LNP 9.8%
Incumbent MP
Mal Brough, since 2013. Previously Member for Longman 1996-2007.
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.
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.
Candidates
Sitting Liberal National MP Mal Brough is not running for re-election
- Tony Gibson (Greens)
- Caroline Ashlin (Family First)
- Bill Gissane (Labor)
- John Spellman (Liberty Alliance)
- Tracey Bell-Henselin (Rise Up Australia)
- Andrew Wallace (Liberal National)
- Jason Burgess (Veterans Party)
- LB Joum (Online Direct Democracy)
- Mike Jessop (Independent)
Assessment
Fisher is a reasonably safe Liberal National seat.
2013 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Mal Brough | Liberal National | 34,619 | 44.5 | -2.0 |
| Bill Gissane | Labor | 16,297 | 20.9 | -9.4 |
| Bill Schoch | Palmer United Party | 13,559 | 17.4 | +17.4 |
| Garry Claridge | Greens | 5,908 | 7.6 | -8.3 |
| Mark Meldon | Katter’s Australian Party | 2,520 | 3.2 | +3.2 |
| Tony Moore | Family First | 1,593 | 2.1 | -5.3 |
| Peter Slipper | 1,207 | 1.6 | +1.6 | |
| Jarreau Terry | Independent | 957 | 1.2 | +1.2 |
| Mark Maguire | Australian Independents | 890 | 1.1 | +1.1 |
| Rod Christensen | Rise Up Australia | 305 | 0.4 | +0.4 |
| Informal | 4,803 | 6.2 |
2013 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Mal Brough | Liberal National | 46,522 | 59.8 | +5.6 |
| Bill Gissane | Labor | 31,333 | 40.3 | -5.6 |
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 Liberal National Party’s two-party-preferred vote ranged from 54.7% at the inland booths, to 58% on the coast at the northern end of the seat.
The Palmer United Party polled strongly in Fisher, with a vote ranging from 18% inland to 20% on the coast.
| Voter group | PUP % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Inland | 18.0 | 54.7 | 17,867 | 22.9 |
| Caloundra | 19.7 | 56.3 | 17,586 | 22.6 |
| Coast | 20.0 | 58.1 | 9,522 | 12.2 |
| Other votes | 15.1 | 64.8 | 32,880 | 42.2 |
After the “interesting” last few years, the Liberals would probably be happy just to have a nice safe, boring, low-profile MP in Fisher this time around.
Fisher can be won on a good day for Labor, It probably won’t be this election. Some have suggested if Mal Brough had re-contested Fisher he would have lossed.
Look for a swing to head back to Labor and Labor return to secound on the two party preferred tallys. I think the PUP vote of 17.4% probably evenly spread back to both major parties. But the Libs will retain.
From what I gather, Peter Slipper was regarded as a dud even by his own party (before all the other stuff blew up). If even he could hold on by 3% at the height of the Rudd-slide, I think “Generic Inoffensive Liberal” will have no trouble.
Agree with MM.
I think Fisher is a fairly safe liberal seat even at the worst of times for them. A low key Liberal candidate that sticks to the party mantra and slogans will surely have no trouble being elected here. It would take a lot of strong campaigning or a large demographic change for Labor to even be considered a threat in this seat.
My prediction: LNP hold, even with departing MP Brough caught in a scandal.