Cooper – QLD 2017

ALP 3.3%

Incumbent MP
Kate Jones, Member for Ashgrove since 2015. Previously Member for Ashgrove 2006-2012.

Geography
North-Western Brisbane. Cooper covers the Brisbane suburbs of The Gap, Ashgrove, Milton, Paddington, Red Hill and parts of Bardon and Kelvin Grove.

Redistribution
The seat of Cooper is a continuation of the previous seat of Ashgrove. Cooper gained Milton, Paddington, Red Hill and parts of Bardon and Kelvin Grove from Mount Coot-tha, and lost Enoggera and the remainder of Alderley and Gaythorne to Ferny Grove. These changes cut the Labor margin from 4.3% to 3.3%.

History
The seat of Ashgrove (now renamed Cooper) has existed since 1960. The seat was held by the Liberal Party continuously from 1960 to 1983 and has been held by the ALP continuously since 1989.

The seat was first won in 1960 by Douglas Tooth. He had previously won the seat of Kelvin Grove for the Liberal Party in 1957. He held Ashgrove until his retirement in 1974. He was replaced by John Greenwood, also of the Liberal Party.

In 1983, Greenwood lost his seat to the ALP’s Tom Veivers. Veivers held the seat for one term, losing to Liberal candidate Alan Sherlock in 1986. Sherlock again only held the seat for one term, losing in 1989 to Labor candidate Jim Fouras. Fouras had previously held South Brisbane for one term from 1983 to 1986.

Fouras was elected as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in 1990, and held the position until 1996. He retired from Parliament in 2006.

Kate Jones won Ashgrove in 2006. After winning a second term in 2009 she was appointed as Minister for the Environment, Resource Management and Climate Change. She stepped down from the ministry in June 2011 to focus on her campaign against LNP leader Campbell Newman.

At the 2012 election, Jones was defeated by her LNP opponent Newman. Newman had served as Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 2004 to 2011, and resigned in April 2011 after being elected as leader of the LNP despite not holding a seat in the state Parliament. Newman became premier of Queensland following the 2012 election, serving until the 2015 election.

Newman lost the seat of Ashgrove to his predecessor Kate Jones in 2015, while his party also lost power.

Candidates

Assessment
Cooper is a very marginal seat, although its predecessor gained a special status in 2012 and 2015 due to the presence of Campbell Newman – the seat is likely to be much lower-profile in this election, but is still a vital seat for Labor to hold on to government.

2015 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Kate Jones Labor 13,372 44.4 +7.9 39.1
Campbell Newman Liberal National 13,125 43.6 -8.2 43.9
Robert Hogg Greens 3,047 10.1 +1.0 15.1
Connie Cicchini Independent 279 0.9 +0.4 0.5
Peter Jeremijenko Independent 261 0.9 +0.3 0.5
Others 0.9
Informal 313 1.0

2015 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Kate Jones Labor 16,009 54.3 +10.0 53.3
Campbell Newman Liberal National 13,498 45.7 -10.0 46.7
Exhausted 577 1.9

Booth breakdown

Booths in Cooper have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 51.9% in the centre to 53.8% in the west.

The Greens vote ranged from 9.2% in the west to 23.3% in the east.

Voter group GRN prim % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
Central 13.7 51.9 7,353 23.1
West 9.2 53.8 6,871 21.6
East 23.3 53.3 6,355 20.0
Other votes 15.1 53.1 11,248 35.3

Election results in Cooper at the 2015 QLD state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.

9 COMMENTS

  1. I’m calling line ball on this seat. With Campbell Newman out of the equation, I’d say the LNP will likely win on primary votes again, but Green preferences should see Kate limp across the line. Will be on to watch again, but for different reasons than the last two elections.

  2. There’s no evidence to suggest Newman’s candidacy deflated the LNP vote in Ashgrove. The swing in fact was a few points below average. It’s a traditionally Labor seat and should remain that way.

  3. You are correct David about the lack of Newman factor, but a 3.3% margin suggests this is very much in play.

    In fact how all the seats close to the city play out (McConnel, Maiwar, Everton, Ferny Grove, Greenslopes, Miller, Cooper) will be vital to the election.

    Then there us the slightly further out seats – Mansield, Mt Ommaney, Pine Rivers that probably swing at a different rate or even direction to those closer seats.

    Then I would say the urban fringe Springwood and Pumicestone are in a different category again.

  4. The Greens will soak up the dissatisfied Labor voters in the inner city and return the votes to Labor as preferences (except in the 3 Greens target seats). Newman actually softened the swing against the LNP in Ashgrove; I don’t see them winning it back.

    I thought the Greens would be targeting Cooper as well, but it seems like the eastern booths aren’t enough to get the Greens excited. They’d be relying on these booths for federal Brisbane and Ryan. I was half expecting Larissa Waters to show up as a candidate here; her office is in Paddington.

  5. 2015 Green primary as a % of total Labor + Green vote in their best Brisbane seats after redistribution:

    Maiwar: 41.0%
    South Brisbane: 34.7%
    McConnel: 34.6%
    Miller: 33.0%
    Cooper: 27.9%

    You’ve got to give up on somewhere to target somewhere. I think it’s pretty clear why the Greens aren’t targeting Cooper and Miller when they border seats they could more easily win.

    I’d expect if they do win a few seats convincingly that they may cast the net wider in 2021.

  6. A seat that will surprise some on Election Night, Kate Jones primary way lower than some might think, based on internal Labor polling. The LNP candidate known in the area and the redistribution wasn’t kind to Jones. In saying that Labor retain thanks to Greens prefs but not the certainty some may think.

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