LNP 9.2%
Incumbent MP
Andrew Wallace, since 2016.
Geography
Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Fisher covers southern parts of the Sunshine Coast. The seat is centred on the town of Caloundra and includes the coast as far north as Alexandra Headland and inland towns including Landsborough and Maleny.
Redistribution
Fisher gained Palmwoods at the northern edge of the seat from Fairfax. This slightly increased the LNP margin from 9.1% to 9.2%.
History
Fisher was created in the 1949 expansion of the House of Representatives, and has been won by Coalition parties at all but two federal elections, and was held by members of the same family for its first thirty-five years of existence.
The seat was won by Charles Adermann in 1949, after previously having served as Member for Maranoa since 1943. Adermann held the seat for over twenty years, serving as a minister in the Coalition government from 1958 to 1967. Adermann retired in 1972 and was succeeded by his son Evan Adermann.
Adermann held the seat from 1972 until the 1984 election, when he moved to the new seat of Fairfax. Adermann served as a minister in the Fraser government from 1975 until 1980, and served in Fairfax until his retirement in 1990.
Adermann was succeeded by Peter Slipper (NAT) in 1984, and was defeated by the ALP’s Michael Lavarch in 1987.
The Liberal Party first challenged in Fisher at the 1972 election when the senior Adermann retired, and started to regularly contest the seat in 1983. At the 1990 election, Lavarch was re-elected while the National Party was pushed into third place.
At the 1993 election, Fisher’s boundaries shifted and became notionally Liberal, and Lavarch shifted to the nearby seat of Dickson, where he won a special election a month after the general election due to the death of another candidate. Lavarch became Attorney-General and was defeated at the 1996 election.
In Fisher, the Liberal Party stood Slipper, the former National Party member for the seat, and won. Slipper’s margin exploded to over 70% in 1996 and stayed above 10% for the entirety of the Howard government, with Slipper serving as a Parliamentary Secretary from 1998 to 2004.
Slipper’s hold on Fisher was weakened in 2007 with a 7.9% swing. Slipper gained a 0.6% swing in 2010.
Slipper survived a push to replace him with Mal Brough prior to the 2010 election, but his relationship with the Coalition had begun to break down. After the 2010 election he was elected as Deputy Speaker with the support of the ALP, defeating the Coalition-endorsed candidate.
In November 2011, the sitting ALP Speaker resigned from the position, and Peter Slipper accepted the nomination and was elected as Speaker. Slipper was threatened with expulsion from the LNP, and resigned soon after being elected Speaker.
Slipper temporarily stepped aside as Speaker in May 2012, and resigned as Speaker in November 2012, following allegations of misuse of parliamentary entitlements.
At the 2013 election, the LNP’s Mal Brough was elected comfortably. Brough was a former minister in the Howard government and member for neighbouring seat of Longman from 1996 until his shock loss in 2007. Slipper ran for re-election as an independent, but came a distant seventh with 1.55% of the vote.
Brough returned to the ministry in September 2015, but was forced to step down in late December over his involvement in the Ashby affair. Brough retired in 2016, and was succeeded by LNP candidate Andrew Wallace.
Candidates
- Trevor David Gray (United Australia)
- Daniel Parsell (Labor)
- Tracy Burton (Greens)
- Christopher Paterson (One Nation)
- Andrew Wallace (Liberal National)
- Mike Jessop (Conservative National)
- Paul Monaghan (Love Australia or Leave)
Assessment
Fisher is a reasonably safe LNP seat.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Andrew Wallace | Liberal National | 40,424 | 48.3 | +3.8 | 48.2 |
| Bill Gissane | Labor | 20,670 | 24.7 | +3.8 | 24.5 |
| Tony Gibson | Greens | 10,324 | 12.3 | +4.7 | 12.3 |
| John Spellman | Liberty Alliance | 2,952 | 3.5 | +3.5 | 3.4 |
| Caroline Ashlin | Family First | 2,927 | 3.5 | +1.4 | 3.5 |
| Mike Jessop | Independent | 2,906 | 3.5 | +3.5 | 3.3 |
| Tracey Bell-Henselin | Rise Up Australia | 2,210 | 2.6 | +2.3 | 2.5 |
| Jason Burgess | Veterans Party | 914 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 1.0 |
| LB Joum | Online Direct Democracy | 438 | 0.5 | +0.5 | 0.5 |
| Others | 0.7 | ||||
| Informal | 6,157 | 6.8 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Andrew Wallace | Liberal National | 49,473 | 59.1 | -0.7 | 59.2 |
| Bill Gissane | Labor | 34,292 | 40.9 | +0.7 | 40.8 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three parts. Most polling places lie near the coast. The largest cluster lie around the town of Caloundra. The remaining booths on the coast have been grouped as ‘Coast’, and the inland booths have also been grouped together.
The LNP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 55.4% inland to 60% on the coast.
The Greens vote ranged from 11.7% in Caloundra to 15.7% inland.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Inland | 15.7 | 55.4 | 19,809 | 22.6 |
| Caloundra | 11.7 | 55.6 | 17,274 | 19.7 |
| Coast | 14.0 | 60.1 | 8,210 | 9.4 |
| Other votes | 12.3 | 59.4 | 13,207 | 15.1 |
| Pre-poll | 9.8 | 63.5 | 28,971 | 33.1 |
Election results in Fisher at the 2016 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.
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this seat is a story of the liberal party
Mick
Not sure what the story is
ALP campaigning in seat. Large Billboard on Bruce Highway showing ALP candidate Parsell and Bill Shorten.
ALP are unlikely to pick this seat up.
Hippie vote in Maleny area May give Greens 15% but This 15% comes off ALP and still leaves Libs with a majority.
Andrew Jackson
apjackson2@bigpond.com
Labor can only win this if they win in Caloundra and Mooloolaba
Mooloolaba is not a swing area – the Kawana suburbs are more swinging but the Sunshine Coast is not likely to swing enough to give Labor a chance.
They can win if they appeal to the voters, Which they have failed to do so, Bob hawke would be popular in these areas, Many people regard him as the last good Labor PM if not the last good PM overall
I see Bill Shorten will be making stops here as well as well as Hinkler and Wide Bay on his bus tour. I’m wondering if Labor thinks it’s in with a chance with a third Senate seat which it’s why it’s putting extra effort in these seats to lift the Senate vote. Hinkler is not impossible but Labor is a outside chance at best. Fisher won’t likely be won but it can be won for Labor on a very good day. I remember when Rudd was at his highest polling as PM that Fisher was being mentioned as a possible gain if Rudd had called a double disillusion.
There’s no way Labor can win this seat. No way. The stopover was for a good announcement TBH but it was just to have a nice beach background that shows Queensland in all its beauty. If Labor thinks they’re actually winning Fisher they should get out of fantasy land.
Labor has been around the local streets of Golden Beach campaigning today. What a waste of time they were. Labor will never get in here, in fact I hope the 2 majors both lose. We need minority parties / independents to get more votes and the preferences. This country needs a new government who will serve the people and make our country great again.
I spent day in Buderim today and there was plenty of evidence of LNP campaign activity. Corflutes and large half size Bill boards. No sign of ALP campaigning. And certainly no sign of Pauline Hanson. Bear in mind that there were individuals on this site that prior to election predicting a One Nation Victory in Buderim and I think I said Buderim would reject PHON completely. Dickson learnt the hard way. I wish I could be as confident that the rest of Queensland has the same level intelligence and morality.