LIB 3.0%
Incumbent MP
Alex Somlyay, since 1990.
Geography
Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Fairfax covers the central part of Sunshine Coast Regional Council. It covers the towns of Buderim, Maroochydore and Nambour, as well as following the coast from Maroochydore to Coolum Beach.
Redistribution
Fairfax gained a small area from Wide Bay to the southwest of Noosa Heads, including the suburb of Doonan. Fairfax lost areas to the south of Nambour and Buderim including Sippy Downs, Eudlo and Montville.
History
Fairfax was first created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded, and has always been held by conservative parties. The seat was first won by Evan Adermann of the National Party, who had previously held Fisher since the 1972 election and served as a minister in the Fraser government.
Adermann retired at the 1990 election, and the seat was fought as a three-cornered contest in 1990. The ALP came first on primaries, with the Nationals leading the Liberals by 0.7% on primary votes. A high Democrats vote pushed the Liberals ahead of Nationals candidate John Stone, who had resigned from the Senate to contest the seat, and Alex Somlyay (LIB) won the seat on National preferences.
Somlyay has held the seat ever since by varying margins, most recently having a margin of over 62% following the redistribution before the 2007 election. A 9.4% swing to the ALP made Fairfax a marginal seat following the 2007 election.
Candidates
Information released in late 2009 regarding a possible serious illness of Somlyay raises questions about whether he will run for re-election. The ALP has preselected Dan McIntyre.
Political situation
The huge swings to the ALP in Queensland in 2007 pushed Fairfax into the marginal seat category, and it is yet to be seen as to whether there is any more room for the Labor vote to grow.
2007 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alex Somlyay | LIB | 38,470 | 46.82 | -6.90 |
| Debbie Blumel | ALP | 29,960 | 36.46 | +9.22 |
| Dave Norris | GRN | 7,011 | 8.53 | +0.36 |
| Lisa Woods | FF | 3,287 | 4.00 | -1.01 |
| Max Phillips | IND | 1,300 | 1.58 | +1.58 |
| Kevin Savage | ON | 861 | 1.05 | -2.07 |
| Janette Hashemi | DEM | 764 | 0.93 | -1.25 |
| Kev Watt | CEC | 514 | 0.63 | +0.42 |
2007 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alex Somlyay | LIB | 43,558 | 53.01 | -9.40 |
| Debbie Blumel | ALP | 38,609 | 46.99 | +9.40 |
Results do not take into consideration effects of the redistribution.
Booth breakdown
The large size of Queensland local government areas means that Fairfax is entirely contained within Sunshine Coast, so there are not any easy boundaries to use to divide booths into smaller areas. I have grouped together booths into the following four groups:
- Buderim-Maroochydore – covers booths around these two main towns.
- Nambour – covers booths in Nambour and in the areas between Nambour and Buderim and Maroochydore.
- Coast – covers booths following the coast from north of Maroochydore to Coolum Beach.
- Inland – covers those six booths to the north and west of Nambour and not on the coast.
The Liberal Party won a substantial majority in the south-eastern corner of the seat where over two thirds of voters reside. This includes Buderim, Maroochydore and Nambour, although the ALP won a majority in the booths in the town of Nambour itself, hometown of the former Prime Minister and current Treasurer. The ALP won smaller majorities along the coast and inland.
Polling booths in Fairfax. Buderim-Maroochydore in green, Nambour in yellow, Coast in blue, Inland in red.
| Voter group | GRN % | LIB 2CP % | Total votes | % of ordinary votes |
| Buderim-Maroochydore | 7.12 | 55.97 | 24,553 | 40.56 |
| Nambour | 7.94 | 51.41 | 16,938 | 27.98 |
| Coast | 10.94 | 47.12 | 11,460 | 18.93 |
| Inland | 13.50 | 49.56 | 7,583 | 12.53 |
| Other votes | 8.04 | 55.52 | 17,181 |
Polling booths in Fairfax, showing results of the 2007 election.
And thus is the problem with the Liberal Party. They can’t or won’t boot a 64 year old MP who spent all but 1 year of his 20 years in parliament as a backbencher. At this time that should be a rebuilding period for the Tories, surely they could find someone that better represents the future of the Libs. Guess not.
I’d like to see the Libs lose this seat, but it would be a bit ask on top of a 9.4% swing last time around.
I agree with Hamish. Somlyay has only ever contributed to well being of his local golfing clubs and the Hellenic Club in Canberra where he spends all his time feeding poker machines. His interest in the people of the Fairfax electorate is more a resentment than a remote care. I would like to see an audit of how his electoral allowance is spent, would all be going into his pocket and nothing on the electorate. The Sunshine Coast needs to say good ridence to this bludger of 20 years. The LNP really screwed up by grandfathering Somlyay and Slipper before really finding out their complete lack of performance – the amount of time Somlyay spends playing golf is outrageous! If the ALP are smart they’ll make sure they get someone to just wait at Horton Park with a camera each day – he doesn’t do anything even during election campaigns than play golf.
Electorate officer Don McIntyre has reportedly won the ALP preselection.
Dan McIntyre*
It said ‘Don’ in the report, so it was their mistake then.
Yes, according to the ALP website it is Dan McIntyre, not ‘Don’ as the Brisbane Times had reported.
… I just want to clear this up – yes it IS in fact ‘Dan (as in Daniel) McIntyre’ (not Don). He is a good friend of mine since Uni and an awesome bloke!