LNP 22.5% vs ON
Incumbent MP
David Littleproud, since 2016.
Geography
Southwestern Queensland and the Darling Downs. Maranoa covers a large part of southern Queensland, stretching from Toowoomba council area (although not the city of Toowoomba itself) along the NSW border, all the way to the South Australian and Northern Territory borders. Major towns include Kingaroy, Nanango, Warwick, Dalby and Roma.
History
Maranoa is an original federation electorate, covering rural parts of southern Queensland. The seat was first held by the ALP, but has been held by the Country Party and its successors since 1921, only losing Maranoa at one election.
The seat was first won in 1901 by the ALP’s James Page. Page held the seat until his death in 1921.
The 1921 by-election was won by James Hunter, standing for the newly-formed Country Party. Hunter served as a minister in the Lyons government from 1934 to 1937, and retired in 1940.
Maranoa was won in 1940 by the ALP’s Frank Baker, a former school teacher and father of former MP Frank Baker Jr, who had died in 1939. The elder Baker held Maranoa for one term, losing to the Country Party’s Charles Adermann in 1943. Adermann retained Maranoa in 1946 before moving to the new seat of Fisher in 1949. He served as a minister from 1958 until 1967, and retired in 1972.
The Country Party’s Charles Russell won Maranoa in 1949, but fell out with his party in 1950 and contested the seat as an independent in 1951, losing to the Country Party’s Wilfred Brimblecombe. Brimblecombe held the seat until his retirement in 1966.
James Corbett won Maranoa for the Country Party in 1966, holding it until 1980. He was succeeded in 1980 by Ian Cameron, also of the National Country Party.
Cameron retired in 1990, and the National Party’s Bruce Scott won the seat, and held the seat until his retirement in 2016.
LNP candidate David Littleproud succeeded Scott in 2016. He was re-elected in 2019.
Assessment
Maranoa is the safest seat in the country.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| David Littleproud | Liberal National | 51,950 | 56.0 | +6.8 |
| Linda Little | Labor | 14,427 | 15.6 | -2.7 |
| Rosemary Moulden | One Nation | 13,564 | 14.6 | -3.2 |
| Anthony Wallis | Katter’s Australian Party | 4,245 | 4.6 | -0.2 |
| Julie Saunders | United Australia Party | 3,367 | 3.6 | +3.6 |
| Emmeline Chidley | Greens | 3,177 | 3.4 | +0.0 |
| Darren Christiansen | Conservative National Party | 2,030 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Informal | 3,813 | 3.9 | -1.6 |
2019 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| David Littleproud | Liberal National | 67,239 | 72.5 | +6.6 |
| Rosemary Moulden | One Nation | 25,521 | 27.5 | -6.6 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| David Littleproud | Liberal National | 69,961 | 75.4 | +7.9 |
| Linda Little | Labor | 22,799 | 24.6 | -7.9 |
Booths have been divided into six areas. Polling places in Dalby and Roma council areas were grouped by local government areas. Balonne and Goondiwindi council areas have been grouped together as ‘South’.
The LNP’s two-candidate-preferred vote (against One Nation) ranged from 68.1% in Kingaroy-Crows Nest to 74.3% in the south.
Labor came second, with a primary vote ranging from 12.6% in Dalby to 20.1% in Kingaroy-Crows Nest. One Nation’s primary vote ranged from 14.5% in Roma to 16.4% in Kingaroy-Crows Nest. One Nation outpolled Labor in Dalby.
| Voter group | ON prim | ALP prim | LNP 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 14.8 | 16.8 | 72.5 | 12,339 | 13.3 |
| Dalby | 15.2 | 12.6 | 70.2 | 9,732 | 10.5 |
| Kingaroy-Crows Nest | 16.4 | 20.1 | 68.1 | 8,063 | 8.7 |
| South | 14.7 | 16.6 | 74.3 | 4,366 | 4.7 |
| West | 16.1 | 19.5 | 72.7 | 3,985 | 4.3 |
| Roma | 14.5 | 15.6 | 73.1 | 3,320 | 3.6 |
| Pre-poll | 14.8 | 16.6 | 72.0 | 31,998 | 34.5 |
| Other votes | 12.9 | 11.6 | 75.8 | 18,957 | 20.4 |
Election results in Fairfax at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (LNP vs One Nation), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and One Nation.
Crows Nest and Warwick don’t belong in the same electorate as Birdsville and Roma, change my mind. And if he really is resignsting himself with the country towns. Then why is his office in Dalby? Poor electoral boundaries the AEC needs to change because it’s not just about equal population. It’s also about geography. Most of the western towns of this electorate would fit more into Kennedy.
Could have been Barnaby “”s seat. But the Nat leader w.Truss talked the sitting mp into staying.. Did he know the future
As sure as the cows come in for milking, this seat will remain with the coalition. Neville Nobody could stand for the Nationals here and they would still win.
@ Daniel have come across this comment a couple times in the past while browsing the electorates I am most familiar with and definitely agree. I’ve meddled with potential electorate boundaries a lot myself and it can be extremely difficult to draw them while maintaining quota without accidentally making certain divisions look absurd or even subject to accusations of gerrymandering. But even so I can still remember how stupid I thought it was when I got into politics and discovered towns like Kingaroy and Warwick are in the same electorate as Barcaldine and Birdsville. Haven’t changed much since then either
Daniel
Bob Katter ( nor any future Member for Kennedy) can not look after any more than Bob does now. My only solution to this would please no one. mP s electorate be based on workload but their vote in Parliament be weighted by Voters represented. Therefore City MP’s have An electorate roughly the same as today and get one vote but country electorates be much smaller than they are now but the MPs vote value is less than 1 vote. Alternatively City MP’s have 110K votes but provincial MPs have 75 K votes and country MPs 50K votes. No one would want this. ParliMent procedures would need to be substantially re written and even Party CAucus rules re written or you would have a leader elected by Caucus who could not get a majority in Parliament. Voting in both would have to be electronic with even the possibility of I vote 40K for Aye and 39K for no. This system would make post war Italy look stable.
Strange community bedfellows will always happen in large sparsely populated rural electorates. Maranoa and Flynn are in this category as Parkes and Farrer in NSW and Wannon and Mallee in Vic. What is not forgiveable is when it happens in urban areas where alternatives exist – just look at the ridiculous boundaries between Menzies, Chisholm and Deakin – and the number of submissions protesting these.
Apologies – should have been Maranoa abd Kennedy.
Abolish Maranoa… then can fix boundaries…
I don’t think Maranoa needs to be abolished nor would it be considered until it is absolutely necessary as it is a federation electorate. But since its creation in 1901 it has crept significantly further east as Darling Downs (and later Groom) shrunk due to its much higher population growth, and now is not very far from bordering Brisbane divisions. Sometime soon it may come that Maranoa must lose much of its western area it has contained for 120 years and become more of a seat centered on the Darling Downs (excluding the greater Toowoomba urban area) and nearby regions. The issue that arises then is that Kennedy would become similar to Grey and the former Kalgoorlie, and Lingiari as well I suppose.
Queensland’s electorates in general are a mess to be honest. Especially the regional seats such as Dawson, Capricornia, Kennedy and Leichhardt, all of which awkwardly bend around and take in bits and pieces of different major cities. Wright also has these issues although I am less knowledgeable on it.
@ Redistributed Agreed although I am not familiar with many urban electorates so I tend to avoid getting into conversations discussing which suburb or neighborhood should be in which electorate.
Andrew Jackson, that is why smaller district sizes would make more sense in terms of having better community of interest, for both urban and rural seats. I believe the UK has 600+ lower house seats yet its population is only 3 times Australia, thus giving average district size about 70k instead of the 100+k we have.
A potential solution to the community of interest problem in cities could be multi-member electorates. Then boundaries wouldn’t necessarily need to shift, only the number of members the seat elects.
Of course, this wouldn’t make any difference to Maranoa and other country electorates that have to span different communities of interest simply to get enough voters for one seat. The only real solution there is the one Yoh An identified, more representatives in parliament, so that there are fewer voters per MP.
Weighting MPs votes in the House of Reps, in any way other than 1 per MP, almost certainly requires a referendum (doing so in the Senate would certainly require a referendum).
A referendum to introduce weighting would potentially diminish the proportionate and/or minimum representation of any state and therefore would almost certainly require a majority in every state. Given Tasmania`s lower voter numbers per seat, even if it passed on the mainland unanimously, it would almost certainly fail to get a majority in Tasmania.
You have fair boundaries..
This. May involve the need for large area seats. However you then make it easier to represent. Electors via multiple electorate office.. use of light planes. Petrol.car allowances.. able to video call from. Community centres etc. Look at possible cross states electorates etc
Andrew. Totally unconstitutional idea. Much much easier to just increase the number of members. I would favour an increase of 12 more state senators and giving the combined territories 14 (on increase of 10. This would allow an HoR increase of 44. This would go a long way towards removing the problems of very large electorates.
People would whinge about the cost but this could be reduced by: Cutting the number of staffers by 0.5 per member- saves 75 full time salaries about 1/3 the cost of the members. ie net neutral.
I would also aim to have many parliamentary sessions via zoom, so that the travel costs are much reduced without disrupting the democratic processes. Many parts of the parliamentary process are mere formality and could be streamlines (and still be constitutional). Question time for example could well proceed via zoom. Most committees would in fact do better if not in Canberra.
Procedures could be set up such that indicative votes (and debates) are held via public zoom meetings (or equivalent). Any bill that had a very clear majority (say a 15-20 majority) could be formally enacted by the quorum present in the Parliament proper. Any on a tighter margin would need to be managed in the current way, but at a very defined Parliamentary session, where the order of business would be concentrated on passing significant or contentious legislation.
Maverick
You are another person who doesn’t understand the nexus. Territories don’t count.
Territories don`t count because the legislation and the High Court agree that they don`t count. If the High Court is persuaded that the nexus includes the territory senators, something that cannot be ruled out if the number of territory senators is expanded and thus drives the difference between twice the actually number of Senators and the size of the House of Reps up, then the nexus situation would change.
Redistributed
I fully understand the nexus. So far the ACT/NT Senators are counted for the nexus, otherwise there would be only 144 in the HoR. Instead there are 151 ie almost the number allowed under the nexus. (152). Yes it could well be challenged in the High Court, but it has not as yet.
In any case the matter can be easily resolved by giving the NT statehood or perhaps one state for all the various territories – ACT/NT/Jervis Bay, Xmas island, Norfolk Is, Lord Howe etc. The population put together would exceed that of Tasmania.
Maverick you are wrong. The quota is set based on the state population divided by 144. The reason we have 151 seats is because there are five territory seats (since territory population isn’t included in the quota calculation, they result in extra quotas) plus two seats because Tasmania has three seats worth of population but is guaranteed five under the constitution. So that’s the extra two. That’s it. If a million new people appeared in Canberra tomorrow but the rest of the country’s population stayed the same, it wouldn’t make any difference to the quota or the number of seats allocated to the six states or the NT.