LNP 4.4%
Incumbent MP
Luke Howarth, since 2013.
Geography
Northern Brisbane. Petrie covers suburbs on the northern edge of the City of Brisbane, including Bracken Ridge and parts of Aspley. It also includes parts of Moreton Bay Regional Council, including Redcliffe, Scarborough and Deception Bay.
Petrie was created as part of the 1949 expansion of Parliament, and has always been a marginal seat, changing sides on many occasions. The seat has been a bellwether seat since 1987.
The seat was first won by Alan Hulme (Liberal) in 1949. Hulme served as a minister in the Menzies government from 1958 until 1961, when he was defeated by Reginald O’Brien (ALP), and Hulme won the seat back off O’Brien in 1963, before resuming a ministerial role.
O’Brien retired in 1972, and the seat was won by Marhsall Cooke. Cooke was not preselected by the Liberals in 1974, and he retired, with John Hodges winning the seat. Hodges held the seat for the Liberals until the 1983 election, when Dean Wells (ALP) won the seat. Hodges won it back off Wells in 1984, and Wells went on to serve as a minister in Labor state government from 1989 until 2004.
Hodges was finally defeated by the ALP’s Gary Johns in 1987. Johns went on to serve as a minister in the last term of the Keating government, losing his seat to Liberal Teresa Gambaro in 1996.
Gambaro held the seat for eleven years before losing to Yvette D’Ath in 2007.
D’Ath was re-elected in 2010 amidst a large anti-Labor swing in Queensland was a minimal 1.7% swing to the Liberal National Party.
D’Ath narrowly lost Petrie in 2013 to the LNP’s Luke Howarth. The 3% swing to the LNP was just enough for the LNP to win with a 0.5% margin, making Petrie the most marginal Coalition seat in the country.
D’Ath returned to politics within six months, winning the state by-election in the overlapping seat of Redcliffe in February 2014. She now serves as Health Minister in the Labor state government.
Luke Howarth has been re-elected three times.
Assessment
Petrie is a marginal seat. Petrie used to vote more pro-Labor than Queensland, but since 2019 it has voted pretty much in line with the state, so Labor’s chances in this seat probably depend on a general uptick in support in Queensland.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Luke Howarth | Liberal National | 46,325 | 43.5 | -4.6 |
| Mick Denton | Labor | 31,972 | 30.0 | -0.8 |
| Will Simon | Greens | 12,169 | 11.4 | +2.7 |
| Kelly Anne Guenoun | United Australia | 5,914 | 5.6 | +2.2 |
| Marcus Mitchell | One Nation | 5,613 | 5.3 | -2.3 |
| Chris Cicchitti | Animal Justice | 2,331 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Anneke Wilson | Liberal Democrats | 2,189 | 2.1 | +2.1 |
| Informal | 3,913 | 3.5 | -0.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Luke Howarth | Liberal National | 57,981 | 54.4 | -4.0 |
| Mick Denton | Labor | 48,532 | 45.6 | +4.0 |
Booths have been divided into three areas. Booths in the City of Brisbane have been grouped as South. Those around Redcliffe have been grouped as East, and the remainder around North Lakes and at the northern end of the electorate have been grouped as West.
The LNP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in every area, ranging from 50.4% in the south to 53.6% in the east, as well as 55.4% of the pre-poll vote.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.7% in the west to 14.3% in the south, as well as 10.2% of the pre-poll vote.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LNP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 13.3 | 53.6 | 13,679 | 12.8 |
| West | 12.7 | 52.2 | 13,564 | 12.7 |
| South | 14.3 | 50.4 | 12,530 | 11.8 |
| Pre-poll | 10.2 | 55.4 | 42,140 | 39.6 |
| Other votes | 10.4 | 56.6 | 24,600 | 23.1 |
Election results in Petrie at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.
Longer term this is an electorate that Labor needs to target
@ NP
I will include details for you to calculate the overlapping state results.
State seats
Parts of Aspley, Bancroft, Murrumba, Redcliffe and Sandgate
Suburbs/Booths
1. Aspley
2. Bald Hills
3. Bracken Ridge
4. Bridgeman Downs
5. Clontarf
6 Clontarf Beach
7. Fitzgibbon
8. Griffin
9. Kippa-Ring
10. Mango Hill
11. Margate
12. Moreton Downs (in Deception Bay)
13.Redcliffe
14. Rothwell
15. Scarsborough
16. Taigum
17. Woody Point
@Nimalan thanks, will do when Redcliffe comes in.
State TPP here (2024):
* Labor: 53.0%
* LNP: 47.0%
Labor did 7.4% better on the state level in 2024 here than on the federal level in 2022. Note that this only includes some prepolls from districts other than Redcliffe.
@ Nether Portal, Much appreciated. I will get Longman ready for you like i did above tonight and will get Bonner ready for you tommorow.
@Nimalan thanks. I will do Brisbane and probably Longman tonight.
Still in qld the federal lnp usually way outperform their state colleagues due to thedifference i issues
@ NP
All good take your time. I have just got Longman read for you and will do Bonner tommorow.
@Nimalan done Longman.
Great thanks NP. Tommorow i will get Bonner ready for you.
According to The Poll Bludger, this seat contains:
* 41% of Aspley
* 91% of Bancroft
* 34% of Murrumba
* 100% of Redcliffe
* 49% of Sandgate
I don’t understand why Labor haven’t done better here in the past. Even now after the Queensland election, state Labor holds 4 of the 5 seats in Petrie. State politics and federal politics don’t align, but you’d think that would at least account for something.
The difference seems to be personal votes for sitting mps?
@nick not in qld no. people seem to always vote differently at state and federal level. at a state level they are voting for things like hospitals and school
This seat has been considered a shock gain for Labor, with Emma Comer a new face on the political spectrum. Apparently, Comer was only preselected six weeks ago; such little thought was given to the possibility that Petrie was in play by Labor.
It’s funny how we were all talking about Bonner, Banks etc (which all fell to Labor by the way) so close to the election day and then all of a sudden we get a surge of Petrie, Forde and even Hughes dropping like flies for the LNP. Absolutely utterly humiliating for the Liberals. No one saw that coming from miles away, not even Labor I bet.
I get the impression that we’ve tended to assume that Petrie and the other Greater Brisbane seats that have flipped were part of a “blue wall” because:
– most of them were won in 2007 – a high-tide election and with a Queenslander leading Labor – lost in 2010 or 2013, and never recovered,
– they swung hard towards the LNP in 2019 (“How great’s Queensland?”).
So, we believed that the post-Turnbull direction of the Coalition had firmed up the suburbs of Brisbane and that Labor would need a Queenslander to even be competitive in these seats.
So, we believed that the post-Turnbull direction of the Coalition had firmed up the suburbs of Brisbane and that Labor would need a Queenslander to even be competitive in these seats.
@Nicholas
Yeah, this got brought up a lot. Jim Chalmers was asked by the media if Labor needed a Queenslander as Prime Minister to appeal to Queensland. It was an obvious attempt to play the leadershit card. People often forget that Bob Hawke didn’t win half or more of the seats in Queensland until his third election in 1987. I think there may be a realignment in Queensland similar to what’s happened to Western Australia over the last couple of years, going to Labor federally.
The class of 2010 may have been a factor in the potential defeats of Luke Howarth, Bert Van Manen, and Ross Vasta. They have been long-term members, including throughout the chopping and changing of Liberal Party Prime Ministers. Voters thought it was time to move on, instead of coasting on the goodwill of Queenslanders.
Its probably more to do with the innefective vision and lack of policies from the libs thay caused this loss as it wasnt just qld but other tradition liberal seats that were lost across the contry. The libs should be back in forde and petrie come 2028. Not sure about bonner due to the redistribution. Doubtful theyl get dickson back anytime soon.
Senator Murray Watt on ABC yesterday said that Labor had a Queensland strategy given the low number of Labor seats pre-election. It was a path to majority government. He also said that QLDers like to mix things up by choosing by voting state LNP but also voting for federal Labor.
I remember Jim Chalmers touted as a future leader in 2019 after the election loss as part of Labor’s strategy to rebuild with the working-class and with QLD, because he’s from the outer suburbs, and also from QLD. Maybe his rise to prominence as treasurer helped with Labor winning seats in QLD.
Doubtful this was anationwixe thing not just a qld. Things like cutting the public service and forc8ng them back to work in offices. Nuclear that they were able to scare everyone on cost and the cuts they would need to make. Cuts to services etc. The fact the libs tripped over themselves during the campaign. Trump. Scare campaigns and that they promised 10s odlf billions in spending. Even dai le said they tried to buy the election. And did. You cant tell me that months of polls going against them suddenly turned around overnight because of normal politics. I remind you Peter Dutton is from Qld
Darth Vader. In my earlier post, I refererred to QLD as a target state. I agree that there were nationwide factors which had swung the electorate to Labor. There are also state-level factors. There are surely reasons why QLD delivered a large number of seats to Labor, just like there are reasons for super-sized swings in SA and Tas.
Pre-election QLD had the most LNP seats on margins below 5% as well as winnable Greens seats. Most states had just 1 or 2 marginal Liberal seats and it seems that Labor wanted to broadened their path to a greater majority. Murray Watt said that Labor has been successful as tying the Greens with the LNP or putting them on the same page due to Greens’ obstruction in the senate.
Even Dai Le said they tried to buy the election.
@Darth Vader
Ha! As if this is someone impartial, a former Liberal Party member. While Dai Le is an independent, it’s no secret where her allegiance lies. Liberals delivered nine deficits and left a debt five times greater than Gillard/Rudd government was in office. Liberals driving around with a debt truck is really quite hypocritical.
I won’t respond to any of your other points because the thread is supposed to be about Petrie. But these predictions, “The libs should be back in Forde and Petrie come 2028”. They are more cheerleading than analysis. You don’t know the issues, circumstances, or how the polls are traveling. Just making an assumption on nothing or implying Labor will be so unpopular that they will immediately return to the party of your choice is not analysis.
Not sure how you can call it cheerleading when in the next breath he names two seats that he doesn’t think that will be the case with.
Well technically labor just fiddled with the books and put spending off budget. That’s how they achieved that. And that debt was due to covid and the fact the lockdowns forced people to stay home and not work. Decreasing income tax and company tax receipts. Also they doubled the dole for people to just sit at home. The reasons the swings were larger was because labor was already far behind. Some seats like Blair barely recorded a swing and I would wager will flip. Also both Petrie and forde are gonna be exposed to massive redistributions due to shortfalls in Brisbane city. Also the surpluses on the sunshine and gold coasts are gonna drag them north and south respectively. I will agree that it’s doubtful they can win bonnet and Dickson back though. Leichhardt will prolly remain labor for some time. It’s shame the libs failed miserably because it would have brought the result somewhere closer to 2010 but now I think the libs cannot return to govt until 2031 at the earliest. By that time trump will be long gone.
On my figures Queensland hit the 30.5 quota mark in February, meaning that there will also be another seat to squeeze in. Petrie may well lose the Brisbane component, becoming a seat based solely within Moreton Bay Regional Council.
I’ll check when I get home. If another seat were to be added Petrie would be dragged further into Brisbane due to the reduced quota. But if it remains 30 then it would lose it. Also the determination won’t be made until next year. But it’s due for a redistribution after 1 month after the new parliament sits not sure how that will work.. the new seat will likely consist of somerset being shedded from Blair plus parts of Longman fisher and fairfax
Well technically labor just fiddled with the books and put spending off budget. That’s how they achieved that. And that debt was due to covid and the fact the lockdowns forced people to stay home and not work.
@John
Liberals doubled the debt before COVID and left a debt five times the amount of Labor after COVID by the end of it. After the Liberals’ horror budget in 2014, Tony Abbott panicked because of the polls and then started spending like a drunken sailor to reverse the polls. Slogans of ‘Budget repair’ and ‘live within our means’ meant nothing to him. He stood for nothing as a Prime Minister and managed to exceed Rudd/Gillard’s governments’ debt in two terms combined in less than two years before being rolled by Malcolm Turnbull.
This is not simply cheerleading these swings were higher then would have nornally happend if at all. And so they will obviosuly be pegged back a bit at the next election so that is the reason as the labor margins are quite low now. The libs have always performed strong in qld save for aberations. You cant twll me the libs will bever regain any of the seats lost. Labor is at a high point now nationally and will obviously come back to a moree normal 2pp. In 2028. I honestly think the libs can maybe win 14 seats back in 2028.
@nightwatchmen what do you think albo just did?
We’ve just had an election full of surprises. I don’t think any of us can claim to have any credible foresight about an election in three years given that we were so wrong on Friday evening about what would happen on Saturday. The more elections pass, the more I see that we and the media are only marginally better than dart-throwing monkeys.
As for the Queensland redistribution, I’m thinking along similar lines to John in terms of where the new electorate (if one is to be created) will be. I had imagined Longman splitting into two – with the northern electorate spanning the northern end of the Moreton Bay region and the Sunshine Coast hinterland, and possibly the former Kilcoy Shire.
“This is not simply cheerleading these swings were higher then would have nornally happend if at all. And so they will obviosuly be pegged back a bit at the next election so that is the reason as the labor margins are quite low now. The libs have always performed strong in qld save for aberations. You cant twll me the libs will bever regain any of the seats lost. ”
@Darth Vader
I never said that would never win them back. But Petrie was won for three terms under Hawke and Keating governments and two terms under Rudd and Gillard governments. It was held despite Labor losing 8 seats in Queensland in 2010. It could easily regained at the next election with factors including such as sophomore surge. I’m not making a call because I will have to wait to see what factors from then.
I actually don’t think Labor results in Queensland is necessarily highwater mark either. Labor gained one seat Leichhardt in the inner regions when previous Labor governments have won more then that in North and Central Queensland.