Miller – QLD 2017

ALP 5.6%

Incumbent MP
Mark Bailey, since 2015.

Geography
Southern Brisbane. Miller covers the suburbs of Yeronga, Annerley, Fairfield, Tarragindi, Yeerongpilly, Chelmer, Sherwood, Graceville and Tennyson.

Redistribution
Miller is a new name for the seat of Yeerongpilly. Yeerongpilly shifted west, gaining Chelmer, Sherwood and Graceville and Tennyson from Indooroopilly and losing Salisbury, Moorooka, Nathan Heights and Nathan to the new seat of Toohey. These changes cut the Labor margin from 13.3% to 5.6%.

History
The seat of Yeerongpilly has existed since 2001, and existed under the name of Yeronga from 1950 to 2001. The seat was held by the Liberal Party until 1989, and then by Labor until 2012.

Winston Noble served as the first member for Yeronga, holding it from 1950 to 1964. He was succeeded by Norman Lee, who held the seat until 1989.

In 1989 the seat was won by Labor candidate Matt Foley in the Labor landslide that saw the Goss government take power. Foley became a minister in the Beattie government following the 1998 election. In 2001 he was re-elected in the renamed seat of Yeerongpilly, holding it until his retirement in 2004.

Simon Finn won the seat of Yeerongpilly in 2004, also for the Labor Party. He was re-elected in 2006 and 2009, and served as Minister for Government Services, Building Industry and Information and Communication Technology from 2011 to 2012.

In 2012, Finn was defeated by LNP candidate Carl Judge.

Judge quickly fell out with this LNP colleagues, and was expelled from the party in November 2012. Judge sat as an independent until 2013, when he joined the Palmer United Party.

In 2014, there were plans for Judge to run for the Palmer United Party in Kawana, held by Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie. After briefly serving as PUP state leader, Judge resigned from the party and announced that he would run for re-election in Yeerongpilly.

Judge came a distant fourth at the 2015 election, and Labor’s Mark Bailey won the seat with a 14.7% swing after preferences.

Candidates

Assessment
Miller will likely remain in Labor hands.

2015 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Mark Bailey Labor 13,148 43.1 +8.5 38.0
Leila Abukar Liberal National 9,579 31.4 -11.8 38.1
Gillian Marshall-Pierce Greens 5,084 16.7 +0.7 17.2
Carl Judge Independent 1,837 6.0 +6.0 4.0
Georgina Walton Palmer United Party 876 2.9 +2.9 1.8
Others 0.8
Informal 507 1.6

2015 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Mark Bailey Labor 18,202 63.3 +14.7 55.6
Leila Abukar Liberal National 10,551 36.7 -14.7 44.4
Exhausted 1,771 5.8

Booth breakdown

Booths in Capalaba have been divided into three areas: north, south-east and south-west.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two out of three areas, with 58% in the centre and 64% in the east. The LNP polled 58% in the west.

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 16% in the west to 19% in the centre.

Voter group GRN prim % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
East 18.2 63.6 9,942 32.3
West 16.2 42.2 5,620 18.2
Central 18.7 57.8 5,561 18.0
Other votes 16.0 57.3 9,698 31.5

Election results in Miller at the 2015 QLD state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.

14 COMMENTS

  1. Not sure this assessment of Miller is correct. The areas in the west of this seat, Graceville, Chelmer, Sherwood historically vote overwhelmingly LNP, but that vote sank in 2015. It should revert to its normal high 60s low 70s two-party preferred for the LNP. The local Labor MP will surely suffer in his personal vote from the negative media he’s received and having to step down from his ministry pending an investigation. One to watch!

  2. Agree with PRP. I believe the margin is inflated here and it could be one of the bigger swings on election night.

  3. The Green vote exhausted at ~15% in Yeerongpilly and ~25% in Indro in 2015 though. The Green preferences that did flow went to Labor at 90%!

    I’d estimate that’s an extra 2% margin for Labor now that those ballots will flow under the compulsory preference change.

  4. Given that Labor won Indooroopilly three times in a row, the 2015 vote was hardly what you’d call historically low. The aberration was 2012, not 2015.

    Indeed I’d expect the LNP vote in the western part of the seat will be relatively weaker with (a) the loss of the incumbent MP and (b) a stronger Labor campaign.

  5. This will be an interesting seat to watch come election night, given the contrasts between the east and the west.

  6. Greens preferences will be key here. Their candidate seems to be trying hard but it doesn’t look like she has much in the way of resources.

  7. Seriously? Red team, Green team or Blue team, that’s the only options to vote for? What a joke.

  8. This is a fascinating seat. I think Labor will suffer two issues. Losing some swing votes to the LNP and then some base votes to the Greens.

    The lack of One Nation candidate means no split conservative vote.

    I have this down as a narrow LNP win.

  9. Queensland Observer what is that drivel? You think ALP voters that swing Green won’t preference ALP over LNP??

    Compulsory preferences mate, get with the times.

  10. You may notice I also predict some of it going from Labor to LNP. So bigger LNP primary, lower Labor, bigger Green. Say LNP 43 Labor 33 Greens 19 Indepedent 5. Preferences from indepedent splits 50/50 and Green vote splits 75/25, then it will be really close.

    Again as I mentioned in the earlier post I also dont trust the estimated margin here. I think its tighter.

  11. Green split will be better than 75/25 for Labor. Likely to be closer to 85/15 in my opinion, not many Green voters will preference LNP and help a LNP-PHON coalition I’d wager.

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