LNP 4.6%
Incumbent MP
Warren Entsch, since 2010. Previously Member for Leichhardt 1996-2007.
Geography
Far North Queensland. Leichhardt covers the Cape York Peninsula and the east coast of Australia as far south as Cairns. While the seat covers a vast area, most of the population is in the area around Cairns.
History
Leichhardt was first created at the 1949 election. The seat has been won by a party of government at every election since 1972, which makes it one of Australia’s longest-standing bellwether seats, along with Eden-Monaro.
The seat was first won in 1949 by Tom Gilmore of the Country Party, who was defeated by the ALP’s Henry Bruce in 1951. Bruce held the seat until his death shortly before the 1958 election, when he was succeeded by Bill Fulton.
Fulton held the seat until his retirement at the 1975 election. David Thomson won the seat for the National Country Party in 1975, and served as a minister in the Fraser government from 1979 until his defeat at the 1983 election, when John Gayler (ALP) won the seat.
Gaylor held the seat until his retirement in 1993, and the ALP’s Peter Dodd held the seat for one term before he was defeated by Warren Entsch (LIB) in 1996.
Entsch held the seat for eleven years before retiring in 2007, when a swing of over 14% gave the seat to the ALP’s Jim Turnour.
In 2010, Entsch returned to politics and won his seat back off Turnour with a swing of 8.6%.
Candidates
- Frank Miles (Family First)
- Dale Edwards (Rise Up Australia)
- George Ryan (Katter’s Australian Party)
- Bruce Gibson (Palmer United Party)
- Johanna Kloot (Greens)
- Warren Entsch (Liberal National)
- Billy Gordon (Labor)
Assessment
Leichhardt is a marginal seat, but in current circumstances should safely remain in Liberal National Party hands.
2010 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Warren Entsch | LNP | 37,828 | 47.40 | +4.66 |
| Jim Turnour | ALP | 27,662 | 34.66 | -8.37 |
| Neville St John-Wood | GRN | 7,232 | 9.06 | +1.44 |
| Jen Sackley | IND | 2,556 | 3.20 | +3.20 |
| Yodie Batzke | IND | 1,700 | 2.13 | +2.13 |
| Shannon McSweeney | FF | 1,461 | 1.83 | +0.53 |
| Steve Lane | IND | 1,373 | 1.72 | +1.72 |
2010 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Warren Entsch | LNP | 43,539 | 54.55 | +8.61 |
| Jim Turnour | ALP | 36,273 | 45.45 | -8.61 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into four areas. Most polling places lie in Cairns Regional Council. The remainder of polling places have been grouped as “Cape York”.
Polling places in the northern part of Cairns Regional Council, which previously was Douglas Shire, has been grouped as ‘Douglas’. The booths in the Cairns area have been divided into North, South and Central.
The LNP won a majority in the four areas in the Cairns local government area, varying from 52.8% in the centre of Cairns to 57% in the Douglas area. The ALP won a 52.6% majority in the Cape York area.
| Voter group | GRN % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central Cairns | 10.63 | 52.84 | 20,737 | 25.98 |
| South Cairns | 5.81 | 55.50 | 15,140 | 18.97 |
| North Cairns | 12.00 | 54.26 | 13,480 | 16.89 |
| Cape York | 5.55 | 47.41 | 5,750 | 7.20 |
| Douglas | 11.38 | 57.00 | 4,272 | 5.35 |
| Other votes | 8.45 | 57.28 | 20,433 | 25.60 |
Even with KAP here, Entsch will win. KAP may even preference him or come second.
Year, I agree with you DB, because doesn’t Katter really like Entsch, with his views on indigenous affairs and what-not.
A belated history making selection, Gordon is the ALPs first indigenous candidate for a HoR seat. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1789248
Not according to the comment below that article – apparently the no-chance Labor candidate in Lyne in 1998 was Aboriginal. First one for a winnable seat, perhaps?
Think Entsch is too popular to lose, will probably go if he were to retire though.
KAP preferences will play a huge role here, if the Unions can get Katter to back the ALP then this is half a chance for the ALP.
That being said Labor need to perform well in Cairns to win this one.
Entsch and Katter are good mates. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Katter preferencing the LNP here. A probable LNP retain as long as KAP doesn’t preference Labor.
I’m looking at what KAP did in the state election in seats in the vicinity of Cairns. KAP managed 30% primary vote in Mulgrave, and even if you assume that all 3.5% Greens vote flowed to ALP, KAP preferences (where people didn’t just “vote 1”) went about 30% to ALP. In Barron River, KAP got 16% of the vote… but KAP preferences are hard to judge, as even Labor+Greens primary vote is larger than ALP’s 2PP total.
Cairns itself (the seat) is a little harder to judge still, because an independent from the “North Queensland Party” (they want North Queensland to secede from Queensland) got 4% of the vote, and Labor+Greens primary is about the same as ALP’s 2PP total. Without knowing how many Greens voters just voted 1, there’s no way to estimate KAP preference flow.
I get the sense that KAP preferences didn’t flow clearly one way or the other in Mulgrave, but flowed more to LNP in other seats. And it’s not clear how voters will go in Leichhardt at the federal level. They may have a tendency to put the sitting member last, for instance, simply because KAP voters appear to be unhappy with both ALP and LNP.
And based on polling numbers from the city seats at the state election, I think KAP have a real chance, here. Which makes it all the stranger that KAP haven’t named their candidate here, yet. The natural choice would be Damian Byrnes, who was the candidate in Mulgrave and got 30% of the vote, just barely missing out on getting into the 2PP. Had he got just 2% more vote off ALP, he’d have gotten past the LNP, whose preferences would have flowed to him, and he’d have won the seat off the ALP (ALP only got 34.5% of the primary vote, LNP got 32%).
For Labor to have a chance it is essential that the Greens poll well; however, after the debacle over the Coral Sea and fishing rights environmental groups/Greens are now associated with PEW who in turn were born out of Sun Oil (according to the PEW website).
If candidates would only tell us who they are giving their preferences to!
I have a fair inkling that Entchy should get this election – but maybe just barely perhaps?
I have known him since he took the seat after Gaylor retired – [a good bloke considering he was a lawyer} and well before he retired the last time to devote more time to his son and Turnour more or less got in because the candidate was a woman who was also part of the ABC and kind of got crucified.
Turnour had the personality of a dead fish – but rode on the profile of cyclone repair works he was involved in – but as a politician was a wasted space and when Entchy was persuaded to come back again – had few problems getting his seat back.
As for this one – I can not see the ALP – running, in reality, an unknown getting anywhere except for the die hard Labor voter – and the occasional “donkey vote” – but personally, I have a feeling that both the KAP and PUP parties might take a lot of votes away from the main characters.
Personally, I would hope for a very close election with major swings against them all, because they merely follow “the part line” and they have very little say in what we – THE VOTERS – want them to do they are all just to acquiescent to the mob down south.
We have a huge mob of candidates – and not many – if any impress me personally, so I will be voting in kind of a reverse manner, by deciding who I will put in last position – and slowly work my way forward.