Queensland Archive

Maranoa is a safe Nationals seat covering rural parts of southern Queensland. Maranoa covers the southwestern corner of Queensland, reaching the border with the Northern Territory and South Australia, and running along the NSW border to the Darling Downs. It contains areas around Toowoomba, although Toowoomba itself is contained in the neighbouring seat of Groom. Major towns include Roma, Dalby, Kingaroy, Nanango and Warwick.

The seat has been held by Bruce Scott since 1990. Despite talk of Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce (who lives in Maranoa) moving to the seat, Scott will probably retain the seat.

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Kennedy is a large seat in northern Queensland, covering the coast between Cairns and Townsville and stretching west to the Northern Territory border, covering towns such as Mount Isa and Charters Towers.

Kennedy is held by independent MP Bob Katter, who was re-elected with a margin of over 16% in 2007. Katter has held the seat since 1993. Katter was a Nationals MP until 2001, when he won re-election as an independent after leaving the party. The seat has been held by Katter and his father before him since 1966, with the exception of the 1990 election, when the ALP won the seat shortly after the death of the senior Katter.

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Capricornia is a Labor seat in central Queensland, covering the coast of Queensland from Rockhampton to just south of Mackay. Kirsten Livermore holds the seat by a 12% margin, having held the seat since 1998. Capricornia has been won by Labor at most recent elections, although they lost to the National Party in 1975 and 1996. Despie its large geographical size, almost half of the seat’s  population lives in the urban area of Rockhampton, with over 20% living in the rural area outside Rockhampton.

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Wide Bay is a National seat on the central Queensland coast. The seat has been held by Nationals leader Warren Truss since 1990. Wide Bay includes the towns of Noosa Heads, Gympie and Maryborough.

The seat has a long history of being won by the National Party and its predecessors, and they hold it now by an 8.8% margin.

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Blair is a Labor seat in south-east Queensland, covering Ipswich and rural areas to the northwest of Brisbane. Blair was created in 1998, and was held by the Liberal Party until 2007, when the ALP’s Shayne Neumann won the seat. Neumann now holds the seat with a 7% margin, with a majority of voters living in the strongly pro-Labor urban areas of Ipswich.

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Groom is a Liberal seat covering Toowoomba and surrounding rural areas. The seat is a relatively safe seat for the conservative parties, who have held it since its creation. It currently covers the city of Toowoomba and rural areas further to the west, with a majority of the population living in urban Toowoomba.

The seat is held by Ian Macfarlane, who previously served as a cabinet minister in the Howard government and was central to negotiating a deal on the emissions trading scheme between the Labor government and the Liberal Party under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership in 2009.

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Lilley is a Labor seat in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. It has been held by current federal Treasurer Wayne Swan since 1998, and he had previously held the seat from 1993 to 1996, having lost the seat in 1996. The seat is now held by an 8% margin, and saw a small swing of 3% to the ALP in 2007, one of the smallest in Queensland.

Lilley covers Brisbane Airport and the suburbs of Chermside, Nudgee, Taigum, Sandgate and Nundah.

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Griffith is a Labor seat on the south side of Brisbane, and is held by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The seat covers South Brisbane itself and suburbs to the east including Greenslopes, Bulimba and Carina.

The seat is held by a relatively safe 12% margin now, although it was won by the Liberal Party in 1996, when Rudd first contested the seat. Apart from that election, the seat has been held by the ALP since 1977.

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Moreton is a marginal seat in southern Brisbane, won by the ALP’s Graham Perrett off the Liberal Party’s Gary Hardgrave in 2007. The seat covers the suburbs of Sunnybank, Runcorn, Eight Mile Plains, Acacia Ridge, Coopers Plains, Rocklea, Salisbury, Moorooka, Oxley, Corinda, Graceville and Fairfield. Perrett now holds the seat with a 6% margin, after a large swing in 2007.

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Oxley is a Labor seat in south-western Brisbane. The seat previously covered Ipswich and other parts of the fringe of South-East Queensland, and was held by Bill Hayden throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Hayden held the seat while serving as Treasurer, Leader of the Opposition and Foreign Minister before becoming Governor-General in 1988.

The most famous election result in Oxley took place in 1996, when Liberal candidate Pauline Hanson was disendorsed after she made comments critical of government support for Aborigines. Hanson won election as an independent (but with the Liberal Party’s endorsement on the ballot paper) and went on to found One Nation, although she failed to win re-election after parts of Oxley were moved into the new seat of Blair in 1998. Apart from that single result in 1996, Oxley has long been a solid Labor seat.

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