Townsville – Queensland 2024

With these Townsville seats, you just don’t know anymore, everyone writes off Labor every time, I think the LNP will at LEAST win 2/3 of them in the CBD, Labor will probably hold 1 of them, that one I don’t know. But the LNP flipping all 3 CBD Townsville seats in 1 stroke after they were expected to gain them in 2020 despite the federal result a year before will be very challenging, unless they win more than 50 seats.

If LNP or Labor is in minority, I suspect it’s because the LNP failed to win all Townsville seats and only 1-2.

Thompson may have unfortunately romped home last year in Herbert, but that 3% swing he got would leave these Townsville seats on a knives edge if that swing to the LNP was repeatedly in this region.

If the LNP win all 3 Townsville seats + Caloundra, Nicklin, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and a couple of other regional seats, Labor’s only hope would be to gain Everton (especially if Mander retires) and both Clayfield and Chatsworth.

Leaning all 3 seats LNP with low confidence, and that says allot, the LNP should be taking these seats in landslides because of the youth gangs up here and the government’s lack of action and justice.

The Townsville Bulletin reports that business owner Adam Baille has been preselected as the LNP candidate for Townsville. This seat will be key and will be among the most targeted in the campaign.

Given the nature of the election and the fact that there was a swing to the LNP in the Townsville-based federal seat of Herbert in 2022 (which is now safer for the Gold Coast than every Gold Coast seat, with the exception of Fadden if you count the by-election), I’m predicting that the LNP will win this seat with a TPP of about 54%, maybe more.

@Nether Portal I don’t think the LNP will get this seat with Margaret Strelow on the Ballot as she took a good chunk of both LNP & Labor votes back in 2017.

@claeb shouldnt this be in the rockhampton thread?

Joanne Lynam seems to be the ONP candidate for this seat. She is a speaker and author who describes herself as a “change advocate for inclusion and diversity.”

As someone who lives here, the odds of Scott Stewart holding on are near zilch. Walker and Harper even less likely. Even if Labor somehow win the election, they will lose this seat.

@AA you’re joking right?

@SCart I’m surprised Labor still holds this actually. I thought they would’ve lost it in 2017 or 2020 or even held it in 2015.

@Nether Portal nope not joking. https://qld.onenation.org.au/turning-the-tide-empowering-change-in-townsville

@AA well I’ll be damned…

Looking closer, it seems like she’s got some gripes with the NDIS. She’s gone public to the media with these complaints. Wonder if this is a reason behind running.

I think Labor’s ability or luck beginning 2015 will run out in 2024. There was hype and speculation about Labor losing all three Townsville seats in 2020 and even in 2017 if I recall correctly. Didn’t eventuate.

” I thought they would’ve lost it in 2017 or 2020 or even held it in 2015.”
@Nether Portal, this was a Beattie-Bligh Labor seat. Unsurprisingly Labor regained it in 2015.

@Nether Portal If it weren’t for COVID, they would’ve at least lost Townsville and possibly the other 2 as well. Townsville/NQ and CQ are more less similar to Florida politically (tropical location on a peninsula that used to be a government kingmaker, but since the late 2010s has generally been a safe haven for the conservative side of politics). Surprising considering that Herbert is among the youngest electorates nationwide.

@SCart It’s young, but that’s due to the two major industries in Townsville – the army base and mining. Phil Thompson is literally the perfect candidate for Herbert. The other problem is that Townsville isn’t just Herbert, it’s also Dawson and Kennedy.

In terms of the three ALP State seats, THE Townsville issue is crime. It’s been handled woefully by the sitting State Members who’ve basically taken the line that “there’s nothing to see here”. In particular having the Member for Mundingburra charged with assault and banned from Townsville’s Safe Night Precinct (multiple times) sends entirely the wrong message.

@Mark Yore also handing out “Forensics for Dummies” during Police Rememberance week and wasting police time.

But at the same time, Lavarack Barracks has been here for decades, and yet the surge for the LNP only started in 2019.

@Scart The LNP surge in Townsville is down to three things 1) the additional troops that were based in Townsville – sitting at just over 15,000 now including family; 2) Phillip Thompson’s nomination as the LNP candidate (ex 1RAR, Timor and Afghanistan, Young Australian of the Year, OAM, married to an Indigenous woman); 3) the long-term shift away from the ALP amongst Defence personnel, which is more properly considered as a shift away from Defence personnel by the ALP.

@Mark Yore But at the same time, Ryan has a large military base and a large university (just like Townsville/Herbert) and has consistently trended the other way for 2 decades.

@Mark Yore that doesn’t necessarily explain why the LNP did so well in Townsville in 2022, even though defence personnel are more likely to vote for the Coalition than they are Labor. It reflects a wider trend across the city.

And yes, although the vast majority of Townsville is in the seat of Herbert, a small part of it is indeed within the seat of Dawson which also covers Mackay and the Whitsunday Coast. However, looking at polling place results for Dawson there seems to be a similar trend in the Townsville booths in Dawson as there is in Herbert. I will note however the swings in the Dawson suburbs wasn’t as big as it was in the Herbert suburbs.

At the Annandale and Annandale East polling places in Dawson, the LNP had small swings to them at both polling places. There was a moderate swing against the LNP in Oonoonba, also in Dawson, while in Wulguru, again, also in Dawson, there was a small swing against the LNP. However, all four of those aforementioned booths recorded LNP majorities. The swing against the LNP in Dawson was not because of the retiring member factor: there is no such thing as a retiring member factor when the retiring member is George Christensen.

I think the crime wave will most likely hurt Labor here.
They have a very high No Vote in the seat of Herbert for the Voice (76%) which is only slight less than Groom home to Toowoomba even though Townsville had significant amount of support of SSM (62%) whilst the latter had a Narrow No Vote. I think the crime wave did play some of roles for the high No Margins there.

The swing here could be huge. The statewide swing against Labor on a TPP basis is –9.2% while on primaries it’s –12.6%. This provides an opportunity for the LNP to sandbag all three Townsville seats plus at least one of the Cairns seats (Barron River definitely, maybe Cairns too and potentially Mulgrave which isn’t actually in Cairns but it’s only just south of Cairns). Ipswich West could potentially be sandbagged too along with a bunch of regional seats (Bundaberg, Cook, Hervey Bay, Keppel, Mackay, Maryborough, Mirani and Rockhampton).

If the 9.2% swing was uniform the LNP would have a TPP vote of 56.08% in Townsville, but I expect it to be higher than that (my guess is somewhere between 60% and 65%).

@Scart Gallipoli Barracks in Ryan has a population of around 5,000. Lavarack Barracks is just over 7,000. But that isn’t the end of the story for Townsville – there’s another 8,000 Air Force and Navy personnel as well, so Townsville has more than three times the military presence as Ryan. Another issue is that the number of attached spouses is lower in Ryan compared to Townsville. Also the University of Queensland is much bigger than James Cook University and also tends to trend a bit more left than JCU.

@Nether Portal I’m less confident of the LNP retaining Ipswich West, although we’ll get to see how much of the protest vote is willing to return for a second round. I’d be more interested to see how much effort the ALP puts into their second-tier seats and where the boundary line falls.

@Mark Yore I’m sure the LNP would retain Ipswich West, at least in 2024. I’m predicting maybe 54% TPP in Ipswich West, slightly higher than at the by-election.