LNP 4.6%
Incumbent MP
Peter Dutton, since 2001.
Geography
Dickson covers the north-western suburbs of Brisbane and adjoining rural areas. It covers most of the former Pine Rivers Shire, now included in the Moreton Bay Council. Suburbs include Ferny Hills, Albany Creek, Strathpine, Petrie and Kallangur. Further west it includes areas such as Dayboro, Mount Samson and Samford Village.
History
Dickson was created for the 1993 election, though it was not filled until a supplementary election a month after the general election following the death of an independent candidate during the campaign. It was won for the ALP by Michael Lavarch, who transferred to the seat from Fisher, which he had represented since 1987, defeating the Liberal candidate, future Queensland state Liberal Party leader Dr Bruce Flegg.
Lavarch served as Attorney-General in the Keating government, but was defeated in the 1996 landslide by Liberal Tony Smith.
Smith lost the Liberal endorsement for the 1998 election and recontested the seat as an Independent. A leakage of preferences from his 9% primary vote presumably assisted the narrow, 176-vote victory by ALP star recruit, former Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot.
Kernot was defeated in 2001 by the Liberals’ Peter Dutton, who has held the seat ever since.
Dutton barely held on to his seat in 2007, but increased his majority in 2010 and 2013. Dutton served as a junior minister in the final years of the Howard government and has served as a senior minister in the Coalition government since 2013.
Assessment
Dickson has never been particularly safe for Peter Dutton – the seat has swung between a razor-thin margin and something just a little bit safer, which is where the seat is now, but the seat is well within reach if there is a swing to Labor in south-east Queensland.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Peter Dutton | Liberal National | 44,528 | 45.9 | +1.2 |
| Ali France | Labor | 30,370 | 31.3 | -3.7 |
| Benedict Coyne | Greens | 9,675 | 10.0 | +0.1 |
| Carrol Halliwell | One Nation | 5,022 | 5.2 | +5.2 |
| Thor Prohaska | Independent | 2,302 | 2.4 | -1.0 |
| Steve Austin | United Australia Party | 2,176 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Maureen Brohman | Animal Justice | 1,831 | 1.9 | +1.9 |
| Richelle Simpson | Conservative National Party | 1,044 | 1.1 | +1.1 |
| Informal | 4,416 | 4.4 | +1.0 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Peter Dutton | Liberal National | 52,968 | 54.6 | +3.0 |
| Ali France | Labor | 43,980 | 45.4 | -3.0 |
Booths have been divided into three areas. Most of the population lies on the urban fringe along the eastern edge of the seat. These booths have been split between north-east and south-east. The remaining booths have been grouped as ‘west’.
The LNP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the south-east (54.8%) and the west (56.6%), while Labor won 52.4% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 9.9 | 47.6 | 20,648 | 21.3 |
| South-East | 11.9 | 54.8 | 18,624 | 19.2 |
| West | 16.0 | 56.6 | 5,924 | 6.1 |
| Pre-poll | 8.2 | 56.3 | 34,951 | 36.1 |
| Other votes | 9.5 | 58.9 | 16,801 | 17.3 |
Election results in Dickson at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party and Labor.
yeah individual seat polling is definitely prone to innacuracy and i definitely don’t think it’s entirely indicative of how an electorate will eventually vote. however it’s still interesting to at least get a sense of the mood in different places of the country even if it’s not that accurate. i’ll be interested to see how urban electorates that voted against same sex marriage vote in this referendum. it wouldn’t surprise me if western sydney and western melbourne produce some of the countrys strongest yes results even despite their social conservatism when it comes to things such as gender issues and queer rights.
I take referendum polling with a grain of salt but for different reasons. It’s still very far out from the referendum and campaigning hasn’t really taken off. This might remind me of the 1999 Republic referendum where the Yes vote was leading pre-referendum but the Yes/No gap narrowed at the end.
Referendum polling is different to election polling. At general elections, because there are more boxes on the ballot paper, the informal vote is higher and preferences can be unpredictable. At a referendum, it’s a simple Yes/No. Seat polling for a referendum is less relevant as it’s like the US electoral college – your side needs to win the whole state, regardless of where in the state the votes are.
Regarding the seat of Dickson – this area and QLD generally, outside of Brisbane City Council, will be a battleground.
Agreed with @Votante. It’s way too early to take the referendum polling at face value with no real campaigning from either side. Anything can happen between now and the referendum that could drastically affect the result. For example, if the No campaign puts a scare campaign on something like how the Voice could somehow lead to a US style affirmative action system in things like university admissions (not at all saying that this would happen), that alone could significantly swing votes among Asian Australians to the No side.
@Louis As Dai Le points out, the Voice is not a particularly strong issue among migrant voters with most being pretty apathetic or undecided so how the campaigns for both Yes and No engage with them could be instrumental in a close result.
if you watch the “Yes” ad hey are just saying its about constitutional recognition of aboriginal people. they cant even be honest and say its about a voice to parliament
Kos Samaras says that migrant communities have considerably strong support for “Yes”. I’d like to see published polling but what he says lines up with my anecdotal experience. As it stands currently Australia has a sizeable majority for “Yes” but there is of course a long campaign ahead to change minds so that won’t necessarily bear out in the referendum results.
Personally I think that the “No” campaign has fired its guns a bit too early and the “Yes” campaign is just getting started – and support seems fairly resilient with “No” having limited appeal outside of older non-migrants. My prediction at this point would be somewhat continued softening but still a comfortable majority of around 55-45 for “Yes” but there’s of course considerable room for things to go differently.
@adda yes vote often lose their momentum later as seen with the republic referendum it was initially up around 70% then was handidly defeated. to be honest the government should be doing the right thing by the taxpayers and hold the referendum at the same time as the election to save money but they wont because in reality they are softening up voters for another republic referendum