LNP 4.2%
Incumbent MP
Warren Entsch, since 2010. Previously Member for Leichhardt 1996-2007.
Geography
Far North Queensland. Leichhardt covers the Cape York Peninsula and the east coast of Australia as far south as Cairns. While the seat covers a vast area, most of the population is in the area around Cairns.
History
Leichhardt was first created at the 1949 election. Apart from the 2010 election, the seat has been won by the party of government at every election since 1972.
The seat was first won in 1949 by Tom Gilmore of the Country Party, who was defeated by the ALP’s Henry Bruce in 1951. Bruce held the seat until his death shortly before the 1958 election, when he was succeeded by Bill Fulton.
Fulton held the seat until his retirement at the 1975 election. David Thomson won the seat for the National Country Party in 1975, and served as a minister in the Fraser government from 1979 until his defeat at the 1983 election, when John Gayler (ALP) won the seat.
Gaylor held the seat until his retirement in 1993, and the ALP’s Peter Dodd held the seat for one term before he was defeated by Warren Entsch (LIB) in 1996.
Entsch held the seat for eleven years before retiring in 2007, when a swing of over 14% gave the seat to the ALP’s Jim Turnour.
In 2010, Entsch returned to politics and won his seat back off Turnour with a swing of 8.6%, and he has been re-elected three more times.
Assessment
Leichhardt is a very marginal seat and Labor has a real shot at winning. The seat has usually moved in line with Queensland, but did not swing in 2019 when the state swung towards the LNP. Four seats immediately to the south of Leichhardt were very marginal in the past and have swung hard towards the LNP but Leichhardt looks different to those races. Coal is not a big issue in Leichhardt as it is in Capricornia, Dawson, Flynn and Herbert. It now remains the sole LNP marginal in rural Queensland.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Warren Entsch | Liberal National | 33,753 | 37.6 | -1.9 |
| Elida Faith | Labor | 25,846 | 28.8 | +0.7 |
| Gary Oliver | Greens | 9,340 | 10.4 | +1.6 |
| Daniel Mccarthy | Katter’s Australian Party | 7,318 | 8.2 | +3.9 |
| Ross Macdonald | One Nation | 5,428 | 6.0 | -1.5 |
| Jen Sackley | United Australia Party | 3,562 | 4.0 | +4.0 |
| Chad Anderson | Independent | 2,562 | 2.9 | +2.9 |
| Jo Ashby | Conservative National Party | 1,976 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Informal | 6,160 | 6.4 | -0.9 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Warren Entsch | Liberal National | 48,638 | 54.2 | +0.2 |
| Elida Faith | Labor | 41,147 | 45.8 | -0.2 |
Booths have been divided into five areas. Polling places in the Cairns council area have been split into north, central and south Cairns. Polling places in the Douglas council area have been grouped, and the remainder have been grouped as Cape York. Most of the population is in Cairns.
The Liberal National Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in three out of five areas, with small majorities in northern Cairns and southern Cairns, and a bigger majority in Douglas. Central Cairns was a tie while Labor polled over 60% on Cape York. Entsch also won a massive 57.3% majority in the pre-poll vote, which made up almost 40% of the vote.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 6.3% in Cape York to 14.6% in northern Cairns.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| Cairns North | 14.6 | 52.7 | 12,917 | 13.0 |
| Cairns Central | 12.9 | 50.0 | 11,199 | 11.2 |
| Cairns South | 9.1 | 53.9 | 7,566 | 7.6 |
| Cape York | 6.3 | 39.5 | 4,886 | 4.9 |
| Douglas | 13.9 | 56.2 | 3,269 | 3.3 |
| Pre-poll | 9.0 | 57.3 | 39,162 | 39.3 |
| Other votes | 9.4 | 55.2 | 10,786 | 10.8 |
Election results in Longman at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.
https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2022/05-20.htm
Scroll to the bottom of the page for polling place names.
Thanks @Tom…you really are the first and best.
https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/1527568466957307904?s=21&t=BGeUpTSFJC4Bz5ttABwmGg
All polling places will have their positions filled. Even in the Kimberley/Pilbara and Cape York apparently which I find surprising but I commend those who are going out of their way to make sure everybody can vote.
interesting results here, does anyone have a good theory on what Warren Entsch did to get such a large swing to him in remote cape york areas? it looks like in some areas there was a large swing to Katter and Socialist Alliance with preferences flowing to LNP, but other booths like Kowanyama were just straight swings to LNP.
Get Up were crowing during the campaign that they had enrolled 3000 voters in remote communities with aim of rolling Warren – it might have backfired.
I have relatives in FNQ and done business in FNQ and never encountered anyone who didn’t like Warren.
ok I just worked it out, its purely the donkey vote. Entsch was higher on the ballot this time. Remote Mobile Team 4 has Len Harris (Group A) on 29% and LNP (Group S) on 4% in the senate. at that same booth the Informal Rate (25.37%) was higher than the leading candidate (Socialist Alliance 25.18%)
This seat confuses me to no end. One hand, the ALP has held up better federally than other seats in North QLD (or regional QLD in general), but its corresponding vote in the state seats isn’t necessarily better than the Townsville area, etc.
Also confused how Entsch had a swing against him in 2019 during the ALP bloodbath, but avoided much further loss even as the ALP made a decent recovery in the state this time around.
Will the ALP remain competitive here long term? How do more knowledgeable commentators think it would vote w/o Entsch’s personal vote in the mix?
Warren Entsch will become the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Liberal Party – to be kept alive at all costs. Whether they could hold without Warren (except in a good Lib year) is highly doubtful.