Lilley – Australia 2022

ALP 0.6%

Incumbent MP
Anika Wells, since 2019.

• Geography
• History
• Candidate summary
• Assessment
• 2019 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Northern Brisbane. Lilley covers most of the northern corner of the City of Brisbane, including the suburbs of Chermside, Stafford, McDowall, Wavell Heights, Nudgee, Taigum, Deagon, Sandgate, Zilllmere and Nundah. The seat also covers Brisbane Airport, which substantially increases the land area covered by Lilley, without much of a resident population.

History
The seat of Lilley was first created at the 1913 election. The seat has a history of moving between Labor and conservative parties, although Labor has won it at all but one election since 1980.

The seat was first won in 1913 by Liberal candidate Jacob Stumm. He retired at the 1917 election.

The seat was then won by Nationalist candidate George Mackay. Mackay held the seat for 17 years. After the new United Australia Party won the 1931 election, Mackay was elected Speaker, and served in that role until his retirement at the 1934 election.

Lilley was then won by the UAP’s Donald Charles Cameron, who had previously held Brisbane from 1919 until his defeat in 1931. He only held Lilley for one term before retiring.

In 1937, the UAP’s William Jolly was elected to Lilley. Jolly had been the first Lord Mayor of the Greater Brisbane City Council. Jolly held the seat for two terms, but lost the seat in 1943 to the ALP’s James Hadley.

Hadley was the first Labor member for Lilley, and held it until his defeat in 1949. The seat was then held by Liberal MP Bruce Wight.

Wight held the seat until 1961, when he was defeated by the ALP’s Donald James Cameron. He only held the seat for one term, losing to Kevin Cairns from the Liberal Party in 1963. Cairns served as a junior minister under William McMahon from 1971 to his defeat at the 1972 election, losing to the ALP’s Frank Doyle. Cairns won the seat back at the next election in 1974 and held it until his defeat in 1980.

The ALP’s Elaine Darling won Lilley in 1980. She managed to win re-election in 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1990, and was the first Labor MP to hold Lilley for more than two terms.

Darling retired in 1993, and was succeeded by Wayne Swan, the Secretary of the Queensland ALP. Swan lost the seat in 1996 to the Liberal Party’s Elizabeth Grace, but won it back in 1998. Swan has been re-elected seven times.

Swan joined the Opposition shadow ministry in 1998 and rose to the top of the party, becoming Treasurer after the election of the Rudd government in 2007.

In 2010, Wayne Swan became Deputy Prime Minister. Swan resigned from the deputy leadership and the frontbench when Kevin Rudd was elected Labor leader in 2013. Swan held Lilley until his retirement in 2019, when he was succeeded by Labor’s Anika Wells.

Candidates

Assessment
Lilley is a very marginal seat but Wells will likely benefit from a new personal vote after holding the seat for the last term.

2019 result

2019 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into four areas: Central, East, North and South.

Labor won a majority on election day in all four areas, ranging from 51.2% in the south to 55.7% in the north. The LNP clawed back the margin thanks to a 52.6% margin in the pre-poll vote and 52% in the other votes.

Election results in Lilley at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.

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