Kallangur

Margin: Liberal National 12.4%
Region: Northern Brisbane
Federal: Dickson/Longman

Candidates in ballot paper order

	SHANE KING Labor (bottom) JASON KENNEDY Greens TREVOR RUTHENBERG Liberal National (top)

The northern Brisbane seat of Kallangur was created at the 1992 election and lost by Labor for the first time in 2012, when Labor’s 4.6% margin from 2009 was crushed by a swing to the Liberal National Party of 17.1%. The electorate is located roughly 25 kilometres north of the central Brisbane, covering suburbs immediately to the west of the Bruce Highway from strongly Labor-voting Kallangur westwards to Kurwongbah, northwards to the southern edge of Narangba, and southwards to Murrumba Downs.

Kallangur was held for Labor from 1992 to 2009 by Ken Hayward, whose closest shaves came in 1995 when the anti-Labor rebellion cut the margin to 4.0%, and in 1998 when One Nation came within 3.9% of victory. His retirement at the 2009 election coincided with a redistribution that substantially changed the electorate by creating the new seat of Morayfield to the north, to which it ceded Burpengary and Morayfield while gaining new territory to the south as far as Murrumba Downs. This left Morayfield with more of the voters from Kallangur as previously constituted than the redrawn seat of that name.

The Labor margin was nonetheless little changed at 11.0%, more than enough to keep the seat secure at the 2009 election despite a swing of 6.4%. It was then held for a term by Mary-Anne O’Neill, formerly an official with the Left faction Australian Services Union. The LNP’s winning candidate in 2012 was Trevor Ruthenburg, a former RAAF engineer who had more recently worked as executive officer to the Lutheran Church of Australia. His Labor opponent at the coming election is Shane King, an electrician for Powerlink.

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

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