Whitsunday – Queensland 2015

LNP 10.67%

Incumbent MP
Jason Costigan, since 2012.

Geography
North Queensland. The seat stretches along the Queensland coast from just north of Mackay to just south of Bowen. It covers parts of Mackay and Whitsunday local government areas, including Cannonvale, Airlie Beach, Proserpine, Calen, and some outer northern and western suburbs of Mackay.

History
Whitsunday was created for the 1950 election and was a solid seat for the Country/National party for most of its history.

The seat was held by three MPs from the Country Party or National Party from 1950 until 1989.

In 1989, the ALP won government for the first time in decades under its leader Wayne Goss. In a shock result, Whitsunday was won by the ALP’s Lorraine Bird.

Bird held the seat throughout the Goss government. She was defeated in 1998 by One Nation’s Harry Black. Black left One Nation in 1999 and helped found the City Country Alliance that year.

In 2001, Black ran as the City Country Alliance candidate, but was defeated by the ALP’s Jan Jarrett. Jarrett was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2009, and was appointed as Minister for Tourism, Manufacturing and Small Business in February 2011.

In 2012, Labor MP Jan Jarrett was defeated by LNP candidate Jason Costigan.

Candidates

  • Jason Costigan (Liberal National)
  • Bronwyn Taha (Labor)
  • Kylee Stanton (Palmer United)
  • Tony Fontes (Greens)
  • Dan Van Blarcom (Independent)

Assessment
Whitsunday’s current margin makes it the kind of seat that will help decide who forms government. The ALP held Whitsunday for all but one term from 1989 to 2012, so will be hoping to gain the seat as part of a pro-Labor swing.

2012 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Jason Costigan Liberal National 12,785 44.38 -0.07
Jan Jarratt Labor 7,901 27.43 -22.28
Amanda Camm Katter’s Australian 6,424 22.30 +22.3
Jonathon Dykyj Greens 1,695 5.88 +0.03

2012 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Jason Costigan Liberal National 14,778 60.67 +13.91
Jan Jarratt Labor 9,578 39.33 -13.91
Polling places in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election. Mackay in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election. Mackay in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Whitsunday have been divided into three parts. Those areas close to the city of Mackay have been grouped as “Mackay”, with the remaining booths in the Mackay council area grouped as “South” and those in the Whitsunday council area grouped as “North”.

The LNP topped the poll in all three areas, with a primary vote ranging from 42.9% in the north to 47.1% in the south.

The ALP’s vote ranged from 19.4% in the south to 29.7% in Mackay, while the Katter’s Australian Party vote ranged from 20.3% in Mackay to 28.9% in the south. The KAP candidate outpolled Labor in the south.

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 % KAP prim % Total % of votes
Mackay 44.37 29.68 20.27 10,686 37.10
North 42.85 25.69 23.98 5,951 20.66
South 47.06 19.40 28.91 2,871 9.97
Other votes 44.56 28.43 21.52 9,297 32.28
Estimated two-party-preferred votes in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Estimated two-party-preferred votes in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Katter's Australian Party primary votes in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Katter’s Australian Party primary votes in Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Estimated two-party-preferred votes in the Mackay part of Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Estimated two-party-preferred votes in the Mackay part of Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Katter's Australian Party primary votes in the Mackay part of Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.
Katter’s Australian Party primary votes in the Mackay part of Whitsunday at the 2012 Queensland state election.

14 COMMENTS

  1. This seat will be interesting to see what happens to the Katter vote. The party is pretty much non-exsistent and with Palmer on the slide theres a huge 22% up for grabs as well as the vote collapse in the LNP. This should be a very interesting race

  2. Jason Costigan retain his preselection for Whitsunday however was challenged by two other prominent local figures. Will be an interesting contest but I’d expect the LNP to just hold.

  3. I’m surprised Jason Costigan is returning as the LNP candidate. There is an article in the Dailey Mercury that figures inside the LNP were calling for Costiagan to be dumped because of his poor performance a year ago.

    http://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/lnp-plans-to-ditch-costigan/2027699/

    I think there has been a couple non-performing LNP Mp’s that will be standing at the next election, for the simple reason the LNP wants limit the bloodletting.

    Hard to know how this one will go. The 10.6% looks safe on paper and this seat has been marginal when Labor was in power with a big majority.This seat does not always follow the state trend, so it will be an interesting one to watch.

  4. Labor may have too much catching up on the primary vote here. KAP dive is crucial, they only polled 6% in the federal electorate. If labor can pick up a lot of KAP voters which appear to have been labor voters, and Costigan’s primary vote falls 5% or so labor would be in a good position to win, especially with Costigan’s poor performance. Too close to call now but will need to see where the KAP vote is moving to and whether labor can pick up a fair amount of it

  5. The last figures I saw were that the Palmer Vote across the state had fallen by about 2,7% on the federal election results and most had returned to the Katter vote. Its too broad a figure and is on a statewide basis so your right it will be an interesting contest.

  6. This is the bloke (Dan van Blarcom) who was dumped as a Nationals candidate for expressing extremists views relation to communitsts, and gave the ALP an easy win in 2004 I think.

  7. Gotta wonder is given Costigans unfavourable coverage if this would be in the hunt for labor if they are doing as well as in NQLD as polling suggests

  8. I still think the LNP will fall across the line in this seat, Labor haven’t put much resources into Whitsunday. Labor are doing well in NQLD, but this is one which I think they’ll fall short on this time.

  9. Good old Wikipedia (why didn’t I just do that in the first place) says Bowen is in the Burdekin electorate. Forget everything I said then, it will have no effect. One of those seats where you could put Mother Teresa in for Labor and they still wouldn’t vote Labor.

  10. Talking of Bowen Whitsunday was created in 1950 to do Fred Paterson Communist MP out of his electorate of Bowen

Comments are closed.