Mirani – Queensland 2024

Ah, Mirani. The seat made up of the leftovers of Queensland. The parts between Mackay and Rockhampton that even Mackay and Rockhampton didn’t want.

I jest, but this is a funny old seat, and maybe a candidate for a major re-draw in future redistributions, with the Livingstone council being fully reunited into an expanded Keppel, and a new seat of Sarina going inland to pick up the mining parts of Burdekin.

Until then, unless the LNP can nudge in front of the ALP on first preferences, I suppose they will keep handing this seat to the One Notion Party.

@ NQ View Interestingly enough IIRC last election the One Nation primary vote declined and the LNP vote rose. I’m sure that’s to do with the ONP’s large drop in support statewide, but I live in this electorate and I can’t really gauge support for the current MP. Nobody seems particularly enthusiastic for him, but I don’t live in the northern half around Sarina and my booths still vote Labor quite strongly so I could easily be wrong.

Absolutely right about the redistribution as well, I hope they find an acceptable solution to it next time around. My community fits much better into Keppel than it does Mirani.

Should be renamed broad sound

Rockhampton region grazier and rural fire service volunteer Glen Kelly has been preselected as the LNP’s candidate in Mirani. If the LNP get a big spike to there primary vote here, its possible they could win this seat on Labor preferences. It still hard to dislodge a minor party MP though, the LNP haven’t been able to dislodge KAP state MP’s. So there is every reason, they won’t be able to dislodge a One Nation incumbent with Stephen Andrew as well. But judging Andrew ‘s primary last state election of 31.7%, he does look vulnerable on paper if the LNP overtake Labor in second place and he isn’t able to lift it.

@Political Nightwatchman there’s a big difference between unseating a Katter and unseating One Nation. In short: the former hasn’t been done before unless the member defected while the latter has happened many times (remember One Nation used to have 11 state seats in Queensland back in 1998). Mirani is vulnerable because Stephen Andrew isn’t finishing first, Labor is, and he’s relying on LNP preferences to win. If the Labor vote falls and the LNP vote rises (i.e if the LNP finish first or come somewhat close in second place), then the LNP could gain it.

Interestingly Stephen Andrew is the first ever South Sea Islander to be elected to any parliament. He became a Vanuatuan tribal chieftain following traditional ceremonies held on Ambae Island in July 2019. His chiefly name is Moli Duru Ambae. Ambae is the name of the island but I’m not sure where Moli and Duru come from, perhaps they’re local names (I’ve been to Vanuatu but I haven’t been to Ambae Island yet), but Duru sounds very similar to Andrew minus the first two letters.

Agree Nether Portal. I don’t think Labor will want to be seen preferencing One Nation, their vote has much further to fall, and they’ll be in sandbagging mode and unlikely to seek to win a new seat. So a good chance of +1 to the blue column.

He’s been relatively uncontroversial for a One Nation MP. Perhaps Andrew will run as an independent and swap preferences with Labor. Not sure that will be enough to save him and whether he’d still get Labor preferences in that event.

I think the direction of this seat could rely on the LNP’s position on the Eungella Pumped Hydro Project. It seems like the community’s very vocal in opposition to it. Stephen Andrew is working with community organisations to voice that opposition. I’m not sure if the LNP have an official position on the project yet, but supporting it would cost them votes in booths around Walkerston/Mirani/Finch Hatton.

This could be an LNP pick up unless ON get 45% of primary vote or above. Hard to see either the ALP or Greens preferencing ON over the LNP.

Labor could drop to third place and its preferences as well as the Greens’ will flow to LNP more than to ON. This might be LNP’s path to winning.

However, LNP’s support for a 75% emissions could be a wild card factor. Mirani is very dependent on coal and farming. Odds of ON retaining might’ve improved.

On to retain

One Nation to retain this.

On the other hand, with the LNP supporting the 75% emissions reduction target by 2035, along with the general massive swing expected in their favour, do you think they’re a chance to win back Maiwar?

The LNP haven’t announced a Maiwar candidate yet, and don’t seem to be campaigning much in that area. I think the 75% emission reduction support will help them retain votes in Moggill and Clayfield, but I’m not sure if it would help them win votes off an incumbent (Berkman) with a very high margin.

@AA that’s because the LNP are campaigning strategically in seats they can win. A Greens incumbent usually doesn’t get unseated since the inner-city seems to go more left-wing, not less.

As for One Nation, there’s a big chance that One Nation could improve their vote but still lose to the LNP simply because Labor could fall into third place. One Nation needs probably 40% of the vote to win in that scenario. If the LNP finish then first it’s game over. You’d need Labor to finish first or second for One Nation to retain this seat. At the last election Labor had 31.97% of the primary vote (–4.78%), One Nation had 31.66% (–0.38%) and the LNP had 27.69% (+0.69%), with the rest going to the other four parties that didn’t get over 5% of the vote (NQ First, the Greens, Motorists and the UAP). On a TCP basis One Nation had 58.98% of the vote (+4.16%) while Labor had 41.02% (–4.16%). Therefore, the LNP only needs a 4.41% swing to get 32.0% of the vote, allowing them to finish first, which is very possible given that the last poll saw the LNP achieve a swing of +8.10% on primaries statewide (compared to +2.9% for One Nation and –12.6% for Labor).

The ONP MP here effectively acts as an independent. Very little ONP branding, no mention of party policy, logo or Pauline. Very different to James Ashby next door. So could be a big disparity between resources allocated between seats. I agree that ONP will only retain if the LNP is behind them on first preferences. Depends on whether voters going away from the ALP choose the LNP or ONP

I’m not 100% sure that climate action is unpopular anywhere in the country these days. Remember that Labor received a well above swing in their favour in Capricornia and Flynn at the 2022 election despite having a very similar climate policy to 2019. For this reason, I think the LNP are still a decent chance to win this seat despite supporting the 75% target

@SCart you are correct that climate action is now popular everywhere but Labor received swings in Capricornia and Flynn mostly as recoveries from last time and it actually mostly was due to the One Nation vote collapsing across Queensland. Remember, in 2019, Capricornia had a swing of over 11% to the LNP on TPP, not because their primary rose drastically, but because Labor’s vote went down heaps and One Nation got 17% of the vote.

Below is an analysis of the Coalition TPP in three seats where coal mining is (and historically has been) a major industry: Capricornia, Flynn and Hunter:

Capricornia, QLD:
1996: 53.62% (+6.40%) (Nationals)
1998: 44.71% (–8.75%) (Nationals)
2001: 43.14% (–1.57%) (Nationals)
2004: 44.86% (+0.38%) (Nationals)
2007: 37.29% (–8.70%) (Nationals)
2010: 46.30% (+8.40%) (LNP, Nationals)
2013: 50.77% (+4.45%) (LNP, Nationals)
2016: 50.63% (–0.14%) (LNP, Nationals)
2019: 62.35% (+11.72%) (LNP, Nationals)
2022: 56.29% (–5.76%) (LNP, Nationals)

Flynn:
1996: Did not exist
1998: Did not exist
2001: Did not exist
2004: Did not exist (notionally 57.72%, Nationals)
2007: 49.84% (–7.88%) (Nationals)
2010: 53.58% (+5.82%) (LNP, Nationals)
2013: 56.53% (+2.95%) (LNP, Nationals)
2016: 51.04% (–5.49%) (LNP, Nationals)
2019: 58.66% (+7.62%) (LNP, Nationals)
2022: 53.82% (–4.84%) (LNP, Nationals)

Hunter, NSW:
1996: 56.97% (+6.95%)
1998: 35.51% (–7.72%*) (Liberal)
2001: 39.14% (+3.83%**) (Nationals)
2004: 36.25% (–2.89%) (Nationals)
2007: 34.08% (–4.83%) (Nationals)
2010: 37.52% (+3.20%) (Nationals)
2013: 46.33% (+8.81%) (Nationals)
2016: 37.54% (–6.78%) (Nationals)
2019: 47.02% (+9.48%) (Nationals)
2022: 45.97% (–1.05%) (Nationals)

*Compared to the Nationals TPP in 1996
**Compared to the Liberal TPP in 1998

As you can see, the coal mining areas only really started to desert Labor relatively recently. Labor had big swings against him in all three of those seats in 2019 (with Capricornia having the biggest swing of any seat in 2019 I believe), and Labor hasn’t really recovered much of that lost vote. If you look at the individual booth results, the TPP swing to Labor was actually due to the swing to Labor in the main cities these three electorates (Rockhampton in Capricornia, Gladstone in Flynn and Cessnock in Hunter), with many rural towns actually only had small swings to Labor, and in Hunter the rural towns (such as Muswellbrook and Singleton) actually swung to the Nationals.

Labor will be heavily relying on the redistribution to retain Hunter. Most proposals including mine have Hunter losing some rural areas to New England while keeping Cessnock and gaining Kurri Kurri and some western parts of Maitland from Paterson (which would need to gain some rural areas south of Bulahdelah from Lyne, which on my proposal has gained back the rest of Port Macquarie as well as Telegraph Point from Cowper), which would make Hunter a safe Labor seat and Paterson a marginal Liberal seat. I would estimate a notional margin of 14.2% Labor in Hunter and 2.8% Liberal in Paterson.

@ Nether Portal
Good analysis about coal seats. I would add Dawson and Shortland. While Labor rarely wins Dawson it used to track the statewide vote. What happens to Shortland in your redistribution proposal?

@Nimalan I don’t think I changed Shortland much. I might have expanded it a bit but that doesn’t do much. Shortland is a weird seat since it overlaps with safe Labor seats on the state level despite only being a fairly safe seat on the federal level. This must have something to do with Pat Conroy being from the Left faction. I know one might argue that Paterson is similar with Maitland and Port Stephens but in reality Port Stephens is almost always marginal (I think in 2027 it should go back to being marginal) and Maitland is a potential long-term target.

@NP
Shortland used to be rock solid Labor. I think fear over the coal-fired electricity generation industry has led some to move away from Labor while at a state level both parties have the same climate policies so the same residents stick with Labor.

@Nimalan that makes sense but there isn’t any coal mines in Newcastle itself anymore (despite Newcastle still having the largest coal port in NSW, the Port of Newcastle in the suburb of Stockton, which is in the federal and state seat of Newcastle).

Hunter is now half Lake Macquarie and the rest
Mainly Musselbrook and
Singleton. This is the most
Pro Labor the boundaries have been. Think it has s alp
Margin of+ 4%

@ Nether Portal
Vales Point Power station is in Shortland as is the Colongra Gas Fired power station and Eraring Power station is close by so while there maybe no Coal mines in Newcastle there will be a lot of power station workers in Shortland. Inner Newcastle is very progressive this way and strong for the Greens. I think Newcastle is the only federal electorate that voted no to the Republic but voted Yes for the voice.

There may never be an election where coal is a pivotal or influential election issue like the 2019 federal one. That was when seats in rural and regional QLD and the seat of Hunter all swung hard to the LNP, partly via One Nation preferences. At the end of the 2022 election night coverage, a panellist (not a politician) said at the end of the 2019 election, we were talking about coal, now we’re talking about climate change. He was talking about it in terms of seat-changers (e.g. seats that went Green or teal).

Coal is probably less pivotal electorally in 2024 or 2025 as there are less jobs in the coal mining sector nowadays. In recent times, the mining of other minerals has become more profitable – aluminium, copper and battery metals. This is not only driven by EVs and renewable energy but also data centres for AI development.

Coal could be a statewide issue again if a major party adopts the Greens’ “no new coal mines or gas plants” mantra but that would be politically dangerous. Coal will still be a critical issue for seats like Mirani and Burdekin and to some extent, those in the Hunter Valley.

Can’t see anything other than an easy LNP victory here. Little to no movement in One Nation MPs primary vote. Just a direct shift from Labor to the LNP, with the LNP shifting into first on primaries.

Labor + Greens preferences flowing strongly to the LNP and them going onto easily win in a TCP against One Nation.

I think it depends on whether there’s movement from the ALP to the LNP or One Nation (sitting MP factor). Especially given the LNP’s decision on 75% emission reduction targets. If One Nation put some effort here into a strong social media campaign (like they’ve done in Keppel with James Ashby) then the race would be a lot closer.

From everything I’ve seen to date, the bigger issue for voters is not whether the LNP backs the government on emissions reduction targets, but if there’s a change of government or not. Regional Queensland is itching for a change (all polls indicate this) and a direct voter shift from one major party to the other in Mirani is inevitable, imo

i think the LNP and im hoping they are just agreeing with labor on that issue until after the election where they can remove it. emmsions targets are effectively a self imposed handicap against the rest of the world in terms of competiveness and wont make any difference globally

PRP,
Please post links to these polls, or alternatively, details of the polling companies and who commissioned the polls.

Think lnp came 3rd last election. Interesting Labor got 4.2% 2cp swing and 4.9% primary swing so preferences were largely neutral. A Sitting mp who acts as an effective independent has an excellent chance of reelect

LNP gain, apparently Andrew has been dumped

@Daniel T and with that there is now a very real possibility that One Nation will never see another candidate elected to the Queensland parliament again. One Pauline retires they’ll disappear from relevancy permanently this time.

But yeah, this is my seat and I think it’s an LNP gain now as well. Andrew already lost primary votes in 2020 even under the One Nation banner, so I don’t think he can get re-elected as an Independent.

Possible IND retain for Stephen Andrew if Labor preferences him over the LNP. Or he could be like Dolly Pratt was in Nanango (popular ex-One Nation independent) and get re elected without Labor preferences, but this is unlikely.

The Australian is speculating that Andrew may join KAP if he doesn’t run as an independent.

The independents ex sff.. are secure in the seats they
Hold,before leaving off they acted as rural independents. Suspect this is exactly the same here

Exactly the same here, Stephen Andrew acted as an independent for the past year (de-branded his socials, didn’t mention the party). I think that was one of the reasons Pauline dumped him.

This seat on a 2pp basis seems to be similar to Keppel except Keppel leans marginal Labor and this seat leans marginal lnp.

What a silly decision from One Nation. Now they may never hold a lower seat anywhere ever again.

@ Wilson I think he would fit in well with the Katters, but my bet is that he’ll stick with running as an Independent.

I did predict an LNP gain earlier, but honestly I have no idea how well known or popular he is as I live in the far less populous southern part of the seat. He could still get up on Labor preferences if they choose to put him above the LNP.

The LNP will win this certainly now. I already predicted he’d lose since the LNP finishing third is the only reason they didn’t win this in 2017 and 2020.

@Nether Portal yeah its a really stupid decision by One Nation.

Could One Nation, KAP or Stephen Andrew still finish second to the LNP?

@Nether Portal Andrew is the only one that has a shot at that I think. Certainly not the Katters (unless he is their candidate here.)

Andrew has long had the appearance of an independent anyway. Doesn’t this just open up the possibility of Labor directing preferences to him over the LNP?

@Laine yeah same I think he has a personal vote.

@Nicholas I’m unsure if Labor would preference him over the LNP. This isn’t a seat that they’ll be thinking about much given that they need to focus on defending safe seats like Bulimba, Ipswich, Lytton and Murrumba to the LNP and Cooper, McConnel and Miller to the Greens.

Gladstone is a seat Steven Miles needs to pay attention to. It’s an industrial, working-class city that’s always voted Labor or independent but it could become marginal given the area has started to trend towards the LNP on the federal level because of Labor’s progressivism (particularly on issues like coal and mining). Gladstone and Ipswich are the only seats Labor needs to really defend to avoid its landslide defeat affecting in its heartland.

“@Nicholas I’m unsure if Labor would preference him over the LNP. This isn’t a seat that they’ll be thinking about much given that they need to focus on defending safe seats like Bulimba, Ipswich, Lytton and Murrumba to the LNP and Cooper, McConnel and Miller to the Greens.”

@Neither Portal

Whether Labor puts resources into Mirani or not it won’t play a part of their preference strategy. Nicholas is right. It may be why Stephen Andrew is considering joining Katter Australia Partyv or running as an independent to have a better chance securing Labor preferences. Because he’s not a hope in hell in winning the seat without them. And it’s out of the question he would get them if he remains in One Nation. Labor preferences KAP over the LNP regularly. KAP wouldn’t have won the seat of Hinchinbrook at the 2017 election without them.

@PN interesting theory.

Do you think the LNP can win back Hinchinbrook?

Even if Labor aren’t vying for this seat, surely it is still of interest to them to consider whether they’d prefer Andrew to be reelected or the LNP to add another seat to their majority.

@Nether Portal

I think the surge in the LNP vote they will get close in Hinchinbrook. But KAP being a minor party that can whether storm with big swings against the incumbent government. And due to the fact they likely will get Labor preferences the bridge will too far to cross.

I do agree with the consensus in the seat of Mirani. I think the LNP’s big surge in their vote will be too much for Andrew to overcome. And favor a LNP gain.

@nicolas generally it’s a “my enemies enemy is my friend” maybe you should be asking why wasn’t the onp TCP vote higher? Some lib voters obviously preferred Labor to onp. Libs should have won in 2015 if palmer was on the lnp team I can tell you lnp will be in the 2cp but against who I can’t possibly predict. It could be Labor, onp or andrew but given how the vote will split libs will win on leakage at worst. So anyway I’m saying lnp gain. No way lnp win hinchinbrook

The Courier Mail suggests “it’s only a matter of time before he [Andrew] joins the Katter’s.”