LNP 19.10%
Incumbent MP
Alex Douglas, since 2009. Previously Member for Gaven 2006.
Geography
South-East Queensland. Gaven covers inland parts of the Gold Coast, including Pacific Pines, Gaven, Nerang, Highland Park and parts of Carrara.
History
The seat of Gaven was created at the 2001 election. It was created as a notionally Liberal seat, but was won in 2001 by the ALP. The ALP held the seat until losing it in a 2006 by-election. Labor then won the seat back for one more term at the 2006 election.
Gaven largely replaced the seat of Nerang in 2001. Nerang had been held by the National Party from 1986 to 1989.
Nerang was held from 1989 to 2001 by Liberal MP Ray Connor, who briefly served as a minister from 1996 to 1997. When Nerang was abolished Connor unsuccessfully contested the new seat of Mudgeeraba.
Gaven was won in 2001 by Robert Poole of the ALP. Poole was re-elected in 2004.
Poole’s wife and children lived in Thailand, and he was criticised for extended periods he spent overseas. In early 2006 it was revealed that he planned to spend a number of months in Thailand. Peter Beattie demanded that Poole return and threatened the possibility of Poole’s seat being declared vacant. Poole subsequently resigned from Parliament in early 2006.
The 2006 by-election was won by the National Party’s Alex Douglas, defeating the ALP’s Phil Gray.
Less than six months later, Douglas lost to Gray at the general election. Gray held the seat for one term, and in 2009 lost to Douglas, now running for the Liberal National Party.
Douglas was re-elected as the LNP candidate in 2012.
Alex Douglas resigned from the LNP in late 2012, to sit as an independent. He joined the newly formed Palmer United Party in 2013 as the party’s Queensland state leader. He resigned from PUP in August 2014 to again sit as an independent.
Candidates
- Sid Cramp (Liberal National)
- Adam Marcinkowski (Palmer United)
- Ben O’Brien (Family First)
- Michael Riordan (Labor)
- Alex Douglas (Independent)
- Chris Ivory (Independent)
- Toni McPherson (Greens)
Assessment
Gaven has a history as a marginal seat, and could well be a seat targeted by both major parties. Alex Douglas has now won election at three general elections and one by-election, but we have no idea how strong his personal vote is, and whether he could viably win re-election as an independent.
2012 election result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alex Douglas | Liberal National | 15,175 | 55.16 | +13.23 |
| Michael Riordan | Labor | 6,289 | 22.86 | -16.94 |
| Brian Zimmerman | Katter’s Australian | 2,413 | 8.77 | +8.77 |
| Stephen Power | Greens | 1,536 | 5.58 | -1.43 |
| Bibe Roadley | Family First | 1,298 | 4.72 | +2.1 |
| Penny Toland | Independent | 799 | 2.90 | +2.9 |
2012 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Alex Douglas | Liberal National | 16,471 | 69.10 | +18.38 |
| Michael Riordan | Labor | 7,365 | 30.90 | -18.38 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Gaven have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.
The Liberal National primary vote ranged from 53.7% in the centre of the seat to 57% in the north, and the two-party-preferred vote ranged from 67.7% in the centre of the seat to 70% in the north.
The ALP came second, with a vote ranging from 22.4% in the south to 23.9% in the centre.
The Electoral Commission does not publish two-party-preferred figures by polling place, so two-party-preferred figures in the following table and map are estimates.
| Voter group | LNP prim % | ALP prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total | % of votes |
| Central | 53.66 | 23.85 | 67.71 | 8,347 | 30.34 |
| North | 56.99 | 22.99 | 69.96 | 5,908 | 21.48 |
| South | 55.61 | 22.36 | 69.67 | 5,483 | 19.93 |
| Other votes | 55.07 | 22.05 | 69.57 | 7,772 | 28.25 |
Anyone got any idea on any sort of polling in this seat? The Labor candidate appears quite strong but I will admit, this is a seat I don’t know too much about demographically.
You have areas such as Nerang of lower socio economic status that tend to vote Labor traditionally, but alot of new housing estates and better off area. You would have to assume a marginal LNP seat naturally.
I recon Douglas would have a decent chance of winning as an independent. Not many MPs can turn a marginal seat into a safe one and the result was pretty much uniform across the whole electorate. I recon Douglas will battle out labor here but if the LNP are bitter they could direct preferences to see Douglas booted out
Got to disagreee, Douglas will run third
whats ur reasoning for that then?
Every marginal was turned into a safe seat at the 2012 election.
Look at some of the other seats that switched hands in 2009: Aspley, Cleveland, Redlands, Mudgeeraba, etc. All seats with first term LNP incumbents that ran up the score in 2012.
Gaven’s margin is no particular reflection on the standing of the sitting member.
Gaven isn’t a first term MP in Gaven David so for him to rock up that margin and uniform across the electorate speaks well for his profile. You can’t dismiss his performance as he wasn’t a sophomore
What David said is part of my reasoning. Also Douglas doesn’t have strong name recognition, he isn’t a great local member and his multiple party switches has undermined his credibility. Lastly internal lnp polling is good here.
Regardless of whether or not you want to classify Douglas as a sophomore in 2012, the point still stands. Like the aforementioned seats, Gaven was hotly contested in 2009 but would not have been in 2012.
In any case, I don’t see how Douglas’s previous tenure helps your argument. If Douglas was so awesome, he wouldn’t have lost in 2006.
Douglas is probably a bit better known than Carl Judge in Yeerongpilly, so he should poll better than him, but under OPV that mainly helps Labor. If he comes third with 15-20% and those votes don’t go back to the LNP, this seat would become very marginal. It’ll be interesting to watch.
Douglas preferences labor may make this tight. I would be surprised if he gets more than 15%; of the vote though.
I would’ve thought this area would tend to be LNP territory and only won by Labor at good elections (as 2001-06 were for them). Douglas will presumably capture a significant portion of the anit-LNP swing that would’ve otherwise gone to Labor, but it seems hard to predict. Some polling would be very interesting here.
Albert has historically been more Labour than Gaven although this may no longer be applicable with current boundaries.
I recon this would the suprise labor pick up of the night. LNP vote will already be down, Douglas draws votes from the LNP could result in a contest with low primary votes for each candidate. Wouldn’t bensuprised if this seat is won off a primary vote in the mid 30s
I suspect this will be a Labor seat. I speak to a lot of local business people here who admit there is no chance they’ll be voting LNP again and some are even considering voting Green for the first time out of concern for the environment. This is the Gold Coast and they rely heavily on tourism here. The conservative vote is also badly split here and Douglas has angered both the LNP and PUP. His real supporters I suspect will vote Douglas 1, other Independent 2 and ALP 3. If he pulls 20% of the primary in third place and the ALP and Green primaries are up preferences will get the ALP across the line over LNP but it will be close.
The 3 things I am most sure about in this campaign (and I admit there’s plenty of things which are unknown that the night will tell us) but I am 100 percent certain of 3 things:
1. The LNP will claim victory by about 9.30 on the night
2. Newman WILL hold Ashgrove
3. Labor WON’T win any Gold Coast seats. I repeat Labor WILL NOT win any Gold Coast seats, despite the fact they may get close in Albert.
The Courier Mail has made sure Labor are still hated on the Gold Coast and Labor’s campaign has been poor there.
I live in Nerang and the mood here is a strong win for Douglas. The LNP candidate ,Sid Cramp is a headless chook.Avoiding media and apparently passing himself of a s a Paramedic. This would not seem to be true. The ALP are running a softly softly campaign and will poll well but the seat will be Independent after Saturday.
My prediction: Alex Douglas contesting re-election as an independent, along with the swing away from the LNP, could make this interesting. LNP hold for now, unless Douglas takes a sizeable portion of the vote, which may not flow back as preferences.
Does anyone know who’s won this seat? We have no 2PP count, Antony has called it for Labor, but on the figures we have, that seems questionable.
It’s safe to say the LNP has won the seat. There is no conceivable way Labor will close a 9-10% primary vote gap when most of the preferences come from the right.
The ABC summary pages all have Gaven as “safe LNP gain”. It is only on the Gaven page itself that it’s listed as an ALP gain.
By my count, Gaven is NOT included in Labor’s base 43 seats.
I’m not sure it’s quite so open-and-shut as that, David. I agree that the LNP are heavy favourites here, but I can’t quite rule out a boilover looking at the raw numbers, considering that Douglas issued an HTV with Labor ahead of the LNP. Does anyone know why the ECQ decided to do an ALP-Douglas count anyway?
Having said that, the ABC is now showing an LNP-ALP preference count with the LNP unassailably ahead. If that’s real, there’s no shadow of a doubt.
Labor would normally only make up that sort of gap if the vast majority of other votes came from the Greens, as in Mount Coot-tha.
So the question is, could the combined other vote in Gaven behave like Greens preferences? Let’s see…
Indeed Douglas did place Labor higher on his HTV, but he’s ex-LNP/PUP, so presumably his supporters are generally conservative. Additionally, even if Douglas’s followers were inclined to obediently follow his recommendation, I doubt he would have had sufficient volunteers to hand out all those HTVs.
Also, 12% of the vote was from PUP or FFP. PUP didn’t register a HTV and FFP favoured LNP.
Now it’s not out of the question that Douglas/PUP/FFP preferences could have favoured Labor. But would they have favoured Labor to the same lopsided extent as Greens preferences do? No way.
There’s no two party count on the official site, so the ABC figures are probably a preference estimate. They actually have the LNP-ALP gap widening after preferences.
The figures on the ABC website seem to be estimates – there are no 2PP numbers on the ECQ website. However there seems to be a consensus that the LNP has won this seat.
ABC has projection of labor taking 45 seats with Maryborough and presumably this seat (despite being projected in doubt LNP ahead but when you add up they must be assuming this changes). This one will depend not he preference allocation throughout the week. At the moment with 4/37 2PP booths in its 51/49 to the LNP. Id be more hopeful here then in Whitsunday.
The ECQ have started an LNP/ALP count on their website now and it’s actually looking very close. LNP on only 51% after 4 booths.