Mansfield – QLD 2017

ALP 0.8%

Incumbent MP
Ian Walker (LNP), since 2012.

Geography
Brisbane. Mansfield covers southeastern parts of the City of Brisbane and small parts of Redland City. Mansfield covers the suburbs of Mansfield, Wishart, Upper Mount Gravatt and Mackenzie, and parts of Mount Gravatt and Mount Gravatt East.

Redistribution
Mansfield shifted slightly to the north-west, gaining Mount Gravatt East from the neighbouring seat of Greenslopes and losing an area around Eight Mile Plains. These changes reversed the seat’s margin from 0.5% for the LNP to 0.8% for the ALP.

History
The seat of Mansfield has existed since 1972. Conservative MPs held the seat from 1972 until 1989, and apart from one term the ALP has held it since 1989.

Bill Kaus held the seat from 1972 to 1986. He originally sat as a Liberal, but switched to the National Party in 1983, at the election when the coalition was dissolved and the Nationals decimated the ranks of the Liberal Party in Parliament.

He was succeeded in 1986 by Craig Sherrin, also a National Party MP. Sherrin was defeated in 1989 by ALP candidate Laurel Power.

Power lost in 1995 to Frank Carroll of the Liberal Party. He was defeated in 1998 by Phil Reeves. Reeves was re-elected in 2001, 2004 and 2009, and was promoted to the Bligh government’s ministry after the 2009 election.

In 2012, Labor MP Phil Reeves was defeated by Liberal National candidate Ian Walker. Walker served as a minister in the LNP government from 2013 until 2015. Walker was narrowly re-elected in 2015, and now serves as Shadow Attorney-General (along with other portfolios).

Candidates

• Ian Walker (Liberal National)
• Barbara Bell (Greens)
• Corinne McMillan (Labor)
• Neil Symes (One Nation)

Assessment
Mansfield is an extremely close seat, and will be hotly contested by both sides. It’s one of the seats which will decide who forms government.

2015 election result

2015 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths in Mansfield have been divided into three areas. Most booths in the seat lie in the northwestern corner of the seat, and these booths have been divided into “Central” and “North-East”. The remainder of the booths have been grouped as “South-West”.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the two most populous areas, ranging from 55% in the north-east to 51% in the centre. The LNP won over 61% of the two-party-preferred vote in the south-west, but this made up a small part of the population.

The Greens vote ranged from 9.4% in the south-west to 11.5% in the north-east.

Election results in Mansfield at the 2015 QLD state election
Click on the ‘visible layers’ box to toggle between two-party-preferred votes and Greens primary votes.