LNP 1.6%
Incumbent MP
Luke Howarth, since 2013.
Geography
Northern Brisbane. Petrie covers suburbs on the northern edge of the City of Brisbane, including Bracken Ridge and parts of Aspley. It also includes parts of Moreton Bay Regional Council, including Redcliffe, Scarborough and Deception Bay.
Redistribution
No change.
History
Petrie was created as part of the 1949 expansion of Parliament, and has always been a marginal seat, changing sides on many occasions. The seat has been a bellwether seat since 1987.
The seat was first won by Alan Hulme (Liberal) in 1949. Hulme served as a minister in the Menzies government from 1958 until 1961, when he was defeated by Reginald O’Brien (ALP), and Hulme won the seat back off O’Brien in 1963, before resuming a ministerial role.
O’Brien retired in 1972, and the seat was won by Marhsall Cooke. Cooke was not preselected by the Liberals in 1974, and he retired, with John Hodges winning the seat. Hodges held the seat for the Liberals until the 1983 election, when Dean Wells (ALP) won the seat. Hodges won it back off Wells in 1984, and Wells went on to serve as a minister in Labor state government from 1989 until 2004.
Hodges was finally defeated by the ALP’s Gary Johns in 1987. Johns went on to serve as a minister in the last term of the Keating government, losing his seat to Liberal Teresa Gambaro in 1996.
Gambaro held the seat for eleven years before losing to Yvette D’Ath in 2007.
D’Ath was re-elected in 2010 amidst a large anti-Labor swing in Queensland was a minimal 1.7% swing to the Liberal National Party.
D’Ath narrowly lost Petrie in 2013 to the LNP’s Luke Howarth. The 3% swing to the LNP was just enough for the LNP to win with a 0.5% margin, making Petrie the most marginal Coalition seat in the country.
D’Ath returned to politics within six months, winning the state by-election in the overlapping seat of Redcliffe in February 2014. She now serves as Attorney-General in the Labor state government.
Luke Howarth won a second term in 2016, increasing his margin from 0.5% to 1.6%.
Candidates
- Troy Hopkins (United Australia)
- Luke Howarth (Liberal National)
- Nikhil Aai Reddy (One Nation)
- Corinne Mulholland (Labor)
- Neville John Fowler (Conservative National)
- Jason Kennedy (Greens)
Assessment
Petrie is a very marginal seat and could well fall to Labor if the swing is on. Howarth bucked the trend in 2016, and it’s usually hard to do that twice in a row.
2016 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Luke Howarth | Liberal National | 41,475 | 44.7 | +4.1 |
| Jacqui Pedersen | Labor | 35,616 | 38.4 | -1.1 |
| Sue Weber | Greens | 6,840 | 7.4 | +2.9 |
| Mark A White | Family First | 4,746 | 5.1 | +3.0 |
| Catherine Buckley | Liberal Democrats | 2,877 | 3.1 | +3.1 |
| Andrew Charles Tyrrell | Arts Party | 1,239 | 1.3 | +1.3 |
| Informal | 3,886 | 4.0 |
2016 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Luke Howarth | Liberal National | 47,926 | 51.6 | +1.1 |
| Jacqui Pedersen | Labor | 44,867 | 48.4 | -1.1 |
Booth breakdown
Booths have been divided into three areas. Booths in the City of Brisbane have been grouped as South.
Those around Redcliffe have been grouped as East, and the remainder around North Lakes and at the northern end of the electorate have been grouped as West.
The ALP won a majority of the ordinary election-day vote, with 50.3% in the south, 52.6% in the west, and 50% (an eight-vote majority) in the east.
The LNP won the seat thanks to a 55% majority in the pre-poll and a 54% majority amongst other votes. These votes collectively make up almost 45% of the total vote, and thus were enough to overwhelm Labor’s majority at the ordinary booths.
| Voter group | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 50.0 | 19,608 | 21.1 |
| South | 49.7 | 16,111 | 17.4 |
| West | 47.4 | 15,524 | 16.7 |
| Other votes | 54.0 | 17,796 | 19.2 |
| Pre-poll | 55.3 | 23,754 | 25.6 |
Two-party-preferred votes in Petrie at the 2016 federal election
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According to an item I just (partially) heard, Corinne Mulholland is (was?) part of the MBRC Council Administration. The current mayor, and possibly others, are under investigation for corruption. As far as I’m aware no allegation of wrongdoing has been leveled at Mulholland, but her connection to an alleged corrupt Labor aligned mayor\council is noteworthy isn’t it? She has been strangely silent on the matter! True she can point out her profile says she “works in a senior local government role,” but that’s not quite the same thing!
A lack of honesty whilst campaigning suggests a candidate won’t have the best interests of the electorate at heart should she win office.
This has become (Like allot of other QLD seats) A safe LNP seat. I think this proves that Malcolm was not very popular in QLD that is why last time (although they still did well) Did weaker than the polls suggested. But the LNP blew it out this time with Blair and Lilley even in play. (Although both will be barely won by the ALP) Albanese certainly would have done allot better here in QLD and would have taken the 5 seats most polls predicted. So it proves Bill Shorten is hated in QLD. As for Palmer and One Nation preferences, Even without them i think we were looking at a similar outcome, Because the LNP vote is up in allot of seats on the primary vote, While allot of those UAP supporters were likely former Labor supporters and they voted for Palmer to protest against Labor’s unclear position on Adani. I don’t think Palmer and One nation preferenced against Labor in every single seat, Due to the fact some seats have different deals with the parties. While these seats in QLD shouldn’t be considered *Safe* at the next election as these margins are Inflated, Labor still has allot of work to do nevertheless. I don’t think Turnbull would have reduced this same result. Congratulations Luke Howarth on your well deserved victory, This is the 2nd time in a row that he managed to increase his majority.
According to the ABC site, with 72.5% of the vote counted, Howarth has won 47.6% of the first preference vote – near instant victory! Mulholland only won 31.8%. She appears to have picked up Greens preferences and either most of the Palmer preferences or a quarter of the One Nation preferences. These figures will likely change a bit with the final tally but show Howarth has sizable support!
Go to my post on Feb 1st, I said Libs to collect 9 seats and got laughed at… appears I’ve had the last laugh…. picked up 7 seats bahahaha almost what I predicted