Coomera – QLD 2020

One of 6 seats the AJP are running in but not sure why those Coomera of all places to run. There had been talk on the Pollbludger about the influx of housing here that could vote Labor, and I do know some people in that category, especially with Pimpama really expanding in the past 2-3 years. However, with the continued border closures, employment in Coomera still relies on the Gold Coast where the economy has taken a hit from tourism. I can still see Labor being competitive but this one is beyond them this time.

Prediction (August 2020): LNP Retain

I have seen Coomera mentioned in the Courier Mail, but not some much on the ABC as a potential pick up for Labor. The seat is getting no love for Labor on Sportsbet where they are listed $5.00 compared to LNP $1.15. Annastasia Palazczuk has campaigned in the seat though, so there must be something showing in their internal polling that Labor is potentially in the mix.

Hearing that the UAP candidate Heath Gallagher is a popular local with a bit of a personal vote. While I am not suggesting he will win he could shake things up a bit.

This could be a little more interesting to watch than many are considering. Crandon was in position 1 on the ballot in 2017, and got a swing against him. It’s now Greens in 1 and Labor in 2, which should produce a small extra shift in that direction. Big new developments in Pimpama could substantially alter the makeup of the seat (whether that will benefit Labor or LNP is hard to predict). One Nation was a big influence in 2017, but they don’t seem to be making much effort this time around (their candidate’s HTV doesn’t even list anything regarding the seat – their top promise on the Coomera HTV is a coal-fired power plant in North Queensland!), so it’s hard to see what happens to that vote.

There seems to be a reasonably large “not the majors” vote, with KAP getting a big chunk of vote in 2012, UAP/PUP in 2015, and PHON in 2017. Where that vote lands in 2020 is hard to predict, as there are a lot more options than usual for the seat.

Looking at 2017, PHON preference flows were about 55-45 in favour of LNP, suggesting it’s a true “not the majors” vote, rather than a right-wing vote. This is supported by looking at 2015, where FFP preferences flowed more than 27% to Greens, and PUP preference flowed better than 2:1 to Labor.

My prediction – Crandon’s primary vote will fall again, to maybe 35%. Labor and Greens will each tick up about 2% (combination of slight swing due to developments plus being top of the ballot). PHON vote will drop to about 10%, with the other 10% splitting among the other minors – of which about 6% will be UAP, then 1-2% each for the other three.

I honestly think this could be a lineball for final winner. I’m not going to predict who wins, but I do predict that the margin will be less than 0.5%.

Prediction: LNP Retain

ALP gain. Crandon has always been on the backbench and looks like yesterday’s news. I think the Covid stuff plays well and strengthens ALP vote as Coomera is further away from the beaches and tourist strip. Additional names on the ballot paper further splits the vote and I imagine IMO and Animal Justice favour Labor.

Influenced by QO. ALP gain

I don’t think this will be as close as some are imagining.

LNP retain

DemocracySausage I think a lot of people are underestimating the dramatic demographic transformation here via population growth. The largest in QLD and largest in Australia outside of capital cities.

This population growth has mostly been composed of young families moving from interstate. This has given the electorate a similar demographic portrait to Safe ALP parts of Logan, Ipswich and Southern Brisbane. Coomera has now one of the youngest demographics in the state – the lowest amount of people aged 65 and highest under 14.

Another point that’s being missed is the new influx of interstate arrivals are not in tune with the conventional politics and either bring their own preferences or present a blank slate to the parties. A lot of new undecided, low-information voters would likely default to voting based on name-recogniton/preferred Premier. This would appear to benefit Ana who has had the national spotlight throughout the pandemic.

ALP Gain

This division is beyond 34% of the average divisional enrolment in Queensland. Over 51,000 enrolled voters compared to the average of ~38,000.

Other divisions in the outer suburban fringes of Greater Brisbane are sitting over the 10% deviation. The established suburbs of Brisbane and the Gold Coast with no new developments are facing a deficit.

Wonder if we will see a state redistribution triggered this year, preceding next year’s state election.

Seq observer, I presume Queensland has a similar rule to federal redistributions where one will be triggered early if a third or more of electoral districts are over 10% from quota average.

I think the same pattern also emerges for federal districts, longman covering Caboolture and surrounds is more than 10% above quota and others like Wright (Beaudesert and South Logan) and Fadden (based in coomera, gold Coast) are nearly 10% over quota.

@Yoh An, correct, also Blair encompassing Ipswich and its rapidly growing outer suburban growth areas is also worth highlighting.

At a federal level, they key thing to watch in the next year or two is whether Queensland will also breach its entitlement to 31 federal divisions instead of 30. Currently on track given the recent interstate migration wave and population statistics by state, assuming trends continue in that direction.

The new division would likely be centered somewhere amongst South East Queensland’s outer-suburban fringes to alleviate the divisions with swollen enrolment surpluses.

Yoh An is correct, the threshold is more than a third of electorates being outside 10% tolerance. With 93 seats in the Queensland parliament, this would mean it takes 32 or more electorates being outside 10% tolerance for a redistribution.

According to the Electoral Commission website, there are 11 electorates meeting the criteria. There are another 18 electorates with a tolerance of between 6 and 10%. The internal migration to Queensland seems to have slowed however, so I think it unlikely that 32 electorates will exceed the tolerance long enough before the 2024 election for a redistribtion to take place. It’s possible that one will be done just after the election.

https://results.ecq.qld.gov.au/profiles/currentEnrolmentFigures.html

@Wilson, that threshold is when a mandatory redistribution is forced.

Queensland Parliament can also ask the ECQ to add seats in special circumstances like when population growth is substantial.

The case of Coomera might be one of those circumstances.

I’m not sure what the current Queensland government’s appetite is for this. Last year, Labor Federal MP for Blair Shane Neumann was advocating for such, based on growth he was observing in the Ripley Valley, effecting state divisions like Ipswich, Jordan and Bundamba. But the state Labor position might be different to his.

Agree wilson and seq observer, outer western Sydney also has the same issue with rapid population growth, Camden council and the state districts in that area were 30-50% over quota prior to the recent nsw state redistribution. Macarthur federal district covering this part of Sydney is also 16% over quota.

I read from one research paper that due to the slowing of interstate migration from nsw and Victoria, Queensland will be unlikely to exceed 30.5 quotas of population this year when the entitlement determination will be made.

It is more likely that Queensland will gain its 31s seat for the 49th parliament if interstate migration patterns continue in the future.

@Yoh An, can you provide the research paper you read on this matter? I’m keen to pick it up and compare it to my own basic projections.

Anecdotally I have also heard that interstate migration to Queensland from NSW and Victoria has eased but yet to see it in a latest ABS population report (Latest reference period June 2022).

Another factor which might prevent the quota from being exceeded is record international migration resuming. Majority of this international migrant inflow still comes via Sydney and Melbourne rather than Queensland and the other states.

I found it from a section on the aph (Australian parliament) website. I think I found it from a link on Anthony Green’s personal website.

That same paper also suggests that in the next 48th parliament, Nsw will lose a seat to 46, Victoria will lose a seat to 37, and wa will gain a 16th seat.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2223/Electoralredistributionsexpectedduring47thParliament

This is the link to the research article I found.

Where do you get enrollment estimates from, SEQ?

Thanks @Yoh An.

@Furtive Lawngnome I make my own ones up based on really crude population growth figures from the latest ABS state population report.

Looks like Giuliano has applied a similar method but intelligently factoring in other considerations like seasonality, covid, updating address, etc.

I am going purely off population projection, not enrolled voters or eligibility to vote.

I believe that the estimate provided by Giuliano is a bit soft on Queensland population change over the next two quarterly reference periods. But happy to be proven wrong by the December 2022 release of the ABS population report. I expect it to be line-ball, a bit closer to 30.5 than his estimate.

Taking over/under bets 😀

Are there less houses in seats under quota, or just simply smaller families? Surely houses aren’t being bulldozed, and it’s hard to believe all the seats over quota have gotten tons of new houses. Someone mentioned Longman, well that will be over quota even more so once the new Caboolture corridor suburbs are built west of Caboolture. I see Longman losing Burpengary in the process.

But I don’t need to sorry about any redistribution in my seat, because I am moving to Victoria later this year.

@Daniel T, they’re not less houses or less families. Generally it’s a case of these districts didn’t grow as drastically quick as the districts that are now well above quota. And yes, there is literally parts of Logan’s, Gold Coast’s and Ipswich’s outskirts where there is tons of new houses. Entirely new localities emerging in 12 month timeframes.

So the deficit divisions include suburbs and regions where there was no new major housing developments. The measure used: “deviation from average division enrolment”, measures the divisions against each other not a fixed benchmark. There is also an ongoing trend when residents per dwelling is falling. Less people in existing homes. This might also be a factor at play.

Daniel T,

In most cases, the population of ‘under quota’ seats is stagnant rather than outright declining (although some remote rural areas probably do have actual decline). But every seat is being compared to the average, so if you have high-growth seats, obviously a stagnant or lower-growth seat will be ‘declining’ in comparison.

Usually this is because of either (a) an ageing population base (no influx of young people, no new kids being born that will grow up to become new voters, etc), or (b) some sort of development restrictions that prevent large numbers of new houses being built.

Agree seq observer and mark. For Sydney, many of the under quota seats are in slow growing areas with few or no large-scale developments, mainly concentrated in the north shore and northern beaches where there are above average numbers of retirees.

In contrast, the over quota seats are either in outer suburbs with new developments like camden council (similar to outer Ipswich and Logan) or inner city areas with rapid gentrification and high rise developments.

Both Sydney and Brisbane show these growth patterns as their state and federal districts in these locations are all more than 5% above quota.

Is there a by election here?

From Memory Albert was abolished then divided into.2 seats this and another one. Both were marginal At the last election. The other I forget it’s name didn’t swing.. this one was ultra marginal but liberal held. These 2 seats and Currumbin are the most likely to be won by Labor on the Gold Coast

No mick, there is no by election here. The discussion started when one commenter pointed out the seat is way over quota compared to others in the state.

The last time I drove through this electorate (maybe 1-2 years ago), I couldn’t really tell where Brisbane ended and the Gold Coast began. The growth areas in Southeast Queensland are unbelievable to witness if you don’t live there 24/7. I’m quite young and they already seem unrecognisable compared to when I first remember visiting around 2007.

The LNP needs to adapt to what Queensland has become instead of hoping to squeeze into power through winning every seat they reasonably can in the regions. I might just be out of the loop but they seem to be doing an awful job at appealing to the capital outside their remaining increasingly marginal bases. And if they slip in the Gold Coast or further in the Sunshine Coast they are done.

Got myself off track but barring anything extraordinary the redistribution will be after the 2024 election. I hope it’s thorough and not a patchwork job.

Coomera being 34% over quota is not good, as it can seriously affect the result in the seat.
It is unfortunate that not enough seats will should become out of quota this year to force a redistribution before the 2024 election.
Thankfully, the 3 elections & 8 year triggers will both fall due in 2025 though – being so early in the term, there will not be need to rush the redistribution.
The 2017 redistribution fixed the mess that was Lockyer but has resulted in poor outcomes in some ares like the northern Gold Coast and randomly naming a handful of electorates after people.

Maybe if this is over quota so will be it’s twin Theodore.. probably not enough for an extra seat.. but could easily change the political complexion of gold coast seats

@Laine, I somewhat agree with your point but would suggest that the LNP have in some ways, developed their brand to be attuned with the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast and then extending their focus out into regional Queensland.

Despite the uninterrupted urban sprawl that extends throughout South East Queensland, branching off of Brisbane in multiple directions. Each of the Coasts still considers themselves a fairly separate entity from Brisbane with their own lifestyle, attitudes and interests. Even despite the fact that residents often commute and work between the different regions.

So in recent State elections: LNP start with this differentiation from Brisbane City as bit of a first-principal and extend it right out the rest of Queensland. They frame the debates of the campaigns as a battle between the Regions vs Brisbane City. ie. look at all the infrastructure that Brisbane is getting while “x” is suffering without “y” project.

To give some credit, there is some reasoning why this is can be fruitful for the LNP. The main reason is that Queensland is very regional compared to the other states. The 2021 Census has “Greater Brisbane” and “Rest of Queensland” sitting as close to 50:50 each. Further to this, the ABS’ designation of “Greater Brisbane” contains within it many communities that wouldn’t self-identify as being a part of Brisbane at all. Looking at only Brisbane City LGA as a proportion of Queensland’s population, this is less than a quarter. Making Rest of Queensland (outside of Brisbane City) close to three quarters of the population. To put it in perspective, this 25:75 population ratio is similar to Greater Sydney vs the Rest of Australia.

A strong campaign outside of Brisbane theoretically should be all you need to run a strong election.

Federally, the LNP are fairly good at harnessing this tribalist “Rest of Queensland” advocacy and making it against “Canberra” and the other states. This works well in Queensland for two reasons. The first reason is favourable electoral geography. As a proportion of divisions, only about a third of divisions encompass Brisbane. Many of the Federal divisions also don’t neatly contain urban localities. Suburbs, towns and cities which might lean Labor or be marginal are surrounded by rural localities that push the TPP in the other direction. The federal division of Flynn, containing the town of Gladstone comes to mind.

The second reason is because Federal Labor aren’t narrow-casting their brand and messaging to try and appeal to Queensland, especially regional Queensland. They are instead a directing a much broader national campaign that attempts to appeal to the majority of Australia. I do note that Albanese in the recent Federal election did make attempts to include regions like Gladstone in their campaign quite prominently.

The issues arise at a state level. The political geography starts to shift back in Labor’s favour. Firstly, there is a greater share of state divisions that incorporate mostly Brisbane when compared to Federal divisions. Also the provincial pro-Labor and marginal towns throughout Queensland start to completely occupy their own divisions, not being counter-balanced by expansive rural territory. The state division of Gladstone now emerges as a safe Labor seat when separated from its rural surrounds.

On the other point raised, QLD Labor, when not running a broad national campaign, are better attuned to Queensland and can direct a lot of their energy towards the concerns of regional Queensland which neutralises the LNP’s campaign. QLD Labor are good at differentiating themselves from their Federal counterparts. Finally, the services and infrastructure that state-governments deliver are generally well received by the public, because they are very tangible: roads, schools, hospitals, etc. So service-delivery becomes key. This does not allow LNPs grievances about fiscally responsible delivery of services to have the same resonance in Queensland than in does in the Federal elections.

Now as you rightly suggested, all of these factors allows certain pockets of the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, which are marginal unlike their Safe LNP Federal divisions, to open up as competitive contests. Which we have seen already in the division of Gaven for example. There has been points in the Beattie government in which Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast had been fairly favourable to Labor as well.

So yes, a slip up on the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast will cost LNP a campaign, there is no favourable electoral geography to make back ground elsewhere. I think LNP recognise this point and their pivot to Crisafulli (Member for Broadwater) as a leader prominent on the Gold Coast, is part of a sandbagging attempt. He originally was posted up in Townsville as the member for Mundingburra. But has since been parachuted in successfully to a safe seat on the Gold Coast. Conveniently, Broadwater neighbours Coomera which at the next election will be marginal. Labor will be spruiking the new Coomera hospital development and LNP will be complaining about why it isn’t being build faster (My sage-like 2024 prediction).

In Crisafulli’s public commentary he purports that he is connected to both South-East Queensland and North Queensland. There has has also been admissions that their direction cannot solely focus on the regions of Queensland and that they need to be competitive once again within Brisbane and South East Queensland. I can also see that while the LNP purport to be paying more interest in Brisbane, I think they’re actually intending to focus on picking up some of the outer-ring & middle-ring suburbs. While simultaneously leaving the Greens to fight Labor in the inner-city. This is an attempt at wedging Labor and forcing them to balance very delicately on a tight-rope.

Mick for reference, here are the Top 10 QLD Divisions by enrolment:

Coomera 51,359 34.34%
Murrumba 44,493 16.38%
McConnel 43,866 14.74%
Jordan 43,130 12.82%
Logan 42,831 12.03%
South Brisbane 42,782 11.91%
Hervey Bay 42,700 11.69%
Gympie 42,237 10.48%
Caloundra 41,976 9.80%
Clayfield 41,883 9.55%

Here are the Bottom 10:

Oodgeroo 33,890 -11.35%
Gaven 34,126 -10.74%
Mundingburra 34,377 -10.08%
Stretton 34,573 -9.57%
Gregory 34,701 -9.23%
Burdekin 35,311 -7.64%
Toohey 35,369 -7.49%
Moggill 35,384 -7.45%
Traeger 35,388 -7.43%
Callide 35,407 -7.39%
Gladstone 35,438 -7.30%

It’s twin Theo is actually sitting at -1.81%, the suburbs within Theodore are fairly established with no new major developments.

It’s cousins to the West like Logan and Jordan are the ones over quota.

Thanks Seq observer

Seq observer, that list of under and over quota seats actually matches fairly closely to similar areas in Sydney and nsw.

For nsw, the seats most over quota were mostly in the Western and south west Sydney growth corridors including camden, Macquarie fields, riverstone and Londonderry.

There were a few outside the Sydney basin such as shellharbour near Wollongong and also Maitland near Newcastle. Shellharbour and its growth areas seem to behave like some parts of sunshine coast being swing like instead of solid Labor

The under quota seats for nsw were mostly in regional/rural areas like Cootamundra (7% under) and also most districts in the northern beaches/north shore of Sydney, which I would say are similar to the westside hills and redland parts of greater Brisbane

In terms of future campaigns, I can easily see the lnp targeting some key marginal seats like aspley, mt omaney and Mansfield. They could also target others with favourable demographics such as kurwongbah and stretton.

Equaivalent districts in the Sydney area (such as epping, Ryde, oatley, and East Hills), which I see as having similar characteristics to those listed above, are all liberal held currently.

Maybe easier to compare after this state election. Qld Labor also tends to poll at least 5% better than federal Labor in that state. Eg Dutton ‘s seat would be gone on state figures and Leichhardt ,Herbert and Flynn would be alp held too.

Mick, You forgot Longman, Petrie, Bonner, Forde, Capricornia, and Brisbane. They all would be held by the ALP as well on state figures. Some like Petrie and Longman would be SAFE ALP 6-10%

Bowman would be on a knifes edge.

I also suspect Fisher would be extremely marginal. But I’m not sure on the margin if you translated state figures to federal. McPherson would probably be around 3-4% LNP. And Hinkler would also be on a knifes edge as well if Maryborough-Bundaburg and Hervey Bay were factored in.

Fairfax would be probably around 3-4% as well. The only *Safe* LNP seats would be Maranoa, Fadden, Moncrieff, Groom with Wright and Wide Bay being MAYBE’S

ECQ have updated their enrolment figures recently. Coomera up another 0.30% in deviation from average enrolled since just before Christmas to 34.74% (51,718 enrolled electors).

Caloundra have joined the list of divisions which are beyond +/-10% deviation from average enrolment.

The next most-likely to surpass +/-10% Stretton is now on -9.87%.

Bundamba and Stretton have now joined the lists of divisions beyond +/-10% of the average divisional enrolment.

14 divisions of 93 now beyond quota.

Coomera is now at 52,099 enrolled compared to the average or around ~38,500 (+36.62%).

@SEQ Observer do you know how over quota the respective federal electorates of blair, moreton and forde are? it’ll be interesting to see how the enormous population growth in some parts of south east qld changes the electoral landscape for labor which atm is really underperforming in queensland.

I don’t have the figures in front of me, but some initial commentary off the top of my head… Blair is close to 10% above division enrolment average so you have rightly identified this division as encompassing regions of massive population growth. namely around Springfield and the Ripley Valley. Fadden and Longman are hovering in a similar ballpark. Fisher and Wright are trailing not far behind.

Forde is steadfast at ~3 – 4%. Finally Moreton is at the lowest enrolment in the state, close to 10% below average. This pattern in Moreton is consistent with the other established middle ring suburbs of Brisbane where there has been no new major housing developments since the last redistribution. Most major developments have happened around the outer fringes of Greater Brisbane and within pockets of the inner-city (new high-rise apartments).

Don’t forget that divisional enrolment numbers are averaged by state, so even if Queensland cops a massive influx, if it is all distributed fairly evenly, the average divisional enrolment won’t really budge. So some Queensland electorates might be facing far more population growth relative to other states for example, but still not budging on enrolment deviation figures.

@SEQ nd Louis Blair is 10% above and Moreton is 10% under. you can find the stats here
https://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/gazetted/2023/02.htm

i expect blair will lose the majority of its rural component due to the immense population growth in the ripley valley/springfield area, with rural areas (such as esk and kilcoy) being relocated to dickson. this would both solidify labor’s support in blair and solidify peter duttons margin in his seat of dickson. lilley is currently under quota so perhaps it could gain electors around aspley/bridgeman downs which are both currently in the over quota (and rapidly growing) seat of petrie. longman will also be interesting as there is significant population growth particularly in the corridor between dakabin and caboolture. i can also see this seat potentially shedding its rural areas into neighbouring seats in future redistributions, and being centred around liberal-leaning bribie island, labor-leaning caboolture/morayfield, and swinging suburbs such as burpengary, narangba and dakabin. rankin, moreton, and bonner in south brisbane will also be interesting to watch as they will all need to gain electors in future redistributions.

@louis that will also depend on if qld gains an extra seat. accodring the population estimates ive read they are now over the 30.5 quota and will gain a 31st seat

@potatoes do you have a link 🙂