Petrie – Australia 2016

I predict this one should be gained back by Labor. The margin seems too small for the LNP to hold on, barring exceptional circumstances

GG
Impossible to argue.

I think this one could surprise. Bludgertrack has the estimated Queensland swing as 2.8% away from the LNP, and if the swing in Petrie is that small then the sophomore surge effect could be enough for a narrow LNP retain.

(obviously I mean the “underlying” swing in Petrie)

kme
A 10% PUP vote, 2013, makes this very tough for the LNP to hold. This factor will make QLD more volatile, in terms of predictions

Howarth is a goner here. I tend to believe that a major reason the Liberals held this during the Howard years was by virtue of Gambaro’s personal vote and profile.

Not sure about that, Howarth has worked electorate hard and labor candidate is hopeless

Drew
What do you know of Pedersen ??

union delegate from local council and was part of faction deal on another seat I understand

W of S
I think Gambarro had the benefit of some strong liberal areas, no longer in Petrie, post 2008.

Drew
Yes . How unimpressive.

still have strong areas around Bridgeman Downs and Newport but the growth area of North Lakes, Mango Hill and Griffin will be crucial. Bracken Ridge area in south is strong Labor at State and votes strong Liberal in Council and will be crucial again

@Winediamond I suspected that was the case. I wasn’t certain, but I seemed to recall this seat being much safer for the Liberal Party in the past.

FYI I agree, the candidate’s credentials are somewhat lacking.

Drew
Thanks for the appraisal, always good to hear it from someone on the ground.

W of S
Yes it is so good to see Labor moving towards candidates from a broader spectrum of society.
This one must have so much real life experience.,
Simpatico with Middle class aspiration, & free enterprise.
Understanding of business
Wealth creation etc etc etc
I didn’t bother with the !!!!!!!!

As no post allowed yet for Dickson.. I am told Labor will announce Linda Lavarch as candidate this week.. She is former State Mp for area and ex husband Michael was Federal member during Hawke/Keating years.

Luke Howarth has been campaigning even outside of his electorate. I have Howarth Fridge magnet delivered by Australia Post – I guess this is the advantage of being a sitting member. Howarth has takeover some of the bill boards previously picturing Clive Palmer – the one I am thinking of is outside his electorate. He has replied to e-mails which is rare amongst sitting MHR’s and must have some effect upon voter support.

A Jackson
Isn’t it amazing how motivated Pollies are when they have a marginal seat.
I keep saying it, but who listens??
If you live in a safe seat , & vote for your MP, you are voting against your own obvious self interest.
At least try to see they are pushed (hard if possible) to preferences.

@Winediamond, it is amazing to see the difference in a local and removed perspective isn’t it? If the Libs hold this (as some suggest due to the hard work of Howarth) then the government will be ecstatic.

W of S
Yes it would be a win for a battler wouldn’t it !!. He would be entitled to all the credit.
Like wise , if labor fail to take this Then they can only blame themselves for such an idiotic candidate selection .

Drew’s comments about Linda Lavarach in Dickson are interesting. Spotted two large Clive Palmer size Bill Boards for LNP in Dickson on Old Gympie Rd near Kallangur. Libs however need to work harder on the ground before spending money half of one Bill board hidden by trees hiding Peter Dutton completely and making it look like Malcolm Turnbull was peering out of bushes like a peeping tom.

Probably best to keep Peter Dutton hidden anyway so it may not all be a waste of money for them.

Surprisingly for so close to an election little human activity going on in Northern Brisbane. No street stalls and no Corflutes up yet. Displaying Corflutes on property probably a breach of by-laws but quite legal to do on vehicles.

Andrew Jackson
apjackson@hotkey.net.au

Pedersen actually works in the community sector of the council. Union delegate is not an official council job… Especially in any council headed by twice failed LNP candidate Allan Sutherland.
Howarth, despite claims above, in much of the electorate is a ghost.
Billboards and advertising don’t count as hard work.

Robert
Can you account for Howarth’s very strong 2013 result against a sitting MP, minister, etc.???
D’ Ath from all accounts had a very strong personal vote.. A lot to overcome i’d have thought ??.

I understand Pedersen doesn’t live in Petrie … Where the Palmer vote goes will decide this, many new voters in this electorate since 2013 with the huge growth around North lakes, Mango Hill and Griffin as well as Fitzgibbon in the south. LNP vote has been at 40 primary last 2 elections so who knows what primary they will get this time… Is like Eden Monaro goes with the government

An 871 vote margin in a landslide election that saw the ALP reduced to a rump, is not exactly a ringing endorsement. Nor is losing the booths on Election Day. Petrie is a hard seat to win, and an even harder seat to hold. It has a high turnover of residents and is growing rapidly… Personal vote… I don’t know.

To my knowledge Howarth didn’t live in the electorate before the last election either, nor was and is, his business based in it.

Clearly the LNP are concerned, if the smear campaign to try and denigrate the good works that Pedersen and the community department in the MBRC have done, are being reduced to simply ‘union delegates’.

Robert, only giving feedback that I get from neighbour who works within State Ministers office. Haven’t seen much of ALP campaign on the ground at present just the odd stall on side of road. Howarth has been pretty visible in 6 or 7 community groups I am involved in and seems to have been working Labor areas pretty strong over last 3 years… Time will tell

@Robert even in the worst of elections incumbency can play a huge factor, as I suspect it did here.

As a longstanding observer of political history IMO the campaign the LNP are running can hardly be described as a smear. It’s simply politics. Anti-unionism has been a feature of many conservative election campaigns – this election is shaping up to be very much like the 1969 election methinks.

My old Electorate (recently moved out of Petrie), Luke has been a very hardworking MP and attends almost everything. Pedersen would have little name recognition outside of Redcliffe and possibly North Lakes. I still see this seat going to Labor due to the national swing away from the government. I also think it’ll be the first time in decades where it’ll be held by an Opposition MP.

I tend to think that the Liberals will do relatively better in Queensland. Whatever people’s opinion of Kevin Rudd, he probably did give Labor a boost in his home state. We can see how many Qld seats had fairly small swings or even swung TO Labor in 2013. Without Rudd, the Liberals might be a couple of % relatively better off in 2016.

@MM I agree. 2007 was only the third time since 1949 that Labor were able to win the 2PP in QLD and Rudd deserves credit for this achievement.

MM
Yeah perhaps so, probably so. However with the enormous quantity of PUP, KAP, & other votes, it really is SO unpredictable, & volatile.
IMV Queenslanders are the most emotive Australians, Victorians the least. This indicates a foundation for QLD voting volatility, & perhaps, the lack of in Victoria.
Here’s some questions for you
Was it QLD’s emotive attachment to Rudd, or ambivalence to Abbott
Will QLD have more antipathy toward Shorten, or Turnbull. Neither are “one of their own”

Robert
Here’s a question that i’ve been dying to ask a union devotee.
Do you see ANY conflict of interest between union interests, & the national interest ??
In short the ALP’s whole “raison d’ entre ‘ !!

Wine Diamond

I am not a union devotee. My first job was an industrial relations one with a union of employers but I have been a Workplace Union Rep for Teachers Union and State Service Union. I have therefore been both a employer and employee advocate.

There is conflict of interest between every interest group and the National Interest at times. However National interest is best served by having a strong trade union movement. What everyone seems to forget is that the Right of Entry of union officials was greater under Sir Robert Menzies and Joh BJelke Petersen than under recent ALP governments. The 7-11 mess would not have occurred vin 1970 because the Arbitration Inspectors would have detected it.

A system of Conciliation and Arbitration within the rule of law is far superior to the strongest take all laissez faire free market based system.

Our country should be proud of the Deakin Compromise. We need a return to strong unionism on both the employee and employer side.

WE need a return to Penal provisions in the Arbitration Act that jailed Clarrie O’Shea in 1960’s for failure to comply with Industrial Court direction. Unions and employers need to be under the rule of law.

IT is not a choice between Centralized Government dictation and unmitigated capitalism there is a third way of allowing the market to function but regulating when the market fails to work for the common good.

WE need unions but not union thugs. WE have union thugs because Government has not been willing to tackle the thugs.

That poll on Insiders yesterday that had Labor trailing 58-42 on 2PP federal voting intentions in Qld is horrendous for Labor. They must be doing very well in Vic and WA to be able to be lead nation-wide polls with those Qld numbers. If those Qld numbers are correct, Labor can forget about picking up any seats here, including Petrie. That will then mean Labor CAN’T win the election.

Lenore Taylor was quoting a sub-sample of a national poll. (I don’t recall which.) By her own admission, a small sample size with a large MoE.

There was a Galaxy poll last week that focused exclusively on Queensland. It came down 54-46 in the Coalition’s favour. Still not great for Labor, but it would probably see them picking up at least a couple seats.

Ok fair call but, if they were realistically going to win the election, they’d need to pick up more than a couple in Qld, like Rudd did in 2007.

@FTB Your sentiment is correct. The only issue is they are never going to do something like Rudd again for many many years. The ALP have only won the 2PP in QLD thrice in nearly 70 years and never by very much. I realise that although that does not necessarily correlate to seats, it does create an impression of how difficult a political environment it is for the ALP there.

these Qld fiqures don’t sound right……. big a big palmer vote to go elsewhere and no swing……. there is a difference from a 2pp majority and no change……eg 53/47 is an almost 5% swing also Dutton is vulnerable

Even a return to 49% would give Labor seats. I don’t trust the poll my Brisbane and regional sources are braced for a decent swing.

Howard’s is something of a nothing candidate. I expect this to be gone early on election night.

*Howarth, but the original post kind of makes my point.

Has anyone seen any polling on this seat? I don’t know why but I feel like people are jumping the gun giving this to Labor? There was a strong PUP vote last election and Labor also had popular Redcliffe local Dath in the seat. Don’t know that this seat is as certain as some may think. It’s possible there could be swings to both Labor and LNP in this seat and therefore Liberal hold on by a similar margin to now.

FTB, the area leans Labor, but I agree it will be closer than people seem to think. I’d guess Longman will be a narrow LNP hold while this will be a narrowish (1-2%) loss.

Not completely beyond the realms of possibility that it turns out the other way around though!

People are just assuming the small margin means it will go. Elections don’t work like that.

Howarth got just a 0.6% swing to him on primary vote in 2013. Much of Labor’s loss went to PUP, and preferences flowed from there. With PUP gone, I’d expect much of the swing to undo itself, so before factoring in the personal vote issue, I’d say Labor would be ahead on 2pp by about 2.5%

Personal vote isn’t going to be especially strong for Howarth, I think – not because he’s not active locally, but because he hasn’t really had any visibility in the way that D’ath did as a parliamentary secretary. So I see the final margin being flipped – 0.5% to Labor.

Petrie is supposed to be the most marginal coalition seat yet no one has postred anything since 7 June- 15 Days of silence.

Similar silence about Petrie in Courier Mail and Australian.

This seat will be retained by LNP unlike the adjoining seat of Longman where Wyatt Roy is in real trouble.

I have done a pre-poll in Longman preferencing ALP ahead of LNP but if I was in Petrie I would have preferenced LNP ahead of ALP. THE LNP needs a good clean out and getting rid of Roy is a start.

AJ, you make the mistake of substituting your own preferences for those of the electorate. It would be remarkable if the LNP held a seat with a 0.5% margin whilst losing a neighbouring seat with a 6.9% margin.

Further, I don’t see how a 26yo second term MP is evidence of a party in need of a clean out.

Petrie has been a litmus seat without interruption since 1987. If Eden-Monaro ever loses its crown, either here, Deakin or Page will pick it up.

It doesn’t appear that’s about to change its status as my favorite litmus seat. .

@DW I gather from his comments that AJ is not a fan of the new libertarian-ish faction of the LNP: arch-free marketeers, socially liberal individuals, all things that Roy encapsulates in abundance.