Ryan – Australia 2016

Prints seems to have done very well here, & established a big personal vote.

PUP, & the Greens seem to have performed abysmally in 2013, & labor very well, to have held their primary vote so successfully. This seems quite an anomaly.

Ideas anyone ???

MM, & DW
Do you think Ryan will be drawn east in the 2017 redistribution ??

Ryan is unlikely to change much if at all. It utilises the Brisbane City council boundary to the north and west and the river to the south. If Ryan is above quota, it would shed some voters to Brisbane in the east. Where is anyone’s guess, perhaps around Toowong. Whatever the case, the changes would be minor.

DW
Yeah i didn’t appreciate the western boundary.

I don’t think the Libs will have too much trouble here. The Greens do quite well around here and i’d expect them to gain in the vicinity of 4-6%

Have to disagree about Prentice doing well here. Ryan should be like safe NSW seats in the Hills District or North Shore. 8.5% is way too low.

The Labor candidate here was an independent candidate in Richmond in 2010.

Q Obsever
I was just going on the numbers, from the last 2 elections.
I’d also draw your attention to the fact that neither of the 2 examples you gave include a large other vote of 50-50 magnitude or an area like Ennogera . This seems like a seat of 2 very different halves, as opposed to the homogenous examples you offered.

QObserver – the part of this seat which covers the state seat of Moggill is like this, but areas around Indooroopilly, St Lucia, Paddington and Toowong are much more mixed (with state seats often going to Labor).

Up around The Gap is a solid LNP majority, largely due to the army base at Enoggera (coming from a military family, I can tell you that generally a plurality will support the Liberals).

Right up the top end you’ve got more typical middle ring battler suburbs in Ferny Grove and Mitchelton which will swing, but generally favour Labor.

This seat doesn’t have an enormous margin, but it would take a lot to swing the seat to Labor and I would rank it as one of the LNP’s safest.

Further – unlike many seats, the demographics here aren’t really changing, so I can’t see this seat changing hands anytime soon.

@Macca-GC in this way it appears to be similar to Kooyong and Higgins – margins not as large as their status and history would suggest, but firm and safe nonetheless.

To give everyone commenting previously a local perspective…

The western suburbs core of this electorate (where I’m from) is LNP territory, current margin would be about right because of Labor leaning northern parts and Green votes. The Greens vote might increase in the western suburbs (inner AND outer) because the Labor candidate is from Michelton, near Enoggera.

I would say Jane Prentice is a popular MP, she is always about, even in the northern parts, particularly to do with the barracks. The monthly local magazine always has her newsletter in it and I think in something in the northern parts as well.

Safest LNP seat in QLD, definitely.

BJA f Ryan
That’s a very interesting standard to apply to an MP.
If they can be bothered doing a monthly newsletter, let alone getting it published in local newspapers. If nothing else it shows an interest in communicating with the community.

Of course one could be entirely cynical, & dismiss such activity, as base self- promotion !!!. Either way it is a measurement…..

If you apply the standard of Jane Prentice being a popular local member with 58% of the vote in an election where her government won, then she is easily beaten in popularity by Michael Johnson and John Moore. Therefore out of the last 3 sitting LNP members for Ryan in the last 30 odd years on comparable elections, she is actually the least popular.

Greens underperformed here in 2013 but recovered the vote at state level since. Outpolled Labor pretty safely in three of the four council wards in March so will be interesting to see if they can make it into second place this time.

Drove from Ferny Grove to UQ tonight, via Bardon.

No signage observed whatsoever. Safest seat in Queensland — well, safest city-Liberal seat.

Updates! on the way back I saw some Greens signs. Props to them for actually making an effort.

@Alex- Greens should give this a real shot. If a redistribution changed the seat and it moved further still towards the city and into some Greens heartland (and out of Liberal heartland) it may get interesting on a low-tide election running against the Liberals; in that case Greens may just take it. Plus they are slowly becoming the alternate party across the electorate anyhow.

Largely agree Mike, except I don’t believe the seat boundaries are going to be moving much. I say this as I think the apartment boom in Toowong and Indooroopilly should match pace with broader population growth.

As for how a redistribution *could* go:
As of earlier this year, Pullenvale, Walter Taylor, Paddington and The Gap wards had about 118,500 electors. Obviously that’s too high, so we need to take some off. Immediately remove Ferny Grove and Kelvin Grove – down to 111,500.
From there it gets harder. The easiest thing to do would be a boundary along Stewart/Waterworks/Musgrave Rds and then Hale St, which would get us down to about 105K. However, this would cut through the middle of the Ashgrove main activity centre…

I think winning either Paddington (BCC ward) or Mt Coot-tha (state) are also pre-requisites, just as a resources and networks thing.

@Alex I agree that the chances of significant change are low but never say never. Electoral Commission has done some interesting (and illogical) things in the past and may do so in the future.

I suppose my point is moreso it is a great seat for the Greens to really get a foothold in and over the next decade take the ALP out of play. Ryan, Brisbane and Griffith I think are prime electorates for the Greens in Qld. I think the ALP’s core ground will be that next belt out around Blair, Oxley and Lilley. Liberals will be the Coasts and the Bay.

Agree completely that the commission have done some rather illogical things — just look at old editions of Ryan, where the only connection between The Gap and the rest of the electorate was Gap Creek Rd (until recently an utter goat-track) through the state forest!

My prediction: Easy Liberal hold.

*LNP hold.

I think I was right about Jane Prentice being a popular MP, she has gained a small swing to her. Should get a few more votes on the postals from the elderly out here in the western suburbs, boosting the primary.

Excellent results for the LNP in the capital (yay!), I believe. Along with Ryan, small swings in Brisbane, Griffith and Petrie. I always thought the latter would be retained, as I thought Luke Howarth had gotten himself a profile.

Shame about Lilley, I think postals will peg the margin back a little though. Very good chance for LNP when Swan retires (next time hopefully).

So I went back over my redistribution numbers just now, and it looks like Queensland will still have 30 electorates (assuming the redistribution proceeds on the 2014 populations, as it’s due before the 1-year anniversary of the new Parliament).

If we carry forward the population growth rate from 2013-2016 (8.2% over three years for the state overall), that leaves us with a target of about 110,900 voters per electorate. But Ryan grew more slowly (4.2%)…

So, my (Pullenvale + Walter Taylor + Paddington + The Gap wards) – (Ferny Grove + Kelvin Grove areas) suggestion is almost there. Basically need to lose one or two booths, or just be a little over quota in 3 years time and likely be exactly in line in 7 years time.

Greens had a great result here and should definitely target this seat next election as well as Mt Coot-tha at state level, although Prentice will probably need to retire to make it winnable.