Hinkler – Australia 2013

1. Won’t be surprised if there’s a swing to the ALP here, with a popular retiring member and a very inflated margin based on previous election results.

2. I would be surprised by a swing to Labor here even though the last election was Paul Neville’s best ever result and probably inflates the natural LNP numbers.

   I would be surprised because the state election indicates Labor’s vote will be under 30% here. If that is the case the Katter vote (16/17% in the relevant state seats) and the PUP vote for Messenger should be high. Whoever out of PUP or Katter gets the higher vote may get the other party’s preferences and leapfrog Labor. If they leapfrog Labor and gain Labor preferences then the result will depend on how much the LNP vote holds up here.

   If Labor can stay above 30% it should withstand the Katter and PUP combination and then the minor party preferences will split enough that Labor won’t be able to catch the LNP.

3. By the way Labor is running Leanne Donaldson here and PUP is running former LNP and then independent state member Rob Messenger. Katter is believed to be running former Hervey Bay Councillor and On Nation State MP David Dalgliesh though they have held back on formally announcing so. There is a rumor they have approached another person to run.

4. This could be an interesting four-way contest seat.

   Paul Neville retiring will certainly cause a loss in the LNP primary vote, and as others have said, this seat will definitely come down to preferences from PUP and KAP.

5. Messenger may get a decent chunk of the vote. He’s the guy who was involved in exposing the infamous Dr Death hospital scandal in Bundy. For some reason he fell out with the LNP and lost his State seat when the LNP scared voters into thinking that a vote for him would help Labor, which was blatantly dishonest. (The Coalition parties have repeated used such tactics to scare voters away from Independents ever since the Oakeshott-Windsor-Gillard deal of 2010).
   But even with the retirement of Neville after 20 years, the LNP will probably hold.

6. For some reason he fell out?

   He was dumped from the shadow ministry. He then backed McLinden in a deputy leadership challenge to Springborg which attracted a total of 3 or 4 votes. I am guessing Hopper was one of those.

   He then quit the party. basically thru a hissy over being demoted.

7. Hinkler is in desperate need of a change from the LNP. Hinkler, when held up to the light against all other electorates for advancement in Roads and Infrastructure, employment and actual development has been ignored. Any electorate which has had a member for the past 20 years should be one of major developments and infrastructure. Bundaberg and Hinkler are the actually a disgrace in comparison to other such electorates simply because of the “Donkey Vote” for the National/LNP where no major monies have been allocated, especially in Paul Neville’s 13 years in government under Abbott/Howard where we received nothing for the Bruce Highway and development because there was no need to as the seat was safe. Hinkler has paid the price voting for the Coalition/LNP and need to vote them out at this next election to get Bundaberg/Hinkler moving again.

8. The Bruce Highway is an interesting area of policy since it is a National Highway and is entitled to the same funding arrangements as similar highways in other states. The Hume and Pacific Highways are far ahead of the Bruce under those funding arrangements and with projects completed under Howard. It was Labor state governments that worked with Howard in NSW and Victoria to get their highways done.

   That leaves the question of why wasn’t the Bruce done? I think the blame can be squarely put on the Beattie government who has used the same national highway funding predominately on the highway linking the Gold Coast and Brisbane with some on the Bruce up to the Noosa turnoff.

9. another inflated margin…. but Bundaberg is shifting to Lnp

10. Blaming Beattie is ridiculous. The LNP have currently have an incumbent federal member, Paul Neville for the last 20 years and the state members have all been National/LNP members who have done absolutely nothing for the electorates of Hinkler, Burnett and Bundaberg. Continuing the tradition is the member for Bundaberg, the Queensland Police Minister who under his watch crime has escalated over 13% since the election. He himself at an inquiry was described by the enquiry as “incompetent” and rightly so. Deducting one item in Paul Neville’s 20 years of representation and dividing the years by actual gains for Hinkler in Roads and Infrastructure, using Paul Neville’s own figures he averaged $713,000 each and every year for the electorate. That is a disgrace considering 13 of those years was in government under Howard/Abbott. Look no further than the nationals/LNP for Hinkler being the “Unemployment Capital of Queensland and the States biggest defaulter of housing ownership and getting worse under Campbell Newman every day. Just wait until September when the electricity and water bills hit. Who put the charges up on wholly owner QLD Utilities of water and electricity, the LNP did.

11. Mr Beiger, you have failed to actually address anything I wrote and gone into a partisan political rant.

    I will repeat what I wrote for you.

    The states of NSW and Victoria have upgraded the Hume and Pacific under the same federal funding arrangements that Queensland entitled for if it wants to upgrade the Bruce and other national highways (the Pacific and Warrego). This started under Howard with state Labor governments implementing the upgrades.

    To give credit where due, change of state and federal governments have seen these upgrades continue. The whole Hume is done now with two lanes each way split in the middle so there can be no head on accidents. The Pacific is about 60% done.

    So it comes down to why not Queensland. This issue goes beyond Hinkler and your opinion of Neville’s performance. The seats from Leichardt to Wide Bay as well as state seats are all impacted by the Bruce Highway. Since 1996 these seats have had Labor and LNP members.

    So this issue comes down to why Queensland has failed where other states have succeeded. Clearly Queensland hasn’t used the funding arrangements successfully like the southern states. I can’t see how the feds have failed since those funding arrangements work in the southern states. It comes down the state government.

12. no you are wrong. You suggested Paul Neville was a success when he was actually a failure in Hinkler. The LNP have been a complete failure in the electorates of Bundaberg, Burnett and Hinkler. Sorry to burst your bubble but those are the inarguable facts. We in Hinkler are in desperate need of a change from the rubber stamp brigade of the LNP.

13. A pity the site’s increased popularity is lowering the level of discussion to party political rants.

14. This seat will be interesting, especially if Rudd can get QLD labor stocks to the same high as in 07 and due to the departure of a longterm MP

15. QO,

    Don’t worry, it’ll die down once the novelty of the change at the top wears down and there is more polling to base opinions on. Until the election is called, of course.

16. I hope so, I have my political beliefs which probably show in my posts, but I enjoy this site as it usually has constructive discussion instead of partisan political rants. Hopefully my posts are fair and intelligent based on reasonable observation and judgement despite whatever bias I may have.

17. QO i think you make fair comments, there are alot of people who just can’t admit when one side has done a good thing and bias clouds their mind. [Content deleted – BR]

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22. @Queensland Observer, @Observer, @RichR, @Stephen Beiger

    Okay I’ve deleted a bunch of comments, or parts of comments from this morning.

    I won’t tolerate people calling each other liars or making personal attacks.

    I understand some people don’t like the comments sections including political arguments about policy from partisan positions but as long as they are polite and reasonably succinct (which is being pushed) I’m going to allow them. Previously I have been critical of people straying from the topic but as far as I’m concerned funding of the Bruce Highway is relevant to the Hinkler post as long as it doesn’t become the entire comment discussion.

    However these policy discussions must remain civil, and if not I will delete and for repeat offenders I will consider blocking.

23. @Ben, I think you should remove all the content from Observer’s and my latest (the second and third to last before your comment addressing us). It is unfair of you to allow Observer a provocative response about “fish biting” and needing to move along without any of the context of why I felt the need to respond or of the fact that Observer clearly brought up the prior “discussion” in the first place. It also doesn’t make much sense that the only part of what I wrote that you preserved was a quote of Observer’s that you deleted in his comments.

24. for goodness sakes RichR if your gonna be offended easily then you shouldn’t be commenting on political sites. You have ridiculed me and said nasty things to me on other parts of this site, I merely ignore and move on and if you can’t do the same than thats a shame

25. Getting back on track, I think the LNP will retain Hinkler.

26. if polls in QLD reach the 07 high, then this shouldn’t be taken for granted by the LNP

27. It shouldn’t be taken for granted but media reports aren’t naming it as a target Labor seat in Queensland. Bonner, Brisbane, Forde, Flynn, Dawson and Herbert are all targets apparently. IF Labor don’t put resources in I don’t think they can take it, especially since their candidate hasn’t made much impact at all.

28. I don’t believe the ALP QLD vote will be as high as it was in 2007. This was held by the LNP in 2007 so I expect it to be held this time too.

    More generally, 7 seats were lost by Labor in 2010 in QLD. I don’t personally think they will win as many as that back, however, Labor should have a net gain of seats in QLD (i.e. win some and lose some). It is possible they could get back 6 or 7. But certainly I would not expect this seat to fall except under extreme landslide conditions. This election will not provide that platform for Labor.

    More broadly, Labor will not get a 2PP vote of 52.7% across the country as they did in 2007. From my thorough assessment, this sort of result is considered a landslide in Australian federal voting history (particularly for Labor – note Liberal landslides tend to be larger) and it really only ever takes place when there is a change in Government (which is kind of a rare event in itself).

    Should Labor win the election I cannot see them getting better than 51% of the 2PP result. But that in itself would be a monumental result given the last 2.5 years of polls.

29. Look I’m not saying its going to happen, but just remember that Howard was a conservative leader with credibility. QLD is a conservative state and it swung substantially against the sitting government particularly outside Brisbane with big swing in seats like Flynn, Capricornia, Dawson and Leidchardt. This time round, QLD has a shambolic state gov (Bligh Labor was very popular during the 07 election), a retiring longterm member, an opposition leader that doesn’t seem to get qlders and minor parties that will split the conservative vote (similar to the greens in Brisbane resulting in a leakage of preferences to the LNP. It will be close here and its possible that this seat will go and a seat like Herbert would stay in the LNP collumn

30. Observer, you are wrong about the state government. They are still on 59% two party preferred. Your other points about split vote due to minor parties and a retiring member are correct.

    That said Labor is not targeting Hinkler, my sources have stated they are focusing elsewhere which will hurt their chances in this seat. Herbert is one such seat and I think you will find Herbert among the Labor gains on election night. I’m rather confident about Flynn, Forde, Brisbane and Herbert all being Labor gains. Dawson is next cab off the rank followed by Bonner – I’m not confident they will fall though.

    That said, the LNP shouldn’t be taking Hinkler for granted and my understanding is LNP HQ is very happy with their candidate as he is working hard and is highly visible in the electorate.

    In the end the Labor candidate is not doing a good enough job to win, but Rudd will hold the Labor vote to a respectable level (mid 30s) which will prevent the right wing minors (Palmer and Katter) running second as their vote will be below 30% when added together.

    Those circumstances, barring the LNP candidate doing something stupid, will see the LNP have first preference in the low to mid 40s, which will be enough of a lead to get over the line with a 5 or 6% margin.

31. Obsever, you have made some good points.

32. But i suspect Gillards removal will show in polls for the state in time but that may not be the case, however I am absolutely sure that Newman won’t be an asset for the LNP this campaign and not Seeney after the pay fiasco.
    This is a seat labor can win if it wants to, however labor will be looking to secure a majority and in the longterm, this seat wouldn’t be ideal as a labor seat but it will be a long campaign and time will tell

33. I would guess a 7% swing here

34. the alp vote in Hinkler was depressed in 2007 so maybe there is a chance of a change

35. Contained in this Qld seat analysis, Peter Brent nominates Hinkler as the Qld seat most likely to have the biggest swing at the election due to the higher than normal personal vote of the retiring Neville, http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/personal_votes_in_queensland/

36. You have Dalgliesh twice, and my understanding is Williams withdrew his candidacy.

37. Interesting that the Katter preference story in the Courier Mail named Hinkler as under threat from the deal.

38. AFR seems to indicate that nothing has been resolved and the LNP are just as much in the race with Katter and other minor parties (presumable excluding Greens). Preferences need to be finalised by midnight on Saturday I believe according to that article.

39. I think it’s only Senate preferences in relation to above-the-line preferences that need to be finalised by Sunday. I may be wrong, but my understanding of it is that HoR preferences can be finalised any time up to election day and are only provided as how to vote cards.

40. Naturally of course, for some of the parties, it would be far more mutually beneficial to tie a HoR preference deal to Senate preferences.

41. The four way split will be fascinating. I expect Dalgliesh to be somewhere between 15% and 20%. Labor around 25 to 30%. The real question is pup and how that impacts the LNP vote.. If pup exceeds 10% then katter will leapfrog labor on preferences. If pup exceeds 15% then whoever does best out of katter and pup may win.

42. Rob Messenger would win a higher vote if he’d run as an independent. The Palmer brand will only hurt him. There is a large, well proven constituency here for Nationalist / Protectionist policies. After Kennedy, Herbert & Dawson in NQ, this should have the highest Katter vote.

43. Do Dalgliesh and Messenger have strong personal followings?

44. Dalgliesh ex state one nation mp for Hervey Bay and ex deputy mayor. Only candidate bar family first from Hervey Bay. Those factors plus the 15% plus katter vote at the state election in this area plus how he is vastly more high profile then the state katter candidates is why I expect a strong katter vote.

45. I’m finding it tough to find a way PUP wins at all, but I can see a way KAP could win from third.

    If the LNP vote collapses to 35% (down 20%), ALP is down 10 to 22%, Greens get 5% and FF gets 2%, that leaves 36% between KAP and PUP. I think KAP will do better, so let’s say KAP gets 21% and PUP gets 15%.

    KAP then receives PUP preferences, pushing it ahead of Labor and Labor preferences push KAP ahead of the LNP.

    Despite this, it seems like a pretty extraordinary result. It seems almost unbelievable to propose the LNP or ALP votes going any lower than 35% and 20%, respectively. I can’t really see much more of a swing in this seat, as keep in mind, this hypothetical relies on over 30% of all voters changing their vote from 2010.

46. It doesn’t have to be that low.

    LNP 38%
    Labor 26%
    Katter 16%
    PUP 14%
    Ff 3%
    Greens 3%

    greens to alp, ff to lnp, pup to katter

    lnp 41
    katter 30
    alp 29

    Labor will go 85% plus to katter, katter wins.

    same scenario if pup beats katter. They just need 30% between them and labor to stay under 30.
    Greens to alp, ff to lnp, pup to katter.

    Lnp 41
    alp
    ff to lnp, greens to labor, pup to katter

47. Don’t worry! LNP will win this seat!! 🙂

48. For the record I think labor will stay above 30% making this an lnp retain

49. Really? Labor above 30%? Where’s KAP going to get its vote from? I find it difficult to see the Labor vote going below 20%, but I think a floor of 30% is probably a bit generous.

    The thing is that I don’t see all of PUP’s vote flowing to KAP. Maybe 50%, with the rest going to LNP. That should be enough to retain the seat for the LNP.

50. I recon that alot of LNP voters will go to KAP or PUP. SHould be retained by the LNP but should swing to labor

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