Townsville – Queensland 2024

ALP 3.1%

Incumbent MP
Scott Stewart, since 2015.

• Geography
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2020 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Central Townsville. The seat covers the Townsville CBD and the suburbs of Castle Hill, Garbutt, Mount Louisa and Bohle, as well as Magnetic Island and Palm Island.

History
The seat of Townsville has existed continuously since 1970, and previously existed from 1878 to 1960.

The seat has been dominated by the Labor Party for most of the twentieth century, although Labor domination has occasionally been punctuated by Coalition victories.

The ALP had held the seat for all but three years from 1915 to 1960, but after the seat was restored in 1972 it was won by the Liberal Party’s Norman Scott-Young. He held it until 1983.

The 1983 election was triggered by the breakdown in the coalition between Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party and the Liberal Party, and a majority of Liberal MPs lost their seats, including Scott-Young.

Ken McElligott won Townsville for the ALP, but three years later lost to the National Party’s Tony Burreket.

Burreket lost to the ALP’s Ken Davies in 1989. In 1992, Davies moved to the neighbouring seat of Mundingburra. He retained Mundingburra by a bare 16-vote margin. The result was overturned in the courts in 1996. The ALP decided to replace Davies as the ALP candidate, and he ran as an independent. The Liberal Party won the race, and resulted in the ALP losing its parliamentary majority and the National-Liberal coalition forming a new government.

Geoff Smith was elected to Townsville for the ALP in 1992, and held it for two terms until 1998. He was succeeded in 1998 by Mike Reynolds. Reynolds served as a minister from 2004 to 2006 and as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 2006 to 2009, when he retired.

Mandy Johnstone was elected to Townsville in 2009 for the ALP. In 2012, Johnstone was defeated by LNP candidate John Hathaway.

Hathaway was defeated in 2015 by Labor’s Scott Stewart, and Stewart was re-elected in 2017 and 2020.

Candidates

• Margie Ryder (Katter’s Australian Party)
• Alan Butt (One Nation)
• William Tento (Family First)
• Scott Stewart (Labor)
• Wesley Newman (Independent)
• Adam Baillie (Liberal National)
• Benjamin Tiley (Greens)

Assessment
Townsville is a marginal seat.

2020 result

2020 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths in Townsville have been divided into four areas. Polling places on offshore islands have been grouped together, with the remainder split into centre, south and west.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 54.1% in the centre to 61.6% on the islands. Labor only polled 50.9% in the pre-poll vote.

Katter’s Australian Party came third, with a primary vote ranging from 5.8% on the islands to 14% in the west.

Election results in Townsville at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal National Party and Katter’s Australian Party.

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