed is the state’s northernmost coastal electorate, taking its name from the river that runs just south of the New South Wales-Queensland border, and was gained by the Nationals from Labor at the 2007 election. It extends from Tweed Heads on the border through surrounding communities as far south as Burringbar, and has been all but unchanged by the redistribution. The area’s rapid growth has been reflected by name changes from Murwillumbah in 1999, when the town of that name was transferred to Lismore, and Byron in 1988, when Byron Bay became part of the new seat of Ballina. The most significant variations in booth results relate to the Greens, who poll over 20% in the counter-cultural hinterland, but only around 7% in and around Tweed Heads.
Taken together, Byron and Murwillumbah were in National/Country Party hands until 1999, although the margin fell below 2% on four occasions in the previous two decades. The renamed seat of Tweed was then won for Labor by Neville Newell, who unseated Don Beck with a 4.7% swing that accounted for a margin of 2.1%. Newell had earlier conquered a local Nationals stronghold at the 1990 federal election, when he defeated the party’s then leader Charles Blunt in Richmond. Larry Anthony recovered Richmond for the Nationals when the Keating government was defeated in 1996, and Newell came within 650 votes of winning it back in 1998.
Newell added a further 1.2% to his margin in 2003, but was defeated in 2007 by a 7.1% swing to current member Geoff Provest, who was formerly general manager of the Tweed Heads Bowls Club. Reflecting a particularly devastating result for Labor across the region, Provest was able to increase his margin by 18.7% in the 2011 landslide. His Labor opponent at the coming election is Ron Goodman, managing director of a local public relations agency and former publisher and editor of the Tweed Daily News.
Corrections, complaints and feedback to William Bowe at pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.
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