Blair – Australia 2025

this will be the lnps best prospect in qld in 2025

Nope. LNP have maxed out their gains in Qld. If the LNP couldn’t win this seat in the 2013 federal election, it’s doubtful they would win this at the next election. Labor retain.

I do agree that the LNP has most likely maxed out its gains in QLD. However, this one of the few seats in the nation where the populist approach of today’s Libs will work. Really the only Labor held seat in QLD that they need to sandbag. This is a white working class seat so if Dutton cannot win here, i dont know where else he can so it is Dutton’s to loose. Longer term however, i expect this seat to improve for Labor with urbanisation leading to seat to geopgrahically shrink and become less rural.

This would for sure be an LNP target at least.

It’s a bit like Dickson – generally marginal and within the sights of the opponents but difficult to flip. Blair remained Labor not only in 2013 but in 2019 when there was a regional and working-class backlash against Shorten-led Labor. Nevertheless, this is still within LNP’s sights.

Like @Nimalan mentioned, the hard-right populism of the LNP could work here in 2025, but won’t work in Liberal seats that went green/teal in 2022. Add to that, Dutton with his home state advantage can surpress both UAP and One Nation.

Dickson should sure up for Dutton at the next election

This will probably fall next election given the strong lnp vote. The voice referendum didn’t help Labor too m7ch either

Population change does not favour the LNP here. Greater Springfield has proven itself to be reliably solid for Labor and continues to rapidly grow in population.

Agree Nicholas Greater Springfield is well educated and ethnically diverse especially Spring Mountain which is why I don’t feel the prospects for the LNP longer term especially if the Somerset region is removed as a result of population growth.

I also see this remaining as a Labor seat. Even though the Coalition have been targeting outer suburban areas based on social conservatism, I think economic issues are very pertinent in Ipswich where there is a lot of poverty, and that is what keeps the area consistently voting for Labor.

Springfield is quite different to Ipswich proper in terms of socioeconomics and education, but as others have said here, it’s equally strong in its support of Labor. Those two factors combined should keep it in Labor hands, unless the Liberals can effectively present themselves as being superior on reducing the cost of living.

Dickson is more Liberal friendly as it is more middle and upper-middle class but Blair mainly is working class around Ipswich hence Labor can hold the seat even though it includes rural conservative towns of Esk and Kilcoy. I wonder if those rural areas could be removed in the future as the Ipswich area continues to grow?

Blair has the second highest number of enrolments in QLD so at this rate, the next redistribution (a long way, away) will mean a reduced electorate. This is because of the fast growing population of Ipswich and Greater Springfield. It could lose the Somerset part (Kilcoy and Esk).

This seat has held up quite well for Labor since Kevin ’07. I was surprised when reminded that Blair and Moreton are two Howard Government seats that had swung to Labor in 2007 and have stayed with Labor ever since.

The Bremer River might serve as an ideal boundary the next redistribution will take place shortly after the next election and will gain another division

If Queensland gains a division, is there a possibility that Blair moves west? It would make sense for that to happen if the new division is in Greater Brisbane. Then Blair could become a better prospect for the LNP.

@Nicholas Queensland is not up for redistribution yet. It will be at the federal election after next.

This seat’s an odd one, it’s a bit like Franklin (the seat that on a map looks like it’s just a southern Tasmanian seat but most of the population lives in the outer suburbs of Hobart). On paper it looks like Blair is just a rural seat which makes it odd for a Labor seat but most of the population is in the outer suburbs of Ipswich.

When you look at the booths, you can see that all the Labor voting booths are in Ipswich, but the LNP won every booth outside Ipswich (plus a few in Ipswich). Rural towns like Esk actually overlap with the state seat of Nanango (Deb Frecklington’s seat). However, most of Nanango is in Maranoa.

The Somerset Region makes this seat more competitive for the LNP. Ipswich LGA has a few rural LNP voting booths as well. Fun Fact is that Esk was in Dickson in 2007 and actually helped save Dutton in the Ruddslide. If Esk was not included Dickson would have fallen to Labor that election. I dont believe the Somerset Region will ever go into Dickson again as there is a lot of population growth in Petrie/Longman and Dickson can simply move to gain territory within Moreton Bay LGA if it needs to. It is interesting that many years later Esk may be critical to making Dutton PM by potentially winning Blair. Long term, the Somerset region may be removed from Blair and make it safer for Labor.

@nether portal queensland redistribution is scheduled for march 2025 but given its within 12 months of th enext federal election which must be held by may ’25 it will be held in july/august depending on when the election is held. if the lection is held prior to march ’25 it wil be held on the original schedule

It’s been reported for some time that both Neumann and Graham Perrett in Moreton were at risk of being forced out of their seats due to Labor’s gender quota on preselection to winnable seats. This is because every other elected male politician in Queensland Labor is either on the frontbench or is the Speaker of the House.

This week, The Australian reported that while Perrett has agreed to retire at the next election, Albanese is personally intervening to keep Neumann as the candidate in Blair, because he perceives the seat as being vulnerable and thinks Neumann gives Labor the best chance of retaining.

This does lend credence to those above who think Blair could fall to the LNP, but I still think the rate of population growth in Ipswich and Springfield will keep Blair in Labor hands regardless in 2025.

I dont think Moreton is under any threat from the LNP. so if Perrett retires it will not make a difference. I do think Blair is under threat although i do concede population growth in Springfield is helping Labor longer term.

Queensland redistributions next time around should be interesting. Blair could either lose the Somerset Valley (rural towns like Esk which vote over 65% LNP and most are in the state seat of Nanango) to Maranoa or a new seat or Ipswich could be merged into one seat making Blair notionally LNP, so Blair would be a win or lose (if it loses Ipswich it will be a safe LNP seat, but if it loses Esk it will be a safe Labor seat). I also think there should be a seat called Irwin, preferably one that includes Beerwah (a suburb in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland) since that’s where Australia Zoo is.

@Nimalan for the LNP to win Moreton they would need about 45% LNP of the primary vote (Labor would get 25% and the Greens would get 20%). Because the Greens vote is around 20%, if the LNP had a primary vote lower than 40% then Labor would win on Greens preferences. This is what happened in Higgins in 2022: the Liberals won 40.7% of the primary vote but Labor had 28.5% and the Greens had 22.7% which allowed Labor to win Higgins for the first time in history with a TPP vote of 52.7% to the Liberals’ 47.9%.

@ Nether Portal The possibility of Birdsville and Esk ending up in the same electorate at the next redistribution only makes me support the idea of expanding parliament even more… it just seems increasingly ridiculous to have such a distance between (very different) communities represented by the same person, even if they’re only small towns. Sure, expanding it may not necessarily create any new regional seats, but it might avoid having an electorate that spans from the outer Brisbane Metro to the NT border for the foreseeable future.

@lajne which electorate does that?

Surely Esk would end up in Wright or Groom before Maranoa.

@ John None currently however if Somerset Regional Council were removed from Blair and added to Maranoa in the next redistribution then Maranoa would.

@ NQ View It certainly fits within both of them more than it does Maranoa but there would likely be significantly more effort required to make a coherent reconfigured Groom or Wright that includes Esk rather than simply expanding Maranoa neatly further east.

@laine based on current numbers if wouldgain from groom which in turn would gain from wright

Agree John, it is easier for Maranoa to expand into Groom by gaining towns like Oakey and Pittsworth outside Toowoomba. How far will depend on whether Queensland gets allocated a new seat or not.

For either the 30 seat or 31 seat scenarios, the loss of towns west of Toowoomba will require Groom to take in some or all of the Lockyer Valley area from Wright, which will contract to become a Scenic Rim based division (more so for a 31-seat map, which will probably result in a new seat being created in the outer southern suburbs of Brisbane).

@yoh an i reckon it will gain a seat. However it might bejust short.

@yoh an the I think a 31 seat map would split Blair in half to account to the surplus on wither side using the river as a oundary

I think contracting Wright to remove the Lockyer Valley is a bad idea. The current Wright is a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a seat, sewing together country areas with parts of Gold Coast suburbia and the rapidly developing outer urban communities in Logan. As much as the Scenic Rim and Lockyer Valley are different areas, their common rural nature and slow pace of development makes them much more similar to each other than to the parts of the Gold Coast and Logan that they share a seat with. If anything, it’s the suburban parts of Wright that should be excised. The resulting fully rural seat is a good match for Somerset Regional Council and perhaps some of the western segments of Blair, if it needs to shed some voters.

I meant to say, some of the south-western segments of Blair if it needs to shed even more voters.

The Ipswich parts of this seat make to Labor held
Except in the worst elections for Labor.

@ Nether Portal
Agree the Libs would need about 45% Primary in Moreton and many other seats especially inner metro/more affluent seats. In some other seats where there is a stronger right wing minor party vote such as Longman with ONP, the LNP can win with a lower primary. Good point about Higgins. One difference i would say, is that Higgins is a much more affluent seat the gap between Greens and ALP on primaries is quite small while in Moreton it is about 16% so i am skeptical if the Greens can actually win Moreton. Whilst Moreton does have some wealthy and trendy areas along the river much of the rest of the seat is fairly average and some low income and industrial areas as well. I do think in Higgins (on current boundaries), maybe by 2031, the Greens will outpoll Labor on primaries even if Labor runs a strong campaign

i think most of the queensland seats aside from Rankin are gettable for the LNP if you look at the 2019 results all including griffith are marginal given that a strong swing is expected against labor in qld i wouldnt put more on the no go lst

especially with a retiring member

A strong swing is expected? In the federal election? By whom?

@wilson given labors position in qld at a State level and the fact therer is always a swing against the govt when the libs are in opposition

If Queensland gains a seat post-2025, and the new seat is in SEQ, there is a possibility that Blair could be pushed further out to become more of a rural seat, thus flipping notionally to the LNP. Perhaps that could look like Blair gaining the Lockyer Valley from Wright, while ceding as much of Ipswich as necessary to compensate. However, I suspect the flow-on effects would be that some seats closer to Brisbane CBD flip the other way and/or the new seat is notionally Labor.

But for 2025, on the basis of demographic change, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a swing towards Labor here even if Labor makes losses nation-wide.

@Nicholas…. there must be a seat which includes most If not all of Ipswich.
Names don’t matter. I’d both Ipswich and the Lockner Valley were in the same seat then it would be
marginal not a forgone conclusion

@John I wouldn’t say every seat in Queensland is winnable for the LNP winnable tbh.

Brisbane, Griffith, Moreton, Oxley, Rankin and Ryan aren’t winnable anymore unless Ryan has a redistribution that moves all the inner-city areas into another seat. Because Greens are rarely unseated the three Greens seats are actually the safest despite Oxley being the safest on paper.

If the Coalition won a huge landslide some day with over 100 seats (possible but difficult) then Labor would be wiped out in Queensland. In 1996, when the Coalition won 94 seats in the House of Representatives, the Coalition under John Howard won all but three seats in Queensland (two (Brisbane and Rankin) were won by Labor while the other one (Oxley) was won by then-independent candidate/now-One Naion leader Pauline Hanson, who was the Liberal candidate but was disendorsed and therefore sat as an independent in Parliament). And of course if that type of landslide ever happens again then it’ll probably be after Bob Katter retires so yes Kennedy would be winnable for the LNP then.

@nether portal the factors are there a d sorry il correct that statement all but rankin and Kennedy. Well governments never win a seat from an opposition yet they did. There’s never been a one term govt, but it could happen. The only way Kennedy will fall to the lnp is if Bob katter Or Robbie at a state level backs a Labor minority govt. When Bon, after retireshis son will take over his seat as his father took over his father’s.

There’s an absence of a ‘red wall’ of safe Labor seats in Queensland, unlike in New South Wales or Victoria where there are Labor seats with margins consistently above 10% or even 20%.

Theoretically, the LNP could win all but Brisbane and Grififth and a few Labor seats in SEQ. Ryan is a bit more marginal than Brisbane and Grififth and would be more vulnerable if it is redistributed further away from the CBD.

In 2019, Labor hit its lowest point where there was a huge regional and working-class backlash. Labor held onto Blair in 2019. I’d say Labor was somewhat lucky given the surprise statewide backlash. The swings to Labor in 2022 in all five current Labor seats were off a low base and were ‘recovery’ swings.

QLD can be quite volatile and swingy as seen in 1996 and 2007 and 2019. I still hold onto my original claim that Blair is a target seat and the LNP could get momentum with Dutton’s hold state advantage and the decline of the UAP and ON vote.

@Votante that’s kinda what I was trying to say I mean it’s possible but unlikely for the LNP to win every seat but Brisbane and Griffith because Ryan can be redistributed to be based more around Moggill and Pullenvale and other outer suburbs where the LNP still win booths (unless a teal runs in that seat then the teal would probably win the areas that fall within the state seat of Moggill).

Especially after the state byelection, I can see this one going to the blue column. Even in an election where Labor otherwise does pretty well and manages to nip any outer suburban political realignment in the bud, QLDer parochialism and the LNP’s recent inroads at other tiers will make this one harder to retain.

I wouldnt say it is a certain LNP gain but it is white working class so certainly in Play. However, the growth of Greater Springfield is helping Labor longer term.

@nimalan and that will be neutralised by the upcoming redistribution and possible addition of another qld seat

@John

How can you be so sure of the outcome of the next redistribution? It’s also possible that Blair could shed Somerset and take in the remainder of Greater Springfield, thus becoming solid for Labor.

Most likely will on current numbers but that may have flow on effects in other Labor seats. An additional seat would most likely see Blair split between north and south of the river depending on how unpopular Labor is a state level theoretically all their federal seats could be at risk this coming election

If you replicated the by-election here and merged it with the federal election or the 2019 one, would this be an LNP win if all other booths in Blair outside Ipswich West voted like they did at the federal election but the ones in Ipswich West voted like they did at the by?