ALP 5.8%
Incumbent MP
Bernie Ripoll, since 1998.
Geography
Oxley covers the southwestern suburbs of the City of Brisbane and eastern parts of the City of Ipswich. Suburbs include Redbank, Forest Lake, Richlands, Durack, Inala, Jamboree Heights and Jindalee.
History
The seat of Oxley was created as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives at the 1949 election. After first being held by the Liberal Party for a decade, it has almost always been won by the ALP, except for the 1996 election, when it was won by disendorsed Liberal candidate Pauline Hanson, who later formed the One Nation party.
The seat was first won in 1949 by Liberal candidate Donald Cameron. Cameron served as a minister in the Menzies government from 1956 until his defeat at the 1961 election, when he was defeated by former police officer and Labor candidate Bill Hayden.
Hayden served as Member for Oxley for 27 years. He joined Gough Whitlam’s ministry in 1972, and served as Treasurer for the final five months of the Whitlam government in 1975. Hayden was elected Leader of the Opposition after Gough Whitlam’s resignation after the 1977 election, and led the party to an improved position in 1980.
Hayden faced a leadership threat from former ACTU president Bob Hawke, who had entered Parliament in 1980. Hawke failed to win a ballot in 1982. In early 1983 Hayden resigned as leader and was replaced by Hawke, only hours before Malcolm Fraser called an early election. After Bob Hawke’s win, Hayden was appointed Foreign Minister. He served in this role until he was appointed Governor-General in 1988, at which point he resigned from Parliament.
The ensuing by-election was won by the ALP’s Les Scott. Scott held the seat for the remainder of the Hawke/Keating government, up to the 1996 election. The Liberal Party preselected former Ipswich councillor Pauline Hanson as their candidate in 1996. Shortly before the election she was quoted in local papers criticising government assistance for indigenous Australians, which resulted in her disendorsement as a Liberal candidate. With the ballot papers already printed with the Liberal Party’s name attached to Hanson, she gained a high profile and managed to win the seat with a large swing.
Hanson was a prominent independent MP and, in 1997, founded the One Nation party in support of her political views. The party had a strong result at the Queensland state election in early 1998 and she was predicted to perform strongly at the next federal election. Her hopes fell short at the 1998 election, where One Nation only managed to elect a single Senator, despite a national result of over 8%. Hanson contested the new seat of Blair, which now covered Ipswich, which had previously been included in Oxley. Despite coming first on primary votes, Hanson lost due to the ALP and Liberal Party swapping preferences.
Hanson continued to lead One Nation until 2003, running for the Senate in 2001 in Queensland and as an independent for the NSW Legislative Council in 2003 with the support of the original One Nation party, against the breakaway One Nation NSW party. She went to prison in 2003 for electoral fraud over the registration of One Nation in Queensland, but this was overturned later that year. Despite vowing not to return to politics, she ran as an independent for the Senate in Queensland in 2004 and 2007, and for Beaudesert at the 2009 Queensland state election. She has since decided to move to the United Kingdom, and is not expected to stand again.
Hanson’s seat of Oxley was won in 1998 by ALP candidate Bernie Ripoll, and he has held the seat ever since.
Candidates
- Andrew Nguyen (Liberal National)
- Frank Karg (Democratic Labour Party)
- Martin Stephenson (Greens)
- Kathleen Hewlett (Katter’s Australian Party)
- Scott Moerland (Rise Up Australia)
- Ricky Tang (Palmer United Party)
- Bernie Ripoll (Labor)
- Carrie McCormack (Family First)
Assessment
Oxley has been a long-standing Labor seat. Only once was it lost, to Pauline Hanson in 1996. Despite this long history, a margin of less than 6% for a Labor seat in Queensland is far from safe.
2010 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bernie Ripoll | ALP | 31,985 | 44.71 | -10.91 |
| Tarnya Smith | LNP | 27,431 | 38.35 | +2.97 |
| Des Hoban | GRN | 8,436 | 11.79 | +6.49 |
| Timothy Stieler | FF | 3,682 | 5.15 | +3.18 |
2010 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bernie Ripoll | ALP | 39,894 | 55.77 | -5.57 |
| Tarnya Smith | LNP | 31,640 | 44.23 | +5.57 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas. Booths in the City of Ipswich have been grouped as ‘South-West’. Booths in the City of Brisbane have been split into South-East and North.
The ALP won majorities of over 60% in the south-east and south-west, while the Liberal National Party won over 57% of the two-party vote in the north of the seat.
| Voter group | GRN % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South-East | 10.89 | 61.05 | 21,979 | 30.73 |
| South-West | 11.92 | 62.49 | 19,351 | 27.05 |
| North | 11.82 | 42.89 | 16,518 | 23.09 |
| Other votes | 13.03 | 53.34 | 13,686 | 19.13 |
A seat to watch on election night.
Currently the polls are showing there is around a 4% two party preferred swing against Labor in Queensland since the 2010 election. Latest Sports bet odds in Oxley show Labor is favoured to retain this seat. My prediction is that current member, Bernie Ripoll will just retain this seat for Labor.
This seat will probably swing more than the general state swing. Whether that is enough for the Liberals to pick up the seat, I am not so sure. Probable Labor hold, but could fall if the polls continue at the current level.
PS: I’ve seen some polls in this general region which would indicate a very tight race.
Lunch, I think we need to be very careful making a call like that for the seat of Oxley. Ripoll is really up against it and Oxley could potentially have the greatest swing towards the LNP at the next election.
The LNP have preselected Nguyen who is known by many quarters in the Party to be a great grassroots campaigner. I am not a Party member but know many in the organisation who have given big wraps on the guy.
Further to that, Oxley has about 7,000-8,000 Vietnamese electors, most of which are gunning for Nguyen. Remember Dai Le in Cabramatta and Thomas Dang in Fowler in 2010? Both Dang and Le received one of the highest swings in each of those elections.
Although polling would indicate a tight race, I doubt any of the polling would have any Vietnamese electors in their sample, or enough to represent the the community down there which is around 8-9% of electors.
My prediction is if the polls stay the way they are, then Ripoll is gone for all money. If they draw back a little bit, then it will be very close, but I still predict a Nguyen win.
Which polling have you seen, DB?
A close race for sure, but my money is certainly on Nguyen winning here. The swings to the LNP in the centenary suburbs will be very strong as they were in the State and Council elections. Enough I think for Ripoll to lose the seat. He will still win the Inala and Darra booths but only just.
Might I also add to my comments this morning…
Check out Nguyen’s efforts in the 2008 Brisbane City Council elections. The highest swing in the City and almost won some safe Labor booths. Massive effort.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/brisbane/2012/guide/rich.htm
I think you all are forgetting this is the seat which elected Pauline Hanson to the legislature. There is no way the are going to elect Nguyen no matter how good a representative he would be.
I don’t think that is the current assessment, Viktor. The seat of Oxley which Hanson won in 1996 has changed substantially since. The booths which Hanson won are no longer within the seat.
Yes it is true that many of the areas which strongly voted for Hanson were moved out of the electorate into Blair. None the less even on the current boundaries one nation’s Colene Hughes was able to get close to 20 percent of the vote in 1998. I find it very difficult to believe that the LNP even has the faintest chance of winning it with a Vietnamese candidate. Maybe Bob Katter’s Australian party could conceivably win it if they out poll the Liberals.
Viktor, the last time One Nation ran a candidate in Oxley, they polled around 2.5% of the vote. Without straying too far away from the election. Do you think that people who voted for One Nation voted because of “race issues”? I think One Nation peaked for various reasons and least of which was due to “race”.
Further, even in 1998, the boundaries were nothing similar. Oxley compared to 1998 now has the Centenary suburbs which make up for about a quarter of the electorate and the Greater Springfield Region which barely existed back then. I believe the areas of Inala, Darra, Durack and Richlands will swing massively towards Nguyen as they did during the 2008 Brisbane City Council elections.
Maybe but I still have a hard time seeing it happen in Oxley. Even during the state election when the LNP was lead by a popular opposition leader and everything went right the LNP was still unable to win in Labor’s fortress of Inala, and I just cant see the federal election going better for the LNP then the state election.
Rosemary – private party polling showing the Libs ahead, but only just.
Thanks DB. As I suspected.
the centenary suburbs make up only a third of the seat…….. the rest should be solid labor
Not sure about that Mick – not solid ALP by any stretch. The only solid ALP areas are those in the West of the electorate, such as Redbank Plains and Goodna. If you check the State and BCC results you will see that Forest Lake and Springfield strongly supported the Libs. Add that to Nguyen’s results in Council in 2008 and it’s game on.
A check on the betting sites this morning still shows Bernie Ripoll favoured to retain this seat. However, private polling (thanks DB), published opinion polls, unpopularity of the Labor brand and the Prime Minister suggests that Bernie Ripoll has a real fight on his hands to retain this seat for the government.
https://www.facebook.com/Andrew4Oxley
Yes Bernie is in for fight of his life not only does he have a high concentration of Asian communities here, he also has a very high concentration of single parent families who are renters and have been greatly affected by the changes in policy the government has made regarding them. This is a area with a high concentration of people on very low to middle class incomes who yes tradionally voted Labor but I think they are so disugusted in this government that they for the first time in their lives vote Liberal just to punish them. It will be a very interesting race.
Nguyen will win. He is one of the party’s best campaigners and to be honest, to any external observer he conducted himself as if he were the member for the last 12 months. Bernie is just begging to be put out to pasture and Andrew will be the man to do it.
Here here Ryan Andrew has been working for the community for months now he is hard working and I hope when he gets elected he continues the good work. It is wonderful to see a young, caring and hard working person entering politics instead of these tired bloated has beens
Hi Ben the DLP have nominated FranK Karg. He was the first DLP canidate to nominate for this election and at last count had knocked on about 3000-4000 homes.
He is known and liked in the area and might surprise that electorate that has been known in the past to throw up strange results.
http://www.dlp.org.au/queensland-2012-federal-election-candidates/
Tony. What are some of these strange results you are referring to? To be honest, I think you are overstating the reach of the DLP. A minor party will always struggle to get up unless there is: 1) major discontent with the incumbent, 2) a lack of a credible alternative candidate from the opposing major party, and 3) the candidate from the minor party or independent has a major public profile in the community.
At least for this election, I don’t think the DLP qualifies under any of those criteria.
Yes, there is discontent with the currently incumbent, but I think Frank will struggle with fact that the LNP have a candidate who is pretty much out there every day who is not just door knocking and is a very credible candidate. To be completely honest with you, I’ve heard a few things said about Frank (which I won’t repeat on here), but they are not nice things.
The DLP got a Senator elected with 2.29% of the primary vote in 2010… I really think that says it all.
And further to my point, the DLP got 0.01% of the primary Senate vote in QLD at the 2010 election.
Sorry, my mistake… it was 0.44%.
Well the best known of course (as you would know) was Pauline Hanson in 1996. They changed the boundaries after that and she was forced to consider her options.
Yes the outer states did not fair well in the 2010 Senate campaign but Victoria did gain their first Senator in 27 years and the others helped bring about more awareness.
I know your not much of a numbers girl Rosemary but any minor who campaigns long enough will certainly make a difference in this result. As with other seats in Queensland and around the country.
Frank as been campaigning for almost a year and even if he were to score a 4 percent vote he would certainly make a dint in the numbers.
Oxley will fall to the LNP. Nguyen is a good campaigner, as he showed in the 2008 BCC election, and with the large vietnamese population out here, he can definitely swing the south-eastern wing of this seat to the LNP.
Tony. Pauline Hanson was hardly a massive surprise. Although she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party, the party brand was still attached to her name on the ballot paper.
The DLP may have had a Senator elected in Victoria, but did so with 2.33% of the primary vote. Well if you are happy with 4% of the vote in Oxley (and think it will make a difference) then so be it. Had the DLP got 4% of the vote in Oxley in 2010, they would have come last.
But then again, I am not much of a numbers girl so what would I know…
It’s so funny when these minor parties (Katter, Palmer, DLP) come out and say they will have some kind of an effect on the Australian political landscape. Only the Australian Greens have that kind of influence at the moment.
Rosemary, I think KAP will influence some outcomes in QLD and it could see the ALP lose more seats than expected in QLD. I’m not sure if UAP will have the same impact as KAP because Palmer has already said he would preference the Coalition ahead of Labor in all seats.
Like most I will be looking forward to seeing the greens going backwards this time around.
The ALP will dread the day they got into bed with them and I do look forward to the massive influence that all the conservative minor parties will play this time around.
Providing they all stick together I would expect a coalition victory with control of the Senate via conservative minors and they will be great for Australia.
Finally we will have a true house of review.
As for Oxley will I cant see any evidence that the ALP/Green alliance is gaining any momentum … in fact the opposite
KAP’s Candidate is Kathleen Hewlett.
Anyone know if Family First are running at this election?
Hi kathleen,
They might be but haven’t heard and it would not be a priority as the DLP have had a candidate there for quite some time.
It would not be on their priority list
Why would Family First not run if there is a DLP candidate. Does that run true for all seats?
Tony Zegenhagen, I respect DLP but they are no proxy for FF. DLP is Tony Abbott’s home. FF not so much.
DB The DLP has not and is not a home for Tony Abbott.
Anyone that thinks thats is totally ignorant of the political sphere.
Where did you get such a idiotic idea like that. I have attended many a heated argument with Mr Abbott about a number of issues.
Rosemary. FF and the DLP are both smaller parties and as with all parties they find it difficult to field good candidates in all seats. The usually preference each other and if they are attempting to get their word out. They may or may not choose to run a candidate where a DLP is already established. I wish them the best of luck in whatever choice they make.
We know Moreton, Petrie and Lilley will fall, but Oxley, Blair and Rankin will be tougher. I am unsure how much more of a swing is actually available after the good 2010 result in Queensland.
The LNP has chosen oustanding candidates in Blair, Oxley and Rankin so I am sure at least one of Oxley, Blair and Rankin will actually change hands. I hope all three fall over.
An interesting question is which of thse three seats will swing the hardest?
Bye Bye Bernie, Wayne Swan & Julia Gillard have just buried you with the budget tonight….
Not even a divine revival of Mr Kevin Rudd will save Federal Labor in QLD.
I was hoping something might change BUT no one is listening to Labor Australia wide..
I was adopted in 1966 from Royal Brisbane Hospital and the apology to my birth mother and I was destroyed by hidious in-fighting on the National Day of Apology.
Grow up Labor.
QLD Observer – I believe Oxley will swing the hardest. There is no justification as to why Blair and Rankin will swing well above the State average. Both candidates have worked hard, but 1 or 2% above the State average may get Harding across the line but not David Lin. I think the LNP are overestimating themselves if they think they can win all of the QLD seats. QLD already swung pretty hard last time.
Better news for Bernie Ripoll.
Sprots Bet odds this afternoon in Oxley show that Labor has tightened from $1.40 to $1.30 whilst the LNP has drifted from $2.50 to $3.50.
Nguyen will win this. The demographics in Oxley are changing and Nguyen speeds up the slow swing to the LNP with the Vietnamese vote.
Thats what they said about Dai Lee in Cabramatta in NSW 2011, but labor held on. Can’t see this part of QLD falling to the LNP
Yes Observer, the problem with Dai Le was she had a massive margin to overcome. She had a 27% swing towards her… which is massive.
Nguyen has only a fraction of what she had to do. Further to do this, there are some very blue areas in Oxley which have not come to fruition at a Federal level.
For example, the Centenary suburbs are 65%+ yet the Libs only held it with <60% at the last election. The same can be said for Forest Lake.
Nguyen only needs 50% 2PP in Forest Lake and Springfield and the ALP are toast. The ALP stronghold of Inala, Durack, Darra and Richlands will swing more than 10% to Nguyen.
Lurch, those odds are ridiculously good for anyone putting $$$ on the LIBS… what are the betting agencies thinking!
Hi Rosemary, the Centrebet odds in Oxley have not moved since late April with Labor on $1.22 and the LNP $3.60.
I agree the odds are generous for the LNP and also believe that this seat with the changing demographics will be certainly one to watch on election night.
Momentum is with the LNP.
This afternoon the Centrebet odds in Oxley show that the price for Labor has plummeted from $1.22 to $1.40 whilst the price for LNP has strenghtened from $3.60 to $2.65.
You need to update your information Ben. The Australian Independents candidate is Ron Dickinson.
I also don’t think that this takes into account what Ron Dickinson will do with his preferences.
Mark, I think you’re assuming your micro-party will have a significant impact on this seat, when there’s no real evidence to support that.
Just like the DLP and Katter think they will win the seat. Frank Karg claims it will be between the LNP and DLP.
Double setback for Bernie Ripoll.
This morning Centrebet odds in the electorate have the gap between the major parties narrowing with support for Labor drifting from $1.40 to $1.50. In contrast, support for LNP continues to strengthen with the odds firming from $2.65 to $2.30.
The gap between the major parties is also narrowing with the current Sports Bet odds in Oxley. This morning the support for Labor ebbing away from $1.30 to $1.39 whilst support for the LNP growing from $3.50 to $2.90.
It sure is bouncing around… People make be taking some bets on these seats to cause these fluctuations.