Thuringowa – QLD 2017

ALP 6.6%

Incumbent MP
Aaron Harper, since 2015.

Geography
Far North Queensland. Thuringowa covers southern and western suburbs of Townsville, including Thuringowa Central, Condon, Rasmussen, Kelso and Kirwan.

Redistribution
Thuringowa shifted slightly east, gaining the remainder of Kirwan and part of Vincent from Mundingburra, and lost its western fringe, including Alice River and Deeragun, to Hinchinbrook. These changes increased the Labor margin from 5.5% to 6.6%.

History
The seat of Thuringowa has existed since 1986. The seat has been won by the ALP at all but two elections, with One Nation interrupting the Labor hold on the seat in 1998 and the LNP winning in 2012.

Thuringowa was won in 1986 by Labor MP Ken McElligott, who had been first elected in Townsville in 1983. He served as a minister in the Goss government from 1989 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1996.

At the 1998 election, McElligott was defeated by One Nation’s Ken Turner. Turner, like every other One Nation MP elected at the 1998 election, soon left the party, becoming an independent in 1999.

Labor candidate Anita Phillips defeated Turner in 2001. She served one term before stepping down in 2004 to run for the federal seat of Herbert, unsuccessfully.

Craig Wallace retained the seat for Labor in 2004 and was re-elected in 2006 and 2009. Wallace served as a minister from 2006 to 2012.

In 2012, Wallace was defeated by LNP candidate Sam Cox. Labor suffered a 22% swing on primary votes, and dropped to third place behind Katter’s Australian Party.

Labor came back in 2015, with Labor candidate Aaron Harper defeating Cox with a 12% swing.

Candidates

Assessment
Thuringowa is a less marginal Labor seat. In normal circumstances you’d expect Labor to retain the seat comfortably, although it is not clear what impact One Nation could have.

2015 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Aaron Harper Labor 11,584 39.5 +12.2 40.7
Sam Cox Liberal National 9,945 33.9 -2.2 34.5
Ian Ferguson Palmer United Party 3,407 11.6 +11.6 11.5
Jeffrey Knuth One Nation 2,161 7.4 +7.4 5.8
Karen Thompson Greens 1,028 3.5 -0.1 4.3
Michael Waters Family First 617 2.1 -0.7 1.7
Margaret Bell Independent 579 2.0 +2.0 1.4
Informal 792 2.6

2015 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Aaron Harper Labor 14,312 55.5 +6.9 56.6
Sam Cox Liberal National 11,456 44.5 -6.9 43.4
Exhausted 3,553 12.1

Booth breakdown

Booths in Thuringowa have been divided into three areas: central, north and south.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 54% in the centre to 61% in the south.

The Palmer United Party vote ranged from 10.5% in the centre to 12.3% in the north.

Voter group PUP prim % ALP 2PP % Total votes % of votes
Central 10.5 54.2 7,318 24.9
South 12.3 61.0 7,259 24.7
North 11.7 57.0 6,596 22.4
Other votes 11.4 52.8 8,261 28.1

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

38 COMMENTS

  1. Not ready to call this seat an ALP retain.

    On paper, Labor should be a shoe-in, but realistically, if PHON was running a candidate and a credible campaign, then this should be a three horse race.

    Labor’s vote has ranged from 49.2% in 2008, to 27.2% in 2012 (with a strong showing that election from KAP) and their vote restored to 39.5% in 2015.

    The LNP’s vote has largely remained the same across those three elections (in the mid 30s).

    So the only way the LNP will win this, is if there’s enough of a shift from Labor to PHON and they win off a strong preference flow. Which is entirely possible.

  2. ALP and LNP have a major competitor from an Independent by the name of Stephen Lane. Stephen is a former councillors son and also is a victim of the crime wave in the area. There is a massive shift away from the major parties by the residents of the area and Stephen has come along at just the right time.

  3. One Nation not announcing a candidate here is interesting. This would have to be their best Townsville chance. Also interesting that there is no Katter candidate so far. I think the 2012 result is your best guide here. Whether its Katter or Hanson who is the third party is yet to be detetmined, but third party vote could be even higher than 2012.

  5. Interesting day for Thornton. I doubt it will have any long lasting effect. Was interesting to see the candidate for Hinchinbrook’s facial expressions though.

  6. How can a party have so little information on its candidates that it can endorse a porn shop owner for office?

    Governments should be changing the laws so that this type of retail operation is closed down.

  7. Why does it matter what the Candidate does for a job??? As long as it is not illegal it shouldn’t matter what he or she does.

  8. Contrary to other posts. I think this does damage onp and it will impact on all 3,Townsville seats…helping labor to retain…another wacky onp choice

  9. IT matters because some things should be illegal. Tonight I saw the Ashby Hanson Team going on about Safe Schools when they in fact are represented by a Porn Shop owner. It was as two farced as standing up for traditional marriage last year until element of the party could get their hands on the codes to change the website and then turning off this support for traditional marriage.

    PHON Candidate Shan ju lin supported the ON policy as it appeared on their website and then got disendorsed because of her opposition to SSM.

    Domestic Violence supporting websites owned by Ashby -Hanson candidates are not a good look even in the demographic that PH is appealing to.

    Only demographic which this will not turn off is dirty old men. None of them would be voting for Pauline Hanson would they?

    Most of her potential voters know the difference between right and wrong and this is clearly wrong.

    Unfortunately the electorate face a choice between the Economic evil of LNP the Social evil of the ALP and Ashby -Hanson Party. Even though it is only a few kilometers from KAP Townsville Office and KAP nearly won this seat in 2012. Why could KAP not have found a candidate?.

  10. &Nick won’t hurt them one bit. The more the media attacks one nation, the higher their vote goes. Yet labor and lnp held to account about everything, they’d be hurt if it was their candidate. So over the double standards and pritection one nation gets from hard questions.

  12. Thought of something funny….Mr Dickson loses his seat which is likely……Mr Thornton wins here and is made onp leader then he is offered a ministry……what did you do before………

  13. Feel The Bern is right that LNP and ALP have double standards. They are same standards that he apparently has. IT is OK if Ashby-Hanson Party does it but a Double Standard of LNP or ALP were to tolerate.

    No candidate with this occupation should have been endorsed by a party that claims to be pro-family. HE SHOULD BE LAST ON EVERY HTV. Eevmn Green’s are preferable in this case.

    All political parties have skeletons but this is not a skeleton oyt is the outer skin of ONPO candidate. HE owns a Porn Shop.

    As I said previously only demographic which this will not put off is the Dirty Old Men Group . Maybe Feel the Bern would like to advise if this demographic will be Voting PHON. IN the secrecy of the ballot box even anti-discrimination law does not apply.

    I urge all of those who Care about human rights to place Mick nd retaliate against any candidate whose HTV place him anywhere but last. THIs is the first seat where I have decided who would actually be last. Both Greens and Ashby- Hanson deserve the bottom spot. Unfortunately only one can get it.

  14. A profile of One Nation voters recently highlighted large majorities do not care what the One Nation policies are or who the candidate is. That’s why it won’t hurt.

  17. LNP have done a deal with Stephen Lane for preferences. Stephen Lane is an extremely strong candidate in this seat and the ALP have put him last because polling has shown he is going to do very well.

  18. I am getting closer to calling this a Labor loss (surprising I know).

    With PHON, Katter Party and Independent Stephen Lane all putting the LNP higher than Labor on their HTV cards, it’ll be very tough for Aaron Harper to hold on.

    LNP to win this from second place on primaries is my guess.

  19. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen the monotony of “Ashby-Hanson” on here in the last few weeks, it’d be better than my last tax return. I don’t like her either, but the party she founded has a name. Use it, Andrew.

    Serious bit: This is one of the seats LNP prefs are going Labor’s way, so ON can’t win unless their primary vote is at least 40% (including Lane, who used to be one of them anyway). They got 35% in 1998 when they won the seat on Lib and Nat prefs, but this time round they aren’t getting them (maybe a revenge thing for Sam Cox?).

    The possible lineups:

    If ALP v LNP: Probably Labor. The LNP had a sitting MP last time (who’s now left the seat and the party), and they’re losing a lot more to ON than Labor are, so that 5.6% gap from 2015 (on primaries) is only going to get worse.

    If ALP v ON (my pick): Labor win on LNP (and Green) prefs, unless ON get over 40%.

    If LNP v ON (least likely: this isn’t a Labor bloodbath like 2012): LNP win on ALP and Green prefs.

  20. @ Bird of Paradox, good analysis but I’m not convinced PHON are hurting LNP more than Labor, I think it’s almost equal. Also Labor are polling poorly in Townsville, below their state average. Even if Labor was to win gov I can see them losing their 3 Townsville seats.

  21. Agree with Feel the Bern. Looks like Townsville is a real weak point for Labor. Which is why the leaders of both sides are up there heaps.

  22. PHON will hurt the LNP more in terms of votes but the ALP in terms of seats, because of the preferencing decisions of the two main parties.

  23. Who could expect Townsville to do anything other than take revenge at ALP over failure to act on Nickel refinery. A true L:abor Government would have Nationalized the Plant and sent Clive Palmer and Little Clive packing – After all that is what their Platform states their policy is.

  24. It would be quite stunning if the LNP took all 3 seats in Townsville, given that it was only last year that Labor won Herbert and Team Jenny Hill (the Labor aligned team) had a clean sweep of the Council/mayoralty.

    Taking this into account, I think 1 let alone all 3 is a bit of a stretch for the LNP but I’d love to be proven wrong. The more the merrier!

  25. Old mate might not need his side business if these numbers hold up:

    #Newspoll QLD State Seat of Thuringowa Primary Votes: ALP 29 (-12.2 since election) ON 28 (+22.2) LNP 21 (-13.2) KAP 12 (+12) GRN 6 (+1.7) #qldvotes #auspol

    #Newspoll QLD State Seat of Thuringowa 2 Party Preferred: ALP 46 (-10.6 since election) ON 54 (+54) #qldvotes #auspol

    Source: @ghostwhovotes (Twitter)

  26. Though this was one of the seats where Labor was getting LNP preferences, and they’re notoriously easy to direct via HTV cards.

    So those numbers might be better for Labor than what they look.

    Still, this is one of ONP’s best shots of a seat.

  28. Umm…they are. When clicking Terry Fox’s link, it takes me to the KAP’s page for Thuringowa. He just doesn’t have his party listed after his name for whatever reason.

  30. Yes that is the second seat that KAP is running in that Ben has not listed the candidate with KAP. Warrego as well has the candidate without Kap Beside it

  33. Looks like PHON a moral to pick this up. Good luck with this candidate Thuringowa, I give it a few months before he’s painted as an absolute disaster by the media.

  36. What exactly is it about this seat that makes it such a ‘certain’ ON gain? (As opposed to Gympie or Lockyer or Callide, etc)

  37. Look at the 2012 vote here for Katter. Also Labor vote has collapsed in the Townsville area. Creates a very strong third party vote as reflected in the published polling.

  38. One Nation gain. Enjoy that Thuringowa. I can’t wait to see his terrible appearances in the media over the next 3 years. Would be comical if it wasn’t so serious.

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