NAT 14.1%
Incumbent MP
Bruce Scott, since 1990.
Geography
Southwestern Queensland and the Darling Downs. Maranoa covers a large part of southern Queensland, stretching from Toowoomba council area (although not the city of Toowoomba itself) along the NSW border, all the way to the South Australian and Northern Territory borders. Major towns include Kingaroy, Nanango, Warwick, Dalby and Roma.
Redistribution
Maranoa retained all of the territory included in the 2007 boundaries, but extended to the north to take in areas previously part of Flynn. These included four western LGAs as well as a smaller area in the southeast of Flynn.
History
Maranoa is an original federation electorate, covering rural parts of southern Queensland. The seat was first held by the ALP, but has been held by the Country Party and its successors since 1921, only losing Maranoa at one election.
The seat was first won in 1901 by the ALP’s James Page. Page held the seat until his death in 1921.
The 1921 by-election was won by James Hunter, standing for the newly-formed Country Party. Hunter served as a minister in the Lyons government from 1934 to 1937, and retired in 1940.
Maranoa was won in 1940 by the ALP’s Frank Baker, a former school teacher and father of former MP Frank Baker Jr, who had died in 1939. The elder Baker held Maranoa for one term, losing to the Country Party’s Charles Adermann in 1943. Adermann retained Maranoa in 1946 before moving to the new seat of Fisher in 1949. He served as a minister from 1958 until 1967, and retired in 1972.
The Country Party’s Charles Russell won Maranoa in 1949, but fell out with his party in 1950 and contested the seat as an independent in 1951, losing to the Country Party’s Wilfred Brimblecombe. Brimblecombe held the seat until his retirement in 1966.
James Corbett won Maranoa for the Country Party in 1966, holding it until 1980. He was succeeded in 1980 by Ian Cameron, also of the National Country Party.
Cameron retired in 1990, and the National Party’s Bruce Scott won the seat, and he has held it ever since.
Candidates
- Bruce Scott (Liberal National) – Member for Maranoa since 1990.
- Grant Newson (Greens)
- Greg McKay (Family First)
- Geoff Keating (Labor)
- Charles Nason (Independent)
Political situation
This is a very safe National seat.
2007 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bruce Scott | NAT | 46,293 | 58.57 | +10.75 |
| Mike Bathersby | ALP | 23,288 | 29.46 | +7.65 |
| David Totenhofer | FF | 3,034 | 3.84 | -0.15 |
| Rod Watson | ON | 2,774 | 3.51 | -1.61 |
| Bob East | GRN | 2,646 | 3.35 | +1.10 |
| Alan Dickson | DEM | 1,004 | 1.27 | +0.14 |
2007 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Bruce Scott | NAT | 50,936 | 64.44 | -6.61 |
| Mike Bathersby | ALP | 28,103 | 35.56 | +6.61 |
Results do not take into consideration effects of the redistribution.
Booth breakdown
Maranoa covers 15 entire local government areas and parts of two others. Most of these LGAs, however, contain very small populations. The ten westernmost LGAs have been grouped as a single “West” area. Balonne, Goondiwindi, Dalby and Roma council areas have been left as single areas. The seat covers two parts of Toowoomba council, with the seat of Groom cutting through the middle, and covering the city of Toowoomba itself. I have grouped the southern area with Southern Downs LGA as “South-East”. The northern area has been grouped with those parts of South Burnett in Maranoa as ‘Kingaroy-Crows Nest’. About half of the seat’s population lives in the two areas on either side of Toowoomba.
The Nationals won a majority in all parts of the seat. Their majority varied from 56% in the Kingaroy-Crows Nest area and the west of the seat to over 70% in Dalby.
| Voter group | NAT 2CP % | Total votes | % of ordinary votes |
| South-East | 60.29 | 19,958 | 29.93 |
| Kingaroy-Crows Nest | 56.37 | 13,377 | 20.06 |
| Dalby | 72.09 | 13,290 | 19.93 |
| West | 56.99 | 8,008 | 12.01 |
| Roma | 69.03 | 5,318 | 7.98 |
| Goondiwindi | 64.98 | 4,803 | 7.20 |
| Balonne | 62.81 | 1,925 | 2.89 |
| Other votes | 70.23 | 17,333 |
Ben, I think the both breakdown there is for NSW’s Maranoa, Riverina.
Bruce Scott has said that he would stand for Maranoa again. It’s the seat that Barnaby Joyce had been eyeing off – his home town of St George is in Maranoa – but Scott, being a true deadwood National, has refused to step aside, despite being 66 and not having any prospect of serving on the frontbench. Joyce wanted this seat so that he could lead the Nats (whose leader is traditionally from the House of Reps), a good suggestion from the Nats point of view because Joyce is the only Nat with any national name recognition, plus it reduces the possibility of Joyce crossing the floor and it mattering (i.e with VSU). Speculation is that Scott just doesn’t like Joyce and is holding the seat to keep him out of the House of Reps and Nat leadership.
In any case, even with Scott, this will remain the safest Nat seat this election.
I believe that this is also the only seat in Australia where One Nation outpolled the Greens in 2007.
Thanks Hamish, I will fix that.
Mallee is the safest Nats seat actually, they totally dominate there – wait until you see the map.
Actually you’d think with the growth in the mining industry in parts of this seat the Labor vote might’ve grown a little more in the past decade.
I also remember in the early 2000s, before the creation of Flynn, this seat also extended north into the Central Highlands, which meant its two major population centres were Warwick and Emerald – massively separated.
Quite right, I should have said the safest Nat seat in QLD.
Nick is also right about the growth of the mining influence, but this may be a positive for the Nats this election because of the RSPT.
Geoff Keating has been preselected as the Labor candidate according to the alp website
My prediction: 4-5% swing to LNP.