LNP 1.7%
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.
Peter Dutton has held his seat ever since. He served as a junior minister in the final term of the Howard government and as a senior minister in the Coalition government from 2013 until 2022. After the Coalition’s defeat at the 2022 election, he was elected as leader of the opposition.
- Vinnie Batten (Greens)
- Peter Dutton (Liberal National)
- Ali France (Labor)
- Suniti Hewett (Family First)
- Ellie Smith (Independent)
- Joel Stevenson (One Nation)
Assessment
Dickson is quite a marginal seat and it is worth watching. Labor did quite poorly in Queensland in 2022 compared to other states. If they benefit from incumbency they could pick up a substantial amount of ground in Queensland.
It’s also worth noting that Dutton has increased his profile now as leader of his party, which will probably improve his position in his local seat.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Peter Dutton | Liberal National | 41,657 | 42.1 | -3.9 |
| Ali France | Labor | 31,396 | 31.7 | +0.4 |
| Vinnie Batten | Greens | 12,871 | 13.0 | +3.0 |
| Tamera Gibson | One Nation | 5,312 | 5.4 | +0.2 |
| Alina Karen Ward | United Australia | 2,717 | 2.7 | +0.5 |
| Alan Buchbach | Independent | 2,222 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Thor Prohaska | Independent | 1,618 | 1.6 | -0.7 |
| Lloyd Russell | Liberal Democrats | 1,236 | 1.2 | +1.3 |
| Informal | 3,996 | 3.9 | -0.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Peter Dutton | Liberal National | 51,196 | 51.7 | -2.9 |
| Ali France | Labor | 47,833 | 48.3 | +2.9 |
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 Liberal National Party won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the south-east (51.1%) and the west (54.7%), as well as on the pre-poll and other votes. Labor won 52.5% in the north-east.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 13.2% in the north-east to 18% in the west, but just 11.7% on the pre-poll.
| Voter group | GRN prim | LNP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| North-East | 13.2 | 47.5 | 16,958 | 17.1 |
| South-East | 15.8 | 51.1 | 14,310 | 14.5 |
| West | 18.0 | 54.7 | 4,621 | 4.7 |
| Pre-poll | 11.7 | 52.3 | 38,111 | 38.5 |
| Other votes | 12.4 | 53.4 | 25,029 | 25.3 |
Election results in Dickson at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.
Pete seems to be making a few misteps lately – doubt it will turn of the voters of Dickson though
If 1682 voters had preferenced Dutton below Ali France last time, she’d be the Member for Dickson. https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseDivisionPage-27966-252.htm
My opinion, the Caravan Terrorism Plot hoax is difficult to get my head around, but if it can be amplified into Dutton weaponising antisemitism for political purposes, he’s gone.
I don’t think it can Gympie – mostly because there were still multiple attacks on Jewish businesses/people, and Albo and Minns both said pretty much the exact same thing. It would be a bigger issue if Dreyfus’s ‘weaponizing anti-Semitism’ line was because he was tipped off about the result of the investigation.
The fundraiser thing is more of a problem for Dutton. Not so much turning up to the fundraiser itself but the lack of judgement – surely someone said this was a bad look if it came out (which it had to).
And the reason you can’t get your head around the hoax is that it is bonkers. Someone organised a series of increasingly serious attacks in Jewish areas so at some stage he could call in a fake terror plot so he could get a reduced sentence for something (We don’t who it is or what he was found guilty of).
It may well be true, but seems overly convoluted and doesn’t get avoid that we still had a bunch of anti semetic attacks.
@Mostly Labor Voter:
Sure, but didn’t the antisemitic attacks all have the same origin, viz the bikie leader now on remand paying a crew of young dopes huge sums for work they weren’t competent at?
Sounds a little like he was the cutout that ended up being the patsy?
***********************
The issue remains that Dutton made it out to be something it wasn’t.
If Minns did too, that just means Minns hasn’t got a political future either, rather than Dutts being in the clear because Minns went overboard too, imo.
I don’t think all of the anti Semitic attacks are part of this are they? I haven’t seen the Elsternwick fire bombing being included for example. And the caravan did have the explosives etc.
I don’t necessarily think Dutton (or Minns or Albo) did anything wrong over this, but I think Labor are worried about Burke, Bowen and Khalil and aren’t worried about Burns so are trying to push that we don’t have a problem with anti Semitism (which I actually think we don’t) and Dutton is weaponizing such incidents as there are.
Dutton called out Albo for being soft of terrorism, not letting the public know about it and causing division – all over a hoax
But I guess voters of Dickson should know that is what Pete likes and continue to vote him back in
“so are trying to push that we don’t have a problem with anti Semitism (which I actually think we don’t)”
MLV – Trying telling that to a Jewish Australian – I don’t think you will get a good reception. They are a community on edge.
Yeah, I thought about that after I posted Redistributed. It wasn’t as clear as I should have been.
I certainly do not downplay the fear that this has caused the Jewish community, nor the reality of what are definitely serious acts of terrorism. However, much of the terrorism is fairly small in scale, the demographic most likely to engage is also the demographic most likely to be under monitoring for terrorism anyway, and I think the majority of the population have sympathies with the Jewish population, particularly after 7/10/23 (one way I am sure of this is the result of the public vote for last years Eurovision song contest). I also would not at all be surprised to find that there has been a lot of external support for the endless pro Hamas (for that is what they are) marches rather than them being home grown.
TLDR – while there are pockets of anti Semitism in the more radical sections of the Muslim and student left communities, I don’t think it is widespread amongst society as a whole.
“so are trying to push that we don’t have a problem with anti Semitism (which I actually think we don’t)”
Labor pushing that line invites pushback, so I doubt they’re going there.
It’s pretty simple, the claim is Dutton stoked race based fear when he knew or should have known iit was baseless. There’s a social cohesion argument too. Should a peak ethnic organisation, say FECCA, take up the cudgels, LNP will have to let Dutts go, or prepare for a W.A. size loss, imo.
@bazza but he didnt know it was a hoax. had this been real then he would have been correct. terror threats should be taken seriously until they are proven no to be.
for the jewish community these threats were real. i hope nsw police throw the books at them
@john – yes – pete didn’t know much about it at all. Didn’t stop him trying to play politics though
“had this been real then he would have been correct” – I hope that you let everyone off as easily as this
That questions his judgement. He said he could get Trump to not impose tariffs against Australia..
He also said tariffs would curtail domestic production
Now if you believe that i’ ve got a bridge for you to buy at least 4 times !
@Mick Quinlivan
“”He also said tariffs would curtail domestic production””
That’s highly likely to be correct, unless the importers decide to pay the tariff anyway and keep buying Aussie.
Could happen, history says it probably won’t.
Always a work around with the Americans though. If it’s a particular type of steel they need, it might be imported through Puerto Rico, dodging the tariff.
Should Dutton win the election, which is no sure thing, I think he’d work something out with Trump.
@bazza i dont why i wouldnt dutton was acting on what was a credible threat at the time. any terrorist threat should be taken seriously until its proven otherwise. this is not partisan. i dont hold anything against Chris Minns either.
@gympie with the tariffs it seem sthe main problem trump advisors have is with our aluminium. it might be easier to get an exemption on just steel thats still a win for australia. the problem the current govt is both Albanese and KRudd made disparaging comments about Trump while he(albo) was in opposition and then rudd made as a private citizen. there will be people around trump reminding him of these comments and this only hurts the issue. added to that australias foreign minister breaking with the US over the israel/gaza issue. australia would do well to remind america we are paying them to build submarines for us and using this as a bargaining chip to perhaps say they could build them with australias stuff.
@ John;
Tariffs are the idea of the people behind Trump, the suggestion from Howard Lutnick is Australia abused the conditions on the Turnbull exemption.
On the terrorism threat, Albo and Burke offered Dutton briefings in response to questions in QT. It looks like a charade, Dutton as a former detective wasn’t fooled, Burke and Albo knew that, but the bottom line is Dutton amplified a threat he probably guessed was dodgy and avoided being briefed with the info the Government had.
So, it’s all political, if Dutton is adroit enough he’ll emerge on top, but my reading of The Australian lately is Newscorp is gunning for Dutton and David Crisafulli.
Yes – Pete seems a threat to national security if his first reaction is to score some sort of political points via creating division rather than see what the actual facts are
@john: “its not her job and has nothing to do with her portfolio.”: It IS her job as the Member for Lilley to help the people of Lilley in their time of need. Filling and giving out sandbags to prepare her community for a cyclone ARE a part of her job. It is also Jim Chalmer’s job as the Member for Rankin to do the same thing. Every member of the House of Representatives, including ministers and the Prime Minister, is fundamentally a member of their electrate and is supposed to help the people in their electorate, especially during a time of need.
However, Peter Dutton does not seem to take it seriously his job as the Member for Dickson. Jetting to a billionaire’s fundraiser while his community is preparing for a cyclone is not only bad optics, it also shows a lack of leadership. This is not something a PM or any political leader would do, because political leaders are supposed to be coordinating the preparation either on the ground or nationally from Canberra.
Peter Dutton could have done many things on the ground to help his community prepare for the cyclone, including filling sandbags, doorknocking and checking on residents, making phone calls to vulnerable residents etc. MPs and even non-incumbent candidates from all sides of the political spectrum did this. And they did not do this for “brownie points” either. They did this to show their empathy, solidarity with their community and their commitment to serving their constituents. What’s more, there’s literally no better way of winning the hearts and votes of their constituents than to actually go out to meet and help people in their electorates, especially for candidates that have not yet been elected.
However, unlike many SEQ-based state and federal MPs from all sides of politics, including many of his own LNP colleagues, he was not seen on the ground helping people in his electorate when they are preparing for the cyclone. Dutton was nowhere to be seen on the ground in his electorate during cyclone preparation. He only posted a few updates on social media about the cyclone. It’s his Labor opponent Ali France and local state MPs who stepped up to check on his constituents and help them prepare for the cyclone. QLD Premier David Crisafulli also did a great job.
Rusted-on voters probably don’t care, but for swinging voters, especially ones that recently moved into or enrolled to vote in the electorate, it could make them feel that their local MP has abandoned them in their time of need. Considering Dutton’s seat of Dickson is the most marginal in QLD, not helping his community prepare for a natural disaster is politically risky.
P.S. Albanese admitted he did attend a fundraiser at the same day as Peter Dutton. I do crtiticise Albanese for this and I think he should not have attended the fundraiser. However Albanese spent the rest of the week either in cyclone-affected areas or in Canberra, where the national situation room is located. He also cancelled all non-flood-related commitments during this period, including abandoning a planned campaigning trip to Perth ahead of the WA state election and shelving plan to call a federal election the following day. The same could not be said for Peter Dutton. Not only was he not on the ground helping people in his home state prepare for the cyclone, but also he’s largely absent from any disaster management centres during the preparation.
Bs he was in Perth hanging out with Roger cook on the the Friday, by that argument so did Dutton he literally flew to Sydney for a couple hours and then went straight back. They literally showed him on camera outside his property and his aunties house giving interviews. Dutton going away for a couple hours in no way effected anything.
Joseph,
I think you are missing the point-there was no cyclone(remember Wayne Swan called it correctly).
With no cyclone the issue of who was where and doing what is now dead.
Now Peter Dutton says he is considering a Referendum in allowing the Federal Government to deport Dual Citizens rather than the courts.
@math it would never get up. All they need to do is strip them heir aus citizenship then deport them
Dutton is very worried esp with a poll
Showing 54.50% labors way… before seemed to be 51% lib.
@Darth I believe that the only way to lose citizenship currently is if you lied on your application for citizenship
I would have thought Dutton would have observed the political lessons of conducting referendums in your first term, and sworn off doing exactly the same.
@Darth Vader
It’s got similar appeal to Abbott’s promise to repeal S 18[c], Abbott got mugged by reality, Dutton is hoping he’a appeasing the right minority this time.
In an alternative history if the Concept of The Voice never existed and Simple Indigenous Recognition was put forward instead which then leads to Albanese or maybe either Turnbull or Scomo introducing the referendum, what would have happened? My take.
Some speculate there would be a very high Yes Vote, however that fails to mention Pauline Hanson already said she would have opposed Simple Indigenous Recognition (and then potentially add in Maverick Coalition MP’s and Sky News After Dark commentators) which historically is enough to trigger a significant Official No Campaign and that level of opposition has historically can defeat Lib-Lab supported Referendums (Indigenous Recognition itself may have initially 75% Support but given there is always 20%+ drop of support if not every MP supports the referendums which could potentially end up failing). This is why 6 out of the 8 referendums that succeeded were all above 70% where the Official No Campaign did not exist (or were very weak).
The hypothetical No Campaign could still have used arguments such as High Court cases on scope of Land Rights and not to mention that at least 50% of the electorate would only considered voting to change a constitution if “things are broke” or will almost never will which does not apply well for a Simple Indigenous Recognition. This is why the two referendums that succeeded with closer results (both at 54%), they were viewed as gaining more benefits for a majority of Australians in a majority of states.
Source: https://demosau.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Voice-to-Parliament-Research-What-Drove-The-No-Victory.pdf
My guess is that it would have failed and if the proposal was led by a Liberal like Turnbull or Scomo the hard right of the LNP would have just used this as another thing to try and white-ant the leader
i dont see why we need indigenous recognition in the constitution we already get it on every single qantas and jetstar flight……….
Makes me wonder, what would had 1967 Referendum fared if just at least 1 MP or Senator had opposed the Referendum?
I don’t think you will find Sky After Dark as being as monolithic in its views as that. In the case of Indigenous Recognition then Kenny would strongly support, Credlin would support depending on wording, Markson and Murray not sure but probably only if referendum held with election, Panihi probably oppose Bolt definitely oppose.
It would also have been much harder for the No campaign because the wording would have been known upfront and as long as it was fairly benign the opponents wold look like extremists, rather than being in tune with the zeitgeist.
I think it far more likely that the strongest No vote in that scenario would come from the Greens who would think it could never go far enough.
If the independent Teal Ellie Smith continues with an open ticket and doesn’t direct preferences away from Dutton by doing a HTV card that places Dutton last…
She could help Dutton get over the line in Dickson.
And whilst the Teals want to pull from both the major parties…
This is the MAIN seat the candidate needs to be crystal clear … and not play a “hedge a bet both ways” game.
The Teal campaign slogan is all about ‘integrity’
The nation cannot afford a Trump2.0 style government.
Integrity means you don’t help re-elect Dutton.
The most divisive, racist, pro nuke warmonger : who has continued the Howard, Abbott, Morrison trajectory of destroying traditional liberal values, in favour of right winged extremism.
Right on Q
Backed by Trump 💣
I’m Curious to see how the senate results in the electorate will turn out cause Senator Rennick resides in Dickson
I agree with ‘You know it makes sense’ comment above. If Ellie Smith does not set her preferences in this crucial electorate placing Dutton last, we are very likely to see a Dutton win. Why? Because it’s a conservative electorate, and many of those voting for her will put Dutton ahead of Labor. Therefore job done. He is back in.
Is Smith likely to finish ahead of ALP on primary/2CP?
No, that is incorrect, because it will be the lower end candidates who must preference Ellie Smith as they will be removed if there is not an overall 51% winner out of the total votes. Ellie is asking all voters to place her no 1 and make their own decisions how the numbers are written down the ballot paper. If you assume it is a contest at Labor/LNP, then Independent then the the major party preferences are irrelevant. Please educate yourself on youtube on the preferential voting system. @heather forward
I took a drive through the more well off parts of this seat today (Highvale, Samford, Bunya, Ferny Hills); I saw lots of corflutes, even numbers for Dutton and Ellie Smith. Couldn’t find any Labor corflutes, although Labor doesn’t traditionally do too well in those areas. I need to venture to the more working class parts of the seat (Kallangur, Strathpine, Lanwton, Petrie) and see what it’s like there.
If Dutton loses Dickson to labor he’s prolly got nowhere near govt nationally and would have either resigned to retire from politics or gone to the backbench.
If Dutton lost Dickson to Labor then he’s got no seat in parliament and won’t be part of anything. Not that it’s anywhere near likely and he’ll most likely retain.
I don’t think he’s losing Dickson, there’s a very small chance he could. But if he didn’t lose dickson in 2022, he’s probably not losing it now
I’m just saying if he’s losing Dickson he’s prolly lost other seats or only got a small increase at which point he’s would have been done if he retained it.
Yes that’s a fair point