Inala

Margin: Labor 6.9%
Region: Southern Brisbane
Federal: Moreton/Oxley

Candidates in ballot paper order

	ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK Labor (top) SILKE VOLKMANN Greens ADAM HANNANT Liberal National (bottom)

Held for Labor by Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Brisbane seat of Inala was one of only seven Labor seats which withstood the devastation of the 2012 election result. The swing left intact 6.9% of Labor’s 21.5% margin in 2009, causing it to displace Woodridge as Labor’s safest seat. The electorate is located roughly 15 kilometres south-west of the city, extending westwards from Inala through Richlands to the outskirts of Ipswich City at Camira. The area is the hub of Brisbane’s Vietnamese community, contributing to the state’s third highest proportion of residents speaking languages other than English. The electorate also ranks second for public housing and proportion of the workforce employed in manufacturing.

Inala was created at the 1992 election, largely replacing the abolished safe Labor seat of Wolston. Its inaugural member was the father of the present incumbent, Henry Palaszczuk, who had been member for Archerfield (since superseded by Algester) since 1984. Annastacia Palaszczuk succeeded him upon his retirement in 2006, and rose swiftly to a parliamentary secretary position in November 2008 and thence to cabinet, first as Disability Services Minister after the 2009 election, then as Transport Minister from February 2011.

A member of the Labor Forum/AWU sub-faction of the Right, Palaszczuk promptly emerged as the consensus candidate for the leadership after the 2012 election debacle, although Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt initially said he wasn’t ruling himself out. Palaszczuk also took charge of the education, Attorney-General, industrial relations and tourism portfolios. She jettisoned first education when Yvette D’Ath was elected to Redcliffe in February 2014, then Attorney-General and tourism when Anthony Lynham was elected to Stafford the following July, and rebranded her remaining industrial relations portfolio as employment and industrial relations.

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

Back to Crikey’s Queensland election guide