LNP 4.2%
Incumbent MP
Bert van Manen, since 2010.
Geography
South-East Queensland. Forde covers parts of Logan City, an urban area between the City of Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Forde also covers sparsely populated parts of the Gold Coast, but most of the population lives in Logan.
History
Forde was created at the 1984 election as a southern Brisbane seat as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. The seat has since moved further south and lies on the edge of the urban part of South-East Queensland.
Forde was first won in 1984 by David Watson (LIB), who lost the seat in 1987 to Mary Crawford of the ALP. Watson was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1989 and went on to serve as a minister in the Borbidge government and as state Liberal leader from 1998 to 2001.
Mary Crawford held the seat from 1987 until her defeat at the 1996 election, serving as a Parliamentary Secretary for the last two years of the Keating government.
The Liberal Party’s Kay Elson won the seat in 1996. She held the seat for eleven years as a backbencher, retiring at the 2007 election. In 2007 the ALP’s Brett Raguse won the seat. Forde was the safest Liberal seat to be lost in 2007, with the ALP gaining a 14.4% swing.
The LNP’s Bert van Manen won the seat back in 2010 with a 5% swing. In 2013, Labor’s original candidate, Des Hardman, was replaced by former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie very close to the election. The high-profile candidate selection didn’t help Labor, with van Manen increasing his margin by 2.8%. Van Manen has been re-elected three times more since.
Assessment
Forde is a marginal LNP seat. It’s the sort of seat that Labor won when they won power in 2007 but didn’t win in 2022, when Labor performed much more weakly in Queensland. A resurgent federal Labor in Queensland would be eyeing off this seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bert van Manen | Liberal National | 34,920 | 36.9 | -6.6 |
| Rowan Holzberger | Labor | 26,497 | 28.0 | -1.5 |
| Jordan Hall | Greens | 9,319 | 9.8 | +1.1 |
| Seschelle Matterson | One Nation | 7,578 | 8.0 | -3.8 |
| Roxanne O’Halloran | United Australia | 7,485 | 7.9 | +3.9 |
| Christopher Greaves | Independent | 2,973 | 3.1 | +3.1 |
| Tobby Sutherland | Liberal Democrats | 2,668 | 2.8 | +2.8 |
| Linda McCarthy | Animal Justice | 2,444 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| Samuel Holland | TNL | 728 | 0.8 | +0.8 |
| Informal | 6,884 | 6.8 | +2.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bert van Manen | Liberal National | 51,311 | 54.2 | -4.4 |
| Rowan Holzberger | Labor | 43,301 | 45.8 | +4.4 |
Booths have been divided into five parts. Booths in the Gold Coast council area are grouped as ‘South’. The remainder have been grouped as Central, North, East and West.
The LNP won a majority of the vote in three out of five areas, ranging from 52.1% in the west to 57.1% in the north. Labor managed 50.6% in the east and 53.4% in the centre. The LNP also polled 56% of the pre-poll vote.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.8% in the south to 12.6% in the north, but just 8.6% of the pre-poll vote.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LNP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central | 11.7 | 46.6 | 10,830 | 11.4 |
| South | 10.8 | 57.0 | 9,548 | 10.1 |
| East | 10.9 | 49.4 | 6,987 | 7.4 |
| North | 12.6 | 57.1 | 5,737 | 6.1 |
| West | 11.2 | 52.1 | 3,553 | 3.8 |
| Pre-poll | 8.6 | 56.3 | 33,955 | 35.9 |
| Other votes | 9.3 | 54.6 | 24,002 | 25.4 |
Election results in Forde at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.
Rankin’s enrolment is 7.63% below statewide average, while Forde’s enrolment is 7.88% over, Wright’s enrolment is 12.83% over and Fadden’s is 8.91% over. In the upcoming redistribution, Rankin will be pushed south to take in more of the City of Logan from Forde, and Forde will also be pushed south to take in more of the City of Gold Coast from Fadden and also maybe some of the Logan part of Wright. Shedding Labor voting territories in the north while taking in LNP voting territories to the south will cut the Labor margin in Forde and potentially turn it into a notional LNP seat. I think Bert Van Manen’s brother or wife (both of whom have been QLD state LNP candidates for Macalister) will contest the seat for the LNP.
Joseph Forde will have to move into the northern parts of Fadden due to Fadden also being over quota and McPherson and moncrieff being almost at quota though I’m gonna move McPherson into some parts of the hinterlands from wright also. Based on the preliminary numbers I ran rankin will take in Waterford west the rest of loganlea shakier park and carbrook the rest of Logan west of the Logan river I plan to put into wright and that way wright can shed the Lockyer valley which looks weird. This should also allow me to move algester and calamvale into Moreton and remove all but a very small part of the city of Brisbane out of rankin
As you said it will shed labor territory in exchange for lnp territory and given the small margin it hard to see it not notionally flipping after redistribution