Whitsunday – Queensland 2012

ALP 3.2%

Incumbent MP
Jan Jarratt, since 2001.

Geography
North Queensland. The seat stretches along the Queensland coast from just north of Mackay to just south of Bowen. It covers parts of Mackay and Whitsunday local government areas, including Cannonvale, Airlie Beach, Proserpine, Calen, and some outer northern and western suburbs of Mackay.

History
Whitsunday was created for the 1950 election and was a solid seat for the Country/National party for most of its history.

The seat was held by three MPs from the Country Party or National Party from1950 until 1989.

In 1989, the ALP won government for the first time in decades under its leader Wayne Goss. In a shock result, Whitsunday was won by the ALP’s Lorraine Bird.

Bird held the seat throughout the Goss government. She was defeated in 1998 by One Nation’s Harry Black. Black left One Nation in 1999 and helped found the City Country Alliance that year.

In 2001, Black ran as the City Country Alliance candidate, but was defeated by the ALP’s Jan Jarrett. Jarrett was re-elected in 2004, 2006 and 2009, and was appointed as Minister for Tourism, Manufacturing and Small Business in February 2011.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Jan Jarrett is running for re-election. The LNP is running Jason Costigan. The Greens are running Jonathon Dykyj.

Political situation
Whitsunday is the sixth-most marginal Labor seat in the state and will be a key target for the Liberal National Party. It was a solid National Party seat under the last majority coalition government in the 1980s and would be expected to be part of a future majority LNP government.

2009 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Jan Jarratt ALP 13,323 49.7 +3.1
Paul Joice LNP 11,913 44.4 -1.4
Austin Lund GRN 1,567 5.8 +1.7

2009 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Jan Jarratt ALP 13,881 53.2 +2.8
Paul Joice LNP 12,192 46.8 -2.8

Booth breakdown
Booths in Whitsunday have been divided into three areas. Those concentrated in the area close to the city of Mackay have been grouped as ‘Mackay’. The remainder of booths in Mackay LGA have been grouped as ‘South’ while those in Whitsunday LGA have been grouped as ‘North’.

The ALP won a solid majority in the Mackay area, winning 53.6% of the primary vote compared to 41.5% for the LNP. The ALP won slightly more primary votes than the LNP in the north of the seat. In the sparsely populated south of the seat, however, the LNP won a majority of the vote.

Polling booths in Whitsunday at the 2009 state election. Mackay in green, South in orange, North in blue.

 

Voter group ALP % LNP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
Mackay 53.6 41.5 4.9 9,981 37.2
North 47.1 46.4 6.5 6,541 24.4
South 41.5 53.2 5.3 3,058 11.4
Other votes 50.1 43.1 6.8 7,223 26.9
Labor primary votes in Whitsunday at the 2009 state election.
Liberal National primary votes in Whitsunday at the 2009 state election.
Labor primary votes in parts of Whitsunday near Mackay, at the 2009 state election.
Liberal National primary votes in parts of Whitsunday near Mackay, at the 2009 state election.

4 COMMENTS

  1. If there is a strong correlation between voting for One Nation in 1998 and voting for Katter in 2012 then this seat could go to the Katter Party. This seat will be one to watch.

  2. strong local candidate for the lnp….bye bye jan cant run office paperwork,support anna b-lie,can tprosper tourism its good night nurse…anna-geddon looms

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