Sandgate

Margin: Liberal National 2.9%
Region: Northern Brisbane
Federal: Lilley/Petrie

Candidates in ballot paper order

	KERRY MILLARD Liberal National (top) JOHN HARBISON Greens STIRLING HINCHLIFFE Labor (bottom) HAMISH GRAY Independent

Gained for the Liberal National Party at the 2012 election, when a 12.4% Labor margin was accounted for by a swing of 15.2%, Sandgate covers the northernmost coastal areas of the City of Brisbane, from Shorncliffe north through Brighton to North Pine River, and extends inland across the Gateway Motorway to Bracken Ridge. The electorate has existed in one form or another since 1923, and was held by Labor without interruption from 1960 to 2012. It was held progressively by Neville Warburton, who came to the seat in 1977 and led the party from 1984 to 1988; Gordon Nuttall, the member until 2006, who now serves a 14 year prison term for corruption and perjury offences relating to his time as a minister; and Vicky Darling, whose mother Elaine Darling held the federal seat of Lilley from 1980 to 1993, and who served as Environment Minister from June 2011 until the election defeat.

Darling was unseated at the 2012 election by Kerry Millard, whose parliamentary biography records her as having spent “20 years in the metals and manufacturing sector” before her election. Millard faces a high-profile Labor opponent at the coming election in Stirling Hinchliffe, who served in cabinet during Labor’s final term in office, first in infrastructure and planning and then in employment, skills and mining. Hinchliffe was member for the southern suburbs seat of Stafford from 2006 until his defeat in 2012, when he was dumped by a swing of 19.0%. His determination to re-enter parliament in Sandgate was presumably informed by Labor’s two-party vote having been 5.1% higher than in Stafford in 2009, and 4.2% higher in 2012 (although Stafford has since been won back for Labor at a by-election held in July 2014).

According to an April 2013 report in the Courier-Mail, the Sandgate preselection was secured for Hinchliffe’s AWU/Labor Forum faction in a deal which delivered its backing to Left faction candidate Peter Freeleagus in the federal preselection for Capricornia, which he ultimately failed to win at the September 2013 election. However, it was reported at that time that the faction’s nominee for Stafford was Victoria Newton, who represents Deagon ward on Brisbane City Council.

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

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