Aspley

Margin: Liberal National 21.7%
Region: Northern Brisbane
Federal: Lilley/Petrie

Candidates in ballot paper order

	NOEL CLOTHIER Greens TRACY DAVIS Liberal National (top) GAYLE DALLASTON Labor (bottom)

The northern Brisbane suburbs of Aspley was one of eight the Liberal National Party gained at the 2009 election, when Tracy Davis of the Liberal National Party unseated Labor incumbent Bonny Barry after accounting for her 3.0% margin with a 7.5% swing, before emphatically consolidating with a 17.3% swing in 2012. The electorate extends northwards from Aspley itself, about 13 kilometres north of the city centre, to Pine River. The electorate rates third in the state for number of Italian speakers, and first for clerical and administrative workers. Labor is strongest around Bald Hills in the north and on the eastern side of the Gympie Arterial Road, while the southern suburbs of McDowall and especially Bridgeman Downs are strongly conservative.

Aspley was usually been held by the Liberals in the decades after its creation in 1960, but fell to the Nationals during their incursion into Brisbane at the 1983 and 1986 elections. The Liberals recovered the seat in 1989 and withstood strong Labor challenges in 1992 and 1998, before Veronica Barry finally secured the seat for Labor amidst the 2001 landslide. After stable results in 2004 and 2006, the electorate moved solidly in 2009 as part of a broader trend in northern Brisbane, which was widely linked to the government’s merger of the Royal Children’s and Mater hospitals.

The seat has since been held for the LNP by Tracy Davis, who had worked formerly for Senator Sue Boyce, and more recently as the operator of a Brendale kitchen manufacturing business. Boyle was associated with a “western suburbs faction” of Liberals sceptical of the merits of a merger with the Nationals, which also included former leader Bruce Flegg and Liberal state presidents Bob Tucker and Bob Carroll. Davis was promoted to the shadow ministry in November 2010, and has served since the 2012 election as Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services Minister.

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