ALP 4.0%
Incumbent MP
Graham Perrett, since 2007.
Geography
Southern Brisbane. Moreton covers suburbs on the southern side of the Brisbane River to the south of the centre of Brisbane, including Sunnybank, Runcorn, Eight Mile Plains, Acacia Ridge, Coopers Plains, Rocklea, Salisbury, Moorooka, Oxley, Corinda, Graceville and Fairfield.
Redistribution
Moreton gained parts of Annerley and Wellers Hill from Griffith and lost a small area to Oxley.
History
Moreton is an original federation electorate. For most of its history it has been held by the Liberal Party and its predecessors, who held the seat from 1906 until 1990, but the seat was a bellwether seat from 1990 until 2013, when Labor retained the seat despite losing government.
Moreton was won in 1901 by independent labour candidate James Wilkinson, a former member of the colonial Legislative Assembly. Wilkinson was re-elected as an independent in 1903, and rejoined the ALP in 1904.
Wilkinson lost Moreton in 1906 to Anti-Socialist candidate Hugh Sinclair. Sinclair held the seat for over a decade, representing the Commonwealth Liberal Party and the Nationalist Party until his retirement in 1919.
Sinclair was succeeded in Moreton by former state MP Arnold Wienholt, also a Nationalist. Wienholt only held the seat for one term, retiring in 1922.
The seat was won in 1922 by Nationalist candidate Joseph Francis. Francis held the seat for over three decades. He served as a minister in the first term of the Lyons government from 1932 to 1934, and again served as a minister from the election of the Menzies government in 1949 until his retirement in 1955.
Moreton was won in 1955 by Liberal candidate James Killen. Killen was on the right wing of the Liberal Party, and held the seat for the next 29 years. At the 1961 election the Menzies government barely held on, and Killen’s seat of Moreton was the closest result. Indeed, Killen only held on due to Communist Party preferences leaking away from the Labor candidate. Killen served as a minister in the Gorton government from 1969 until 1971 but was dropped by William McMahon when he became Prime Minister.
Killen served as Minister for Defence in the Fraser government from 1975 until 1982, when a reshuffle saw him moved into a more junior role for the final year of the Fraser government. He retired in 1983 after the defeat of the Fraser government, triggering a by-election.
The ensuing by-election was won by Liberal candidate Donald Cameron. Cameron had previously held the seat of Griffith from 1966 to 1977, and then the seat of Fadden until the 1983 election, when he was defeated. He returned to Parliament as Member for Moreton and held it until the 1990 election, when he was defeated by Labor candidate Garrie Gibson, ending 84 years of Moreton being held by conservative parties.
Gibson held the seat until the 1996 election, when he lost to Liberal candidate Gary Hardgrave. Hardgrave served as a junior minister from 2001 until January 2007, when he was removed from the ministry in a reshuffle. Hardgrave lost the 2007 election to Labor candidate Graham Perrett.
Perrett was re-elected in 2010, 2013 and 2016.
Candidates
Assessment
Moreton is a marginal Labor seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Nic Monsour | Liberal National | 32,103 | 37.8 | -4.5 | 37.8 |
| Graham Perrett | Labor | 31,342 | 36.9 | -1.8 | 36.8 |
| Kristen Lyons | Greens | 10,812 | 12.7 | +2.7 | 13.0 |
| Des Soares | Nick Xenophon Team | 4,072 | 4.8 | +4.8 | 4.5 |
| Andrew Cooper | Liberal Democrats | 2,783 | 3.3 | +3.3 | 3.2 |
| Florian Heise | Family First | 2,507 | 3.0 | +1.4 | 2.9 |
| Shan-Ju Lin | Katter’s Australian Party | 1,329 | 1.6 | +0.3 | 1.5 |
| Others | 0.3 | ||||
| Informal | 3,641 | 4.1 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Graham Perrett | Labor | 45,892 | 54.0 | +2.5 | 54.0 |
| Nic Monsour | Liberal National | 39,056 | 46.0 | -2.5 | 46.0 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas: north-east, south and west.
The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two areas: 56.8% in the south and 58.1% in the north-east. The LNP polled 52.6% in the west.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 8.7% in the south to 19.8% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 8.7 | 56.8 | 27,357 | 31.3 |
| North-East | 19.8 | 58.1 | 16,931 | 19.4 |
| West | 15.4 | 47.4 | 8,693 | 9.9 |
| Other votes | 12.4 | 52.5 | 18,278 | 20.9 |
| Pre-poll | 12.5 | 50.4 | 16,147 | 18.5 |
Election results in Moreton at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
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Perrett has done extremely well to hold on at the last 3 elections. He completely blunted the swing in 2013, and got a swing to him in 2016 when much of inner/middle Brisbane went the other way.
Mark Mulcair
Perrett was helped enormously by the LNP pre selecting Mansour. This useless moron is Campbell Neuman’s brother in law. Even in 2016 it would have to be said that the Neuman dynasty was as popular in QLD, as the proverbial ham sandwich at a jewish picnic !
Wine Diamond
Your comment about Mansour is not one I can walk past. Is there not a better expression to finish up the post with without resorting comments About Jews and ham?
I agree that being related to Newman was and still will be a decided disadvantage to getting elected. This of course is unfair Family’s do not necessarily support each other politically. ALP should have awarded Newman Life Membership for his outstanding services to Party in ensuring that LNP lost election. Silly part is that Liberals still do not seem to understand this. Only one of them who I have heard admit that Newman’s policies were a mistake was Tim Mander. See my comments in Bancroft/ Murrumba posts during last Queensland State election campaign. . Newman’s photo will appear for years to come on ALP material just as Whitlam’s photo will be useful to Coalition till at least 2050. I will not forget either of them.
Andrew Jackson
My father was Jewish, so I’ve always felt a little entitled to use that well known expression, & to tell lots of jewish jokes (the funny ones). i’m happy to provide examples !
Thanks for the rest of your thoughtful post, with which i agree completely
Good points but that ignores how LNP “star” candidate Malcolm Cole failed twice in 10 amd 13. I think that suggests a problem beyond who the candidate is.
Totally back up these comments. Monsour was a very poor and tin-eared preselection choice that even turned off some regular LNP voters in the public servant-rich north of the electorate.
This seat will swing a bit more to the LNP or less to Labor than the national swing
Macca-BNE
Do you have an opinion about Perrett ?. Or about Malcolm Cole ?
Monsour may have been a useless dud in 2016, but Perrett still held on and completely blunted any swing in 2013. He must be doing something right.
The AEC has ensured that this will remain a labor seat with most distributions favouring labor over the years. The suburbs of Acacia Ridge, Coopers Plains, Rocklea, Salisbury, Moorooka, Fairfield and Oxley are rock solid working class suburbs that almost always return large labor majorities. The other 5 or so suburbs are slightly Lib or 50/50 so I cannot see Perrett or any other labor candidate for that matter lose this seat unless this is a quite a large general swing the likes of Newman’s win over Bligh at the state level.
”Moreton is a marginal Labor seat.”
Ben why do you say just that? It sounds like your saying the Liberals have a chance here, Its not even on their targets, This is not going to be in play until at least 2022 or 2026. Safe Labor Hold
Marginal is anything less than 5% @ last election 6 to 9 fairly safe and 10 plus is safe
Ben is probably saying that since the 54-46 margin at the last election makes it marginal according to the Mackerras Pendulum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackerras_pendulum), something which *literally* every psephologist in Australia uses to some degree or other.
Moreton in my opinion is a growing leftist suburb. Someone said above that the electorate is full of “working class” suburbs like Acacia Ridge, Coopers Plains, Moorooka, Salisbury which is all very true and there are alot of Old Labor type voters from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s who still live in these areas. But let’s not forget that the area has also become mecca for new arrivals to Brisbane from overseas in recent years (legal and illegal) Sunnybank is a haven for Chinese (most of which will vote labor considering they come from a communist background) Moorooka is where the government seems to be resettling people more Sudan, Africa and the middle east who will vote Greens because the party promotes open boarder immigration and pro islamic interests. This has been a growing trend in this electorate for many years now. I have noticed over the last 20 years or so that the diminishing selection of alternative right wing parties to the libs that are running in this area. Moreton use to be a bell weather seat and most of the major party think tanks still think it is. Both the big parties were throwing big dollars for campaigning during 2016. It’s a shame that all that money was wasted on them and none of it went back to the local community were it is truly needed.
The LNP finally preselected Cr Angela Owen to run for Moreton. Too late though to make an impact. Moreton has the ability to turn blue but the Libs seem to be scared to put resources into the seat. Perrett does nothing, so it just makes me annoyed.
Shocked to see Cr Owen as the LNP candidate for Moreton. She has been the local Councillor now for 11 years.
Surely she’d have some personal following?
@PRP. She is the councillor for Calamvale ward which is close to moreton, but none of the areas she represents fall within moreton. its more of the logan area
LNP choosing a candidate this late suggests this seat is not a priority. I’m not sure Mitchell Greer should be surprised when the LNP are likely going to put resources in retaining seats that they already hold in Queensland then going for a Labor held seat with a 4% margin.
I’m not sure Councillor Angela Owen would have too much of a following in Moreton. It says her ward Calamvale covers Algester, Calamvale, Drewvale, Heathwood, Parkinson, Stretton, Larapinta and part of Forest Lake which is more Rankin and Oxley rather then Moreton.
Graham Perrett is a hard working MP. He proved a lot of doubters wrong in the 2013 election holding the seat when he had a 1.1% margin and was written off by the Courier Mail as good as gone the night before the election. Labor retains this seat easily and increases their margin.
I think the LNP candidate is as good choice at the wrong election. Her ward does crossover in the south west corner of the seat. Aka Acacia Ridge Calamvale. She gets a good vote there as a Councillor but state and federal levels those areas as Labor. It is maximising the LNP vote in its weak area.
That said wrong election.
Sorry about the typos above hopefully it makes sense.