Petrie – Australia 2025

LNP 4.4%

Incumbent MP
Luke Howarth, since 2013.

Geography
Northern Brisbane. Petrie covers suburbs on the northern edge of the City of Brisbane, including Bracken Ridge and parts of Aspley. It also includes parts of Moreton Bay Regional Council, including Redcliffe, Scarborough and Deception Bay.

History

Petrie was created as part of the 1949 expansion of Parliament, and has always been a marginal seat, changing sides on many occasions. The seat has been a bellwether seat since 1987.

The seat was first won by Alan Hulme (Liberal) in 1949. Hulme served as a minister in the Menzies government from 1958 until 1961, when he was defeated by Reginald O’Brien (ALP), and Hulme won the seat back off O’Brien in 1963, before resuming a ministerial role.

O’Brien retired in 1972, and the seat was won by Marhsall Cooke. Cooke was not preselected by the Liberals in 1974, and he retired, with John Hodges winning the seat. Hodges held the seat for the Liberals until the 1983 election, when Dean Wells (ALP) won the seat. Hodges won it back off Wells in 1984, and Wells went on to serve as a minister in Labor state government from 1989 until 2004.

Hodges was finally defeated by the ALP’s Gary Johns in 1987. Johns went on to serve as a minister in the last term of the Keating government, losing his seat to Liberal Teresa Gambaro in 1996.

Gambaro held the seat for eleven years before losing to Yvette D’Ath in 2007.

D’Ath was re-elected in 2010 amidst a large anti-Labor swing in Queensland was a minimal 1.7% swing to the Liberal National Party.

D’Ath narrowly lost Petrie in 2013 to the LNP’s Luke Howarth. The 3% swing to the LNP was just enough for the LNP to win with a 0.5% margin, making Petrie the most marginal Coalition seat in the country.

D’Ath returned to politics within six months, winning the state by-election in the overlapping seat of Redcliffe in February 2014. She now serves as Health Minister in the Labor state government.

Luke Howarth has been re-elected three times.

Candidates

Assessment
Petrie is a marginal seat. Petrie used to vote more pro-Labor than Queensland, but since 2019 it has voted pretty much in line with the state, so Labor’s chances in this seat probably depend on a general uptick in support in Queensland.

2022 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Luke Howarth Liberal National 46,325 43.5 -4.6
Mick Denton Labor 31,972 30.0 -0.8
Will Simon Greens 12,169 11.4 +2.7
Kelly Anne Guenoun United Australia 5,914 5.6 +2.2
Marcus Mitchell One Nation 5,613 5.3 -2.3
Chris Cicchitti Animal Justice 2,331 2.2 +2.2
Anneke Wilson Liberal Democrats 2,189 2.1 +2.1
Informal 3,913 3.5 -0.1

2022 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Luke Howarth Liberal National 57,981 54.4 -4.0
Mick Denton Labor 48,532 45.6 +4.0

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into three areas. Booths in the City of Brisbane have been grouped as South. Those around Redcliffe have been grouped as East, and the remainder around North Lakes and at the northern end of the electorate have been grouped as West.

The LNP won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in every area, ranging from 50.4% in the south to 53.6% in the east, as well as 55.4% of the pre-poll vote.

The Greens came third, with a primary vote ranging from 12.7% in the west to 14.3% in the south, as well as 10.2% of the pre-poll vote.

Voter group GRN prim LNP 2PP Total votes % of votes
East 13.3 53.6 13,679 12.8
West 12.7 52.2 13,564 12.7
South 14.3 50.4 12,530 11.8
Pre-poll 10.2 55.4 42,140 39.6
Other votes 10.4 56.6 24,600 23.1

Election results in Petrie at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Longer term this is an electorate that Labor needs to target
    @ NP
    I will include details for you to calculate the overlapping state results.
    State seats
    Parts of Aspley, Bancroft, Murrumba, Redcliffe and Sandgate
    Suburbs/Booths
    1. Aspley
    2. Bald Hills
    3. Bracken Ridge
    4. Bridgeman Downs
    5. Clontarf
    6 Clontarf Beach
    7. Fitzgibbon
    8. Griffin
    9. Kippa-Ring
    10. Mango Hill
    11. Margate
    12. Moreton Downs (in Deception Bay)
    13.Redcliffe
    14. Rothwell
    15. Scarsborough
    16. Taigum
    17. Woody Point

  2. State TPP here (2024):

    * Labor: 53.0%
    * LNP: 47.0%

    Labor did 7.4% better on the state level in 2024 here than on the federal level in 2022. Note that this only includes some prepolls from districts other than Redcliffe.

  3. @ Nether Portal, Much appreciated. I will get Longman ready for you like i did above tonight and will get Bonner ready for you tommorow.

  4. According to The Poll Bludger, this seat contains:

    * 41% of Aspley
    * 91% of Bancroft
    * 34% of Murrumba
    * 100% of Redcliffe
    * 49% of Sandgate

  5. I don’t understand why Labor haven’t done better here in the past. Even now after the Queensland election, state Labor holds 4 of the 5 seats in Petrie. State politics and federal politics don’t align, but you’d think that would at least account for something.

  6. @nick not in qld no. people seem to always vote differently at state and federal level. at a state level they are voting for things like hospitals and school

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