Kennedy – Australia 2025

KAP 13.1% vs LNP

Incumbent MP
Bob Katter, since 1993. Previously state member for Flinders 1974-1992.

• Geography
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2022 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Far North Queensland and northwestern Queensland. Kennedy covers a large part of Queensland’s land mass, stretching from the Queensland coast between Cairns and Townsville (although containing neither, and stretching inland to the Northern Territory boundary, covering the inland towns of Mount Isa and Charters Towers. Other major towns include Innisfail, Ingham, Tully, Mareeba and Gordonvale.

History
Kennedy is an original federation electorate. It was mainly held by the ALP until 1966, and since then it has mainly been held by members of the Katter family, first for the Country/National Party and latterly as an independent and KAP member.

The seat was first won in 1901 by Charles McDonald of the ALP in 1901. McDonald was elected as the first Labor Speaker in 1910 when the ALP won a majority in Parliament for the first time, and served in the role for the entirety of the Labor governments of 1910-1913 and 1914-1917, although he went to the backbench when the Labor government split over conscription in 1917. He held the seat until his death in 1925.

Nationalist candidate Grosvenor Francis won Kennedy at the 1925 election unopposed following McDonald’s death. Francis won re-election in 1928 but lost Kennedy to the ALP’s Darby Riordan.

Riordan held Kennedy until his death in 1936, when he was succeeded by his nephew Bill Riordan. Riordan held the seat for thirty years, and retired in 1966.

The 1966 election saw Kennedy won by the Country Party’s Bob Katter Sr. Katter was a former member of the ALP who left the party in 1957 when the Queensland Labor Party split from the federal party, and ended up in the Country Party. He briefly served as a minister in the McMahon government for ten months in 1972 before the election of the Whitlam government.

Katter Sr died in 1990 shortly before the federal election, and the seat was won by the ALP’s Rob Hulls, who ran a business in Mount Isa. Hulls held the seat for one term, losing to Bob Katter Jr, a former state MP, at the 1993 election. Hulls moved to Victoria and was elected to the Victorian state parliament in 1996. Rob Hulls went on to serve as a minister in the Bracks government and as Deputy Premier in the Brumby government.

Katter Jr was a strong supporter of Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s state government, and found himself at odds with the federal Liberal/National coalition. He resigned from the Nationals in 2001 and easily won re-election as an independent in 2001, and at the next three elections.

Following the 2010 federal election, Katter found himself sharing the balance of power with fellow independents. He broke with fellow independents in refusing to support a minority Labor government.

In 2011, Bob Katter founded a minor party led by himself, named Katter’s Australian Party (KAP). Katter has continued to represent Kennedy as a KAP member since then.

Candidates

Assessment
Kennedy is a safe seat for Bob Katter.

2022 result

2022 two-candidate-preferred result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into seven areas. Kennedy covers a massive geographic area.

Most of the booths lie close to the east coast of Queensland. Booths in Tablelands and Cassowary Coast council areas have been grouped together under the name of the council.Those booths in the south of Cairns Regional Council have been grouped as ‘Mulgrave’.

Booths in Carpentaria, Hinchinbrook and Townsville local council areas, along with a single booth across the border in Charters Towers council area have been grouped together as “Hinchinbrook”.

Booths in the inland towns of Mount Isa and Charters Towers have been grouped, with the remainder of remote polling places being grouped as ‘West’.

Bob Katter won a clear majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in every area, ranging from 62.9% in Cassowary Coast to 72.3% in the west.

Election results in Kennedy at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Katter’s Australian Party vs LNP), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Katter’s Australian Party, the Liberal National Party and Labor.

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