ALP 8.1%
Incumbent MP
Shayne Neumann, since 2007.
Geography
Blair covers most of the City of Ipswich as well as Somerset Regional Council. The seat covers the urban area of Ipswich and rural areas to the west, and towns such as Esk and Kilcoy.
Redistribution
Blair jumped the Brisbane river to take in Karana Downs from Ryan. This reduced the Labor margin in Blair from 8.9% to 8.1%.
History
Blair was created at the 1998 election, one of a number of seats created in Queensland over the last few decades. The seat was held by the Liberal Party until 2007, when the ALP won.
Blair took over territory in Ipswich in 1998 from the seat of Oxley. Oxley had a long history of being held by the Labor Party but was lost to disendorsed Liberal candidate Pauline Hanson in 1996. Hanson formed One Nation in her term in the House of Representatives, and contested Blair in 1998. Hanson came first on primary votes, but lost on preferences. Liberal candidate Cameron Thompson came third on primary votes, but overtook the ALP on Nationals preferences and then overtook Hanson on Labor preferences.
Thompson held Blair at the 2001 and 2004 elections, but lost in 2007 to Labor candidate Shayne Neumann. Neumann was assisted by a redistribution which saw Blair take in more of pro-Labor Ipswich, losing rural conservatives areas to the northwest, although it gained areas to the southwest which have since been shedded.
Neumann has been re-elected three times.
Candidates
- Simone Karandrews (Independent)
- Peter John Fitzpatrick (Conservative National)
- Shayne Kenneth Neumann (Labor)
- Sharon Bell (One Nation)
- Robert Shearman (Liberal National)
- Majella Zimpel (United Australia)
- John Quinn (Democratic Labour)
- Michelle Duncan (Greens)
- John Turner (Independent)
Assessment
Blair is a reasonably safe Labor seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Shayne Neumann | Labor | 35,691 | 41.9 | +0.4 | 41.0 |
| Teresa Harding | Liberal National | 24,455 | 28.7 | -5.1 | 29.6 |
| Troy Aggett | One Nation | 13,273 | 15.6 | +15.6 | 14.9 |
| Pat Walsh | Greens | 5,266 | 6.2 | +1.9 | 6.7 |
| Geoff Darr | Family First | 2,406 | 2.8 | 0.0 | 2.9 |
| Sandy Turner | Independent | 1,913 | 2.2 | +2.3 | 2.1 |
| Patricia Petersen | Independent | 1,439 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.6 |
| Jonathan Emms | Independent | 744 | 0.9 | +0.9 | 0.8 |
| Others | 0.3 | ||||
| Informal | 5,120 | 5.7 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Shayne Neumann | Labor | 50,158 | 58.9 | +3.6 | 58.1 |
| Teresa Harding | Liberal National | 35,029 | 41.1 | -3.6 | 41.9 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into five areas. Booths in Somerset local government area have been grouped together. Those booths in the City of Ipswich have been divided into four parts. Those in the rural west of the council area have been grouped together. Most of Blair’s population lives in the urban area around the centre of Ipswich, and these have been divided into Central, North and East.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in four out of five areas, ranging from 51.1% in rural Ipswich to 68.8% in East Ipswich. The Liberal Party polled 51.1% in Somerset.
One Nation’s primary vote ranged from 11.4% in North Ipswich to 21.3% in rural Ipswich.
| Voter group | ON prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Central Ipswich | 14.3 | 64.1 | 20,762 | 23.3 |
| North Ipswich | 11.4 | 56.4 | 12,423 | 13.9 |
| East Ipswich | 14.3 | 68.8 | 10,002 | 11.2 |
| Somerset | 19.0 | 48.9 | 9,768 | 11.0 |
| Rural Ipswich | 21.3 | 51.1 | 5,150 | 5.8 |
| Other votes | 15.8 | 55.8 | 15,581 | 17.5 |
| Pre-poll | 13.3 | 55.1 | 15,424 | 17.3 |
Election results in Blair at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and One Nation primary votes.
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Labor should win this seat easily on an increased margin. The seat is an interesting one in terms of preference flows there were reports last election that One Nation voters in droves ignored their how to vote cards to preference the Liberals and preferenced Labor instead.
Neumann is a frontbencher and one of the most senior federal Labor politicians in Queensland. There were reports in 2013 that if Neumann and Yvette D’ath lost their seats of Blair and Petrie in the 2013 federal election that Labor would look to move them into state politics. D’ath lost her seat of Petrie and entered state politics via a by-election in the seat of Redcliffe. Neumann held on to his seat.
Sandy Turner is again running as an Independent in Blair.
No LNP candidate as yet, not surprising given how poorly they’ve perform in greater Ipswich in recent elections.
Sharon Bell is running for One Nation (they would be very silly indeed to not run here).
PHON came second in a bunch of Ipswich-area seats in the state election, so I will be watching Blair closely on election night. A PHON win on LNP prefs is the only notable possibility of an upset result here.
I expect Labor will retain this, but it won’t necessarily be easy – the Ipswich City Council has been through a lot of turmoil recently and several of the figures at the centre of it were Labor party members (though elected as independents).
Oh, and I’m still grumpy about the lack of changes to the boundary with Oxley.
This is what a seat with actual “won’t be called on the night” potential looks like.
I suspect Labor will win the Labor vs LNP 2 Party Preferred without too much trouble. However there’ll be a total mess of conservative minor parties that could snowball into overtaking the LNP – some of which will get LNP preferences, and some which won’t. That 2PP will be closer than the Liberal vs Labor one.
Of course there’s every chance that Neumann will get enough primary votes to call it on the night.
Interesting development in Blair:
Without making any deals or talking, the independent Simone Karandrews has been allocated the following preferences.
Greens 2
Labor 3
LNP 3
One Nation 3
UAP 3
Much of her community is from the ex-Ryan, who were disgruntled with the LNP choice who resides in the Gap. Additionally, they are not traditionally as right wing as the Right wing candidates.
She is community and policy driven, rather than about the personalities, and has said actively that “Vote 1: Simone Karandrews, Numbers 2-9 are you own and no-one should tell you how to vote.”
This is something Rob Oakshott has started to talk about.
Shayne Neuman may be in the box seat, but the mood in the area appears to be a little less easy to bank on.
Would love to see the 2PP map when all the votes are in, I wonder where the LNP swung the most in this electorate.
The seat goes all the way up to Kilcoy, up there is probably where the swings were… how & why… pfffft!?!
The 2PP swing, such as it is, seems reasonably even across the seat. But this disguises some very uneven primary results, where both majors finished third behind One Nation in different parts of the seat.
e.g. Labor finished third in some of the more rural conservative booths, while One Nation beat the Liberals in some of Labor’s heartland in the east.