LNP 14.2%
Incumbent MP
Stuart Robert, since 2007.
Geography
Fadden covers northern parts of the Gold Coast. The seat stretches as far south as Ernest, Labrador and Biggera Waters, and extends north to the Logan River.
History
Fadden was created for the 1977 election as a seat straddling the southern fringe of Brisbane and the northern Gold Coast as a marginal Liberal seat. It has been won by the Liberal Party or the LNP at every election bar one, and became much safer through the 1990s as it contracted into the Gold Coast.
Fadden was first won in 1977 by Liberal MP Donald Cameron. Cameron had previously won the marginal seat of Griffith in 1966, and held it until Fadden’s creation in 1977. Cameron held Fadden for two terms, losing it in 1983 to Labor candidate David Beddall. Cameron won the neighbouring seat of Moreton at a by-election eight months later and held it until his defeat in 1990.
Beddall moved to the new seat of Rankin in 1984, which he held until his retirement in 1998. Fadden returned to the Liberal Party, electing David Jull, who had previously held Bowman from 1975 to 1983. Jull was appointed to John Howard’s first ministry in 1996, but was forced to resign as a minister in 1997 due to his failure to prevent travel rorts by other MPs. He remained on the backbenches for the remainder of the Howard government, and retired in 2007.
The seat of Fadden was won in 2007 by Liberal candidate Stuart Robert, who has held the seat ever since.
Assessment
Fadden is a safe LNP seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Stuart Robert | Liberal National | 47,359 | 48.7 | -0.7 |
| Luz Stanton | Labor | 21,882 | 22.5 | -3.5 |
| Scott Turner | Greens | 8,747 | 9.0 | +1.4 |
| Darren Eather | One Nation | 8,334 | 8.6 | -3.4 |
| Mara Krischker | United Australia Party | 4,968 | 5.1 | +5.1 |
| Jake Welch | Liberal Democrats | 4,391 | 4.5 | +4.5 |
| Allan Barber | Conservative National Party | 1,531 | 1.6 | +1.6 |
| Informal | 5,019 | 4.9 | +0.4 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Stuart Robert | Liberal National | 62,387 | 64.2 | +2.9 |
| Luz Stanton | Labor | 34,825 | 35.8 | -2.9 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: central, north, south and west.
The LNP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 54.9% in the south to 63.3% in the centre.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 10.8 | 61.1 | 19,916 | 20.5 |
| South | 12.5 | 54.9 | 9,581 | 9.9 |
| Central | 9.1 | 63.3 | 8,851 | 9.1 |
| North | 8.0 | 63.2 | 5,732 | 5.9 |
| Pre-poll | 7.1 | 68.1 | 37,896 | 39.0 |
| Other votes | 9.5 | 65.2 | 15,236 | 15.7 |
Election results in Fadden at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party and Labor.
It would be interesting to see if the LNP do better with Crisafulli as leader in this area and whether Robert retires considering he isn’t the most popular Liberal MP
Liberal retain
Daniel
You would need a crowbar to get rid of this bloke. He is going nowhere he is a “lifer”. Robert will die in office.
For some reason Peta Credlin has a particular antipathy, perhaps even deep loathing for this bloke. Seeing as she was Abbot’s chief of staff, or gatekeeper her opinion has weight Predictably this 6’3” “Wonder Woman” rubbed a lot of blokes up the wrong way, & got to see them act like “giant toddlers”!. So if she doesn’t like someone i feel it’s noteworthy.
Credlin reminds me of my ex Mrs WD mk 1. She has 7 brothers .Good luck any man trying to intimidate her, that’s suicidal. !. She was a school headmistress….!
Robert is the PM’s best mate inside politics, maybe outside too.. Friends in politics…..!? Keating was right “get a dog”. I truly have no idea what but something is not right with this bloke. His record as a twice failed minister is enough in itself. Yep, if i were PM Frydenberg My first order of business would be to punt Robert.
Stuart Robert is a dud as a minster. Robert’s helped create Robodebt which not only was ruled unlawful by the courts but also wasted hundreds of millions of dollars with it’s failed implementation. Roberts also says with a straight face on Insiders that big business’s won’t have to pay back millions it was overpaid with Jobkeeper despite getting massive profits. This is despite chasing down people on welfare for there incorrect overpayments which shows the double standards.
Roberts will retain though, because this seat is too safe Liberal. Interestingly though this seat was won by Labor in the 1983 election. But the Labor member David Beddall abandoned the seat to contest Rankin at the 1984 election. My guess a unfavorable redistribution would have spurred the move.
PN correct. In 1983 Fadden included most of the Gold Coast hinterland (now in Wright) but also stretched all the way into Southern Brisbane around Sunnybank (now in Moreton).
This is a safe Coalition seat even with the unremarkable and unlikeable Stuart Robert. He was Scott Morrison’s numbers man when Morrison was counting numbers for his the leadership ballot. Consequently Stuart Robert has been promoted beyond his ability.
I have been a Liberal voter all my life, but there is no way I would vote for Robert or Crisafulli. We need to do better!
Mark Kenny has reported Stuart Robert might leave parliament in the coming weeks or months. On paper Fadden looks out of reach for Labor. But with a Resolve Strategic poll 56-44 to Labor in Queensland you would think Labor might as well throw their name in the hat and submit a candidate in the bye-election. Don’t know how a teal would go here. Gold Coast while conservative has never been known to be strong for independents. Of course, we have to see if Roberts leaves parliament first……
I doubt that Labor can make too many inroads in a 10.6% margin seat held by the opposition when they are in government and have been for a while so the honeymoon period would be gone by now. What would shake things up is if there’s a teal but I don’t think Gold Coast has a history of independents doing too well. You’d think Morrison himself and his allies like Alex Hawke and Stuart Robert would try and leave parliament as well given they’re basically politically finished now with both the hard right and moderate factions side-lining them.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/aus2022/fadden2022/comment-page-1#comment-780524
Being an MP pays over $200,000 per annum, so there is quite some some incentive not to resign early unless they get some high paying job. I suspect the secret ministries scandal has reduced Morrison`s alternative career prospects, at least for the rest of this parliamentary term.
@Dan M
The article also mentioned Scott Morrison may be looking to leave too. I think for the Liberals he’s really impediment by him hanging around in parliament. And they will ask him to leave if they haven’t done so already.
Alex Hawke won’t leave parliament this term. Whether he’s politically finished or not he did everything he could avoid a preselection challenge. So obviously he has no intention of going. He doesn’t sound like an ally of Morrison anymore suggesting in Nikki Saava book that he was ” addicted to executive authority” and didn’t want to take advice from anyone. He could be also doing this to distance himself from Morrison, but you are right he does seem to be on the outer with the Liberals.
I agree with your point about Fadden being too tougher ask for Labor. The Liberals having a primary vote of 44% in the seat and governments not traditionally taking seats off the opposition makes it a bridge too far for Labor. I’m not sure I agree that Anthony Albanese honeymoon is over though. After the Victorian election it’s been well acknowledge that the Liberals are in the doldrums right now not just the states but federally as well. I think it’s possible Labor could make inroads into the margin and its still worth Labor putting up a candidate. Labor’s candidate in Fadden at the last federal election was nurse educator Letitia Del Fabbro.
@Tom the first and best – $200k is not that much. Both of them could easily make better money outside parliament.
Regarding some of the teal prospect speculation here:
I would argue that Fadden is the weakest teal prospect of the three main Gold Coast divisions. It does not encompass the same extent of established, affluent and progressive suburbs that McPherson and Moncrieff includes. Both McPherson and Moncrieff feature a tertiary institution each and some of the most lux beachfront real-estate in South East Queensland.
While Fadden also encompasses some expensive real-estate in its various canals (Hope Island & Paradise Point), it also includes lower density, working & middle class suburbs to the North, further away from the beaches and canals.
Most notably, it encompasses the Eastern fringes of the great emerging mortgage belt situated between Gold Coast and Brisbane (extending far out into the West). Emerging mortgage-belts like these are more typically traditional Labor vs Coalition contests and are sensitive to bread-and-butter issues like cost-of-living and service-delivery.
Another notable aspect to Fadden is its high base of first-preference votes for parties like ONP and UAP, not what you’d generally expect to see in a “progressive” teal prospect division. At the most recent federal election there was about 22.3% of votes for community independents and micro-parties (not including the Greens). This is about the same proportion of votes that Labor received although there was also a swing towards Labor on TPP of 3.5%.
While I would not rate this a very likely pick up for any “teals” in the future, I would argue it might be more susceptible to being a Labor pickup. I would point to the division’s aforementioned encompassing of a burgeoning mortgage belt. Suburbs like Pimpama are the fastest growing suburbs in “Regional Australia” according to ABS. Mortgage belts across Australia have been quite favourable to Labor in recent elections. This is best reflected in Fadden’s Pimpama booths which edged towards on Labor on first-preferences, far more favourable than the canal front real-estate on the other side of the Coomera River.
I would also suggest that Labor’s prospects are going to improve once the new public Coomera hospital is constructed. Fadden already has a high-proportion of its workforce working in the health sector but a hospital situated in Coomera is expected to further change this composition. For a few reasons, health-workers are generally more favourable to Labor.
One final point is that this division is very vulnerable to future redistributions due to its rapid population growth. It is currently sitting at 9.28% deviation from average divisional enrolment, second highest in Queensland behind Longman. If a future redistribution orients or migrates Fadden more into the North or West, its large margin will likely become more attainable to overcome by Labor. Expect divisions like Forde, Blair and Wright to also be reconfigured in a future redistribution.
I also caution that these two final points (a new hospital and redistribution) are unlikely to matter for at least another couple Federal elections.
Interesting at a state level the seats that make up Fadden are marginal
At a federal level Fadden remains liberal . Mr Robert seems to have been very accident prone but it has not caused him to lose although in
My opinion. He should be moved on by the voters
But remember lots of corruption inquires will feature him. MAYBE he will retire some time in the next year
Fadden by-election soon
https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/1654600347187576834?t=C8I8wpklennuUMeb8JTv_A&s=19
demographics here are a lot more favourable to the liberals than a seat like aston. i’ll be watching to see how pimpama/coomera swing. these growth suburbs have been swinging substantially to labor over the years and are populated by many young families, which appear to be a demographic becoming more favourable to labor. this area is also part of brisbane’s new mortgage belt so it’ll be interesting to see whether successive interest rate rises impact the governments popularity.
At a state level if Labor were to win gold Coast seats they would be on the North Gold Coast. Think Gavan the alp’s only seat there would be within Fadden ‘s boundaries Still a hard ask for labor