Bonner – Australia 2025

Yeah i have this as a dark horse for a flip along with Banks i think the LNP are favourites. I see Sturt, Leichardt falling before this. This seat is pretty close to the median in terms of income etc so it is very much a middle Australia seat. Nether Portal calculated this would be marginal Labor seat on state results. I does have the advanatage of a sitting Liberal MP with a personal vote. Queensland is the state where Labor should ideally make gains for example seats such as Petrie/Forde are bellwethers but also mortgage belt/outer suburban so Dutton will probably do well there.

Speaking of middle, this is also as middle-ring as it gets when it comes to the geography of Greater Brisbane.

I’d question the claim that Vasta has much of a personal vote. Yes, he’s a long term incumbent, but he’s also a fairly low-profile back-bencher. I’d attribute a lot of his electoral success to Queensland being at such a high watermark for LNP post-Rudd. As far as Brisbane divisions go, Bonner has relatively low political engagement.

@SEQ Observer:
Can’t say whether Vasta has a personal vote, though i’d say he might have, if only from Italians and Sicilians [and Roman Catholics?].
However, he definitely has always had an organised ground game in the Seat with volunteers and experienced scrutineers.

Driving round the area there seems to be pretty even candidate sign coverage. Agree Vasta has kept a very low profile over the years despite being in parliament for so long. Kara Cook had a high profile as a city councillor but I think most of her ward was just outside the Bonner boundary.

Whilst sportbest and Ladbrokes don’t give her a chance I think this might be an upset win for Kara.

Sportsbet have betting on ALP suspended for this seat. LNP still listed at 1.13 favourites

I can understand why Labor put in a last-minute candidate. For most of the past year, Labor was more concerned about sandbagging seats and aiming for Leichhardt, Sturt and the three QLD Green seats.

Someone must’ve ploughed a lot of money into Labor on Sportsbet.

The reason i said that Vasta may have a personal vote is it was actually notionally Labor when created in 2004 based on the 2001 election.

Ben did an analysis and Bonner was one the seats that moved rightwards from 2004-2019 so even compared to 2004 Latham election Labor underperformed in 2019 with Shorten

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47432

@Votante must be a big better following this thread. No co-indidence that it is talked up as a Labor flip on here and then betting is closed 🙂

@Nimalan:
When Con Sciacca lost to Vasta in 2004, he made a comment to the effect that if he had to lose, at least he lost to another Sicilian.
Sciacca was an unsuccessful candidate at the 1977 Qld election for LLew Edwards seat of Ipswich. Ipswich has since elected Andrew Antonelli and Paul Pisasale, both Sicilians, to Council.
Now, Bowman/Bonner are a long way from Ipswich, so my guess is there’s enough of a close knit Sicilian presence there to make a run there worthwhile.

@Jono – all of Morningside Ward (Kara Cook’s old council ward) was outside of Bonner.

@Nimalan, Labor has been doing poorly in QLD post-Rudd especially in 2019 and 2022 where there was a bigger gap between the QLD 2PP and federal 2PP. Most of Kevin 07’s Labor pickups in QLD have shifted to the right. I think the poor Labor showing in Bonner doesn’t have much to do with Ross Vasta.

Labor are now unsuspended here again – now paying $4.70.

In from $5.25 a couple of weeks ago.

@ Votante
Fair point. A major issue in QLD has been the massive decline in support in Regional QLD electorates Herbert, Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn etc in 2019 and there was only a slight recovery in 2025. Bonner is quite different demographically. In any case, if Labor wants a stable majority they will need to win seats in QLD.

A data-point not boding well for Labor here is that postal application rates (across all of Australia) is highest currently in Bonner at 24.6%. Postal-votes application call-to-actions are sent out as a mail-out by incumbent LNP members. In this context, it would have included a pack explaining the achievements of Ross Vasta. Not everyone opts to vote for LNP with these mail-outs of course, but they typically do have a higher rate of LNP TPP than election day votes. It is a deliberate incumbent strategy to secure early-votes early in the campaign. It ensures that the candidate is top-of-mind while the postal vote is being filled out and that the voter is distracted with any other messages or candidates.

*and that the voter is NOT distracted with any other messages or candidates.

Albanese visited Bonner today.

@Nimalan
If he visited Wynnum prepoll for any length of time, he’ll be sick as a dog by thursday and running on antibioticss and painkillers..
That’s where i’m at atm, any future voting will be by post.
ALP have a very good Postal Vote game, every elector in a Labor seat is sent an application at their residential address.

Some more thoughts on Bonner.

It has one of the highest amounts of people working in the public sector in Queensland.

Labor recognise this and have been spending a lot of money on digital ads with the message that the Coalition will allegedly cut public-services to pay for his nuclear program.

At a state level, this pocket of Brisbane has been sensitive to concerns around public-service cuts in the recent past.

With their local messaging, Labor are attempting to associate Dutton with Newman and it would help that plenty of constituents of Bonner would recall Campbell Newman and his time as Premier.

Labor’s doubling down over recent days suggests that this might be cutting through.

I feel like it was just too little too late for Labor here. Which is pretty understandable given their position in the polls earlier this year, and Dutton being from Queensland had a lot of people writing off any gains for Labor from the LNP for a while now. Vasta might get something like a 2 point swing against him but I don’t think Labor will get over the line here. Though @SEQ Observer’s comment above regarding public sector workers is certainly interesting and I’ll be keeping an eye out on Bonner during election night.

Perhaps this is a bit of a Sturt ’22 situation, where Labor has realised it was winnable too late.

Interesting, Bonner has a similar profile to Sturt, especially by way of public-sector workforce.

News.com.au has “leaked labor internal polling” which has Bonner at 51.5-49.5 to the ALP for what it’s worth, with all the usual caveats re leaked internal polling during election campaigns.

Also heard Kos Samaras say Labor have spent 98k on advertising in Bonner, so it correlates with Labor thinking they are competitive esp with above re high proportion of public service workers.

I think if there was another interest rate cut before the election and Labor was more confident they could have started campaigning earlier. I think it is the second tier of potential picks for Labor along Banks after Sturt, Leichardt and prior to state based factors, Deakin.

Yougov MRP poll now also has Bonner showing Labor with a lead. 51.2 – 48.8.

The Demos Au polling that focussed on the LNP held Brisbane suburban seats (including Bonner and Dickson) showed a pretty static result with the Coalition primary at 40% overall, which pairs with the YouGov seat poll of Dickson which had Dutton also on 40% – which is pretty decent with an IND in the race now. I’d say Bonner is a pretty unlikely gain at this point but certainly one to watch if there is a swing on to Labor

The Labor polling suggests the seat is line ball according Samantha Maiden article, with Labor narrowly ahead 51.5 per cent on two party preferred.

@SEQ that note on the Labor messaging about public service cuts probably explains why Hume and Taylor were at pains to throw Canberra under the bus today in the costings pressers

Labor’s internal polling and the recent Yougov MRP seem to show Labor’s vote is holding up or even increasing in middle-ring suburbia. It’s why they’re showing swings in Bonner, Bennelong, Reid and Banks.

AA (in the Banks thread) said that Labor is campaigning better in Bonner now than in 2022.

Votante I am guessing Labor will also increase its margin in Lilley and Moreton which are middle ring suburbs as will the Centenary suburbs in Oxkey

@Maxim. You make a good point, and it makes me wonder if (overall) the idea of sacking lots of public servants has an overall positive impact upon people voting for the Liberals?

There are no doubt some places where the idea will be popular, but I wonder if it actually draws new voters in, or just enthuses the conservative base?

On the other hand, as much as “Canberra” is used as a convenient punching bag, I can picture the idea of mass sackings not going down well in places with reasonably high numbers of public servants like Bonner or Sturt. The reason being, of course, the fear that it will be their own jobs or local services being cut next.

I wonder if the Libs have actually run the numbers on this and calculated that gain more votes in the seats they want to win, as opposed to defending those seats they consider as gone?

@Votante Labor has definitely campaigned harder this time around, they’ve got a much better choice of candidate. She’s been out doorknocking for months, plus they’ve put a decent amount of funding in for billboards etc. Albanese’s made a few stops in Bonner too. Driving through Bonner there’s equal numbers of Cook and Vasta signs.

From what I’ve heard, Labor habe learnt their lesson from last time. Instead of going for a range of seats, they’ve narrowed down on the LNP seats they’re really targeting. I get the vibe that Brisbane, Griffith, Leichhardt and Bonner are the main targets because they think they’re winnable. Dickson’s also getting some attention for obvious reasons.

If we’re looking at anecdata here now, I know a few former Scott Morrison voters in this division have voted for Labor this time around. These are pretty apolitical people that just go with the incumbent leader if there’s not much reason to change. I think that Dutton has failed to convince voters like this that there is a reason to change government. In fact, by raising the concern of cuts, he might have even painted himself as a quite risky change.

By raising cuts – even if he was “only targeting Canberra”, this is still going to raise the ears of public servants across all tiers of Government. It’s also very hard in the noise of a campaign to adequately communicate that he actually will only be targeting a narrow subset of public servants to sufficiently quell the concerns of all other public servants that they would ultimately be unaffected. So it’s been easy for Labor to go and run with this and turn it into the scare campaign like they have.

What does the ground game look like? Is Ross Vasta or the LNP moving to sandbagging?

I think the LNP are quietly confident, but Labor’s giving it a decent crack.

Well there were a couple of us here who picked this upset. I hope you guys also out your money where your mouth is like I did.

I live in this electorate and am a swinging voter.
The local councillors and state members are LNP and I think this gave Vasta a false sense of stability (as well as the internal LNP poling data). I was suprised that I didn’t see that much of Vasta during the campaign, and think Vasta / LNP missed a trick on creating a narrative around the work Vasta has done as a Federal member for a long period of time, for this community. There were obvious watch outs to Cooks campaign (doesn’t live in Bonner, perceived as a career politician, etc) Hoever several people in Bonner have refered to Vasta as “The Ghost” so there was certainly a mood. I get the sense Ross was caught up in the ongoing lack of functionality that LNP dished up in 2025, as well as not being willing or able to craft his own narrative.

Lord Mayor Schrinner may contest this seat next election as both the next federal & council elections are less than two months apart. Crisafulli’s probably regretting scrapping the truth telling which Kara was apart of.

Did Crisafulli switching the Olympic Stadium to the northside hurt the LNP in Bonner? Savage swings in the other southside seats, Griffith and Moreton, compared to the Northside seats Lilley, Brisbane and Ryan.
Certainly took a mile of work away from the southside with that switch.

@ Gympie
the Southside of Brisbane is more CALD so ethnic differences maybe an issue. Dutton is Toxic among CALD voters

on paper this seat does look like a traditional Labor seat. Surprised it stayed with the LNP for so long

Bazza/Nimalan, I probably see this seat as somewhat as a cross between Greenway and Mitchell in Sydney. You have some traditional Labor leaning parts such as Wynnum/Manly that may be trending more conservative as the area gentrifies (similar to places such as Kings Langley and Lalor Park near Blacktown). Then you have the more affluent suburbs such as Gumdale and Belmont which were (and maybe still are) semi-rural locations like Dural and Glenhaven in Sydney which do strongly support the conservative parties

I’ve lived in Brisbane since the start of this year and I heard more about the Olympics while I was still in Sydney than I have here. I had actually forgotten about the whole stadium controversy. Maybe I’m just living under a rock.

@ Yoh An
Agree Gumdale, Chandler and Belmont are very affluent. The state seat of Mansfield is middle class ethnic suburbs so a bit like parts of Aston or Menzies.

@Nimalan Mansfield also has some estates like Rochedale which have been conservative even during the 2020 election when COVID hit.

The Gabba rebuild involved a complex demolition, and years of work for labourers and TCs on EBA rates.
Victoria Park on the northside is a greenfields site more or less and not on any main roads. Cost wise it is the right site, but that’s about it for posiitives.
So, Crisafulli has dudded the southside, possibly unintentionally.
Interested to see if the EBSS booth followed the trend, they dodged 7 years of noise 7 days/week with the Victoria Park decision.
@Nimalan: Mansfield, along with Wishart are suburbs built in the early 70s.
Always working class/lower middle class, most of it looks dated and shabby these days.