Dalrymple

Margin: Katter’s Australian Party 15.2% versus LNP
Region: Rural Northern
Federal: Capricornia/Kennedy

Candidates in ballot paper order

	SHANE KNUTH Katter’s Australian Party (top) LIZ SCHMIDT Liberal National (bottom) LEANNE KETTLETON Labor VALERIE WEIER Greens

The northern Queensland seat of Dalrymple is one of three that go into the election in the hands of Katter’s Australian Party, former Liberal National Party member Shane Knuth having defected to the party in November 2011. The electorate extends northwards from Moranbah, 150 kilometres inland of Mackay, through Charters Towers, 100 kilometres south-west of Townsville, to its strongest concentration of population around Atherton, 50 kilometres south-west of Cairns.

Dalrymple was created at the 2009 election, in large part merging together the abolished seats of Tablelands and Charters Towers. This set the election up as a contest between their respective sitting members: Shane Knuth, a pastoralist and former railway welder who had recovered Charters Towers for the Nationals in 2004 after an aberrant Labor win in 2001, and Rosa Lee Long, the last survivor of One Nation. Tablelands had been among the eleven seats won by One Nation at the 1998 election, but the candidate elected on that occasion was Shaun Nelson, who quit the party eight months later. Lee Long then defeated Nelson as the official One Nation candidate in 2001, and easily retained the seat at the two elections afterwards. Knuth offered a One Nation connection of his own, his brother Jeff Knuth having won the seat of Burdekin for the party in 1998.

Shane Knuth emerged the victor by a 5.2% margin after preferences, having outpolled Lee Long 41.4% to 32.0% on the primary vote. After coming and going from the shadow ministry as the Nationals leadership chopped and changed, Knuth emerged from the LNP merger process severely disaffected. He announced his resignation from the party in November 2011, complaining the merger had been “a disaster for regional representation, which now has been a virtual takeover by the Liberals”. Knuth went on to win easy re-election with 53.7% of the primary vote, compared with 21.9% for Liz Schmidt of the LNP. Schmidt, who has a high profile locally as a livestock transport operator, will again run for the party at the coming election.

Corrections, complaints and feedback to William Bowe at pollbludger-at-bigpond-dot-com. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.

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