Wright – Australia 2025

It still blows my mind that this seat voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.

(I was going to post this on the Bruce thread in response to comments there about the significance of LGBTQ+ issues to different demographics.)

Nicholas, that would make sense given that many rural areas of Australia are not like the US ‘Bible belt’, in that religion is not as heavily emphasised compared to other social issues (limited support for climate change and indigenous rights). Therefore, the feelings/attitudes towards LGBT people in these communities would be more indifferent rather than strong opposition, hence why these seats recorded slim majorities in favour of gay marriage rights compared to the CALD communities in Sydney and Melbourne which are more religious in nature.

The more shocking thing is the Greens actually managed to win a booth here.

One of only 2 seats where both One Nation and The Greens polled over 10%. The others being Spence in SA

@ Nicholas
I agree with Yoh An that rural & regional Australia is not really Bible Belt. This seat pretty much had the same vote for SSM as my electorate of Menzies despite Menzies being much better educated and wealthier (If Menzies did not include Maroondah in 2017 then the Yes for SSM would likely have been even lower). Blair voted 60% in favour of SSM, despite it being much poorer than Greenway, Mitchell and Bennelong which all voted no. Many No voting electorates for SSM actually had a better than average vote for the Voice.

The other thing is that the Christian Vote (people who vote for parties like Family First) is a totally different vote than the One Nation vote. This article below finds that the typical One Nation voter is much less likely to ever attend Church even for weddings and funerals than the general Australian public. I think Family First does better with CALD communities interesting that the first Black African to be elected to parliament was elected on the FFP ticket. Many Bible Belt suburbs in Capital City Metro tend to more middle class often ethnically diverse and more aspirational. So i think it is a totally different demographic.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/27/looking-back-and-angry-what-drives-pauline-hansons-voters

Thanks for the insights! Perhaps living in North West Sydney has made me blind to the fact that there is a distinction between those two types of conservatives.

Also want to follow up what @Drake pointed out – what’s with the high Greens support in some parts of this electorate?

I also notice the state electoral district of Jordan had both One Nation and the Greens in double digits.

@Nicolas, I looked at those booths in Google maps and they are progressive mountain towns which is more educated and has large alternative hippy lifestyles like those in the Dandenongs Ranges and Blue Mountains

@Nicholas, scattered throughout the Gold Coast Hinterland are voters it would pretty fair to classify as Conservati-onists. These are fairly nationalist and conservative punters that are animated by environmental conservation, preservation and protectionism. Genuinely not trying to knock them but a fun way to think about them is bush-NIMBYs. Other analysts have referred to these types of small-g Green voters. They typically align with the Greens’ environmentalist core but might not have much interest in their social or economic policies. In Canadian politics, these voters are colloquially referred to as tree-tories.

The booth you have identified in Beechmont like mahr has suggested is a small progressive mountain town with high levels of community involvement. Another place you will see an abundance of these voters is towns scattered throughout the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Namely, the three Ms: Maleny, Montville and Mapleton.

Further comment that might be interesting in relation to Wright and its conservationist tendencies. A famous constituent, who has a private residence in Springbrook (near that booth) is John Williamson. Williamson has arguably written some of Australia’s biggest environmentalist ballads, ie. “Rip Rip Woodchip”.

Regarding other places with high Greens AND One Nation votes. I implore you to look at the State Electoral division of Glass House. Home of Australia Zoo, founded by Steve Irwin – another “conservationist” icon of Australia. Glass House also houses the aforementioned towns of Maleny and Montville. A potential 4CP race if One Nation and the Greens are doing well.

https://pseph.io/queensland-election-2024/profile/glass-house

Even the high green voting areas here voted no in the voice ref. Same with Fairfax and a few of the Richmond booths. Very different Greens voters to the ones in the inner city.

But yes @Nicholas to Nimalan’s point, it can be myopic to not make a distinction between the various colours of “conservatism”, especially with a state like Queensland. The state has a smattering of various political factions and attitudes that could broadly be considered “conservative”, even within its state Labor Party. The cohorts of voters who would be interested in the urban LNP brand (ie. Gold Coast retirees) are very distinct from One Nation’s voters throughout South East Queensland’s (ie. disaffected households in the outer-suburban fringes of Logan and Ipswich). Also worth thinking about Katter’s Australia Party and where they fit into the picture.

Further to this, incorporating the point around religious attitudes. Many analysts have highlighted the distrust in institutions within cohorts of One Nation supporters – including organised religion and church. Looking at the ABS, a lot of the Queensland State divisions where One Nation have historically done very well, are generally above the mean “No Religion” of Queensland. A function of this lack of religion is partially the absence of cultural diversity in these regions though. As Nimalan has pointed out, and as the recent Census suggests, religiosity is elated in the most culturally diverse parts of the countries. The parts with many recent migrants.

Faiths like Christianity, especially Anglicanism, have been declining as older Australians die and their children and grand-children have not adopted and carried this on. Whereas faiths like Islam and Hinduism are very popular amongst emerging migrant populations and is persisting across generations.

Random side note: the “teal” parts of Melbourne and Sydney are where Anglicanism was quite high in gone-by decades but has now been superseded with secularism and a total absence of religion.

@ SEQ Observer Good analysis, i agree with you. Something else i have noticed is that many ethnic forms of Christianity especially Greek Orthodox has grown over the years even with little if any immigration from Greece/Cyprus these days. The Greek community is now well into its 4th generation know but it does not seems to be losing their religion. Growing up and living in an area with of the highest concentrations of Greek Australian, it has been my personal experience as well with virtually know one i have met who does not identify as Greek Orthodox. Other ethnic Christian groups such as Maronites, Copts, Armenian Apostolic are showing similar trends. Interestingly, Judaism is growing albeit slowly but is not really showing decline again little Jewish immigration to Australia these days. I guess in these cases Religions is probably less theological and more about identity, cultural and heritage. https://profile.id.com.au/australia/religion?EndYear=2006&DataType=UR

i would also say Catholicism is holding up better than Anglicanism etc as a larger proportion of Catholics are CALD (Italians, Maltese, Croatian etc)

I agree Nimalan that when it comes to Christianity, it can be more about identity and heritage among ethnic communities. For example in my experience, Croatians & Italians are far more likely to still identify as Catholic than those of Anglo-Celtic descent, even if they were raised in Catholic families and went to Catholic school.

It’s more a part of their cultural identity than anything else. Even if they don’t practice or go to church, they are still more likely to identify with that as being their religion because it is intrinsically linked with being Croatian or Italian, and in the case of Croatians especially is a point of distinction between them and other Slavic nationalities that observed Orthodox Christianity (eg. Serbian Orthodox).

I do think however Catholic will eventually decline fast as from Third Generation onwards in ethnic groups like Italians and Maltese has completely lost their langauge and become full been assimilated to Australian society so they will follow trends more like an Anglo-Saxon.

As I grown up in a large Greek Community, Greeks on the other hand fared better in retaining langauge (ABS Stats only shown a small decline in the Greek Speakers in Australia compared to the massive Decline in Italian Speakers) due to the Greek Orthodox church only offering Greek service and Strong Family Bonds which in turn made even most Third Generation Greek Australia proud of their culture.

I grew up close to Oakleigh, and while I went to a Catholic school, a large percentage of the student population were actually Greek (and in turn, Greek Orthodox). All of them went to Greek School on Saturdays, which isn’t something I’m aware of many other ethnic groups doing, and that’s probably a large part of why their language and customs have remained pretty well intact despite being on the 4th generation here.

From my personal experience, Italians who went to schools such Marcellin College, Loyola College and Parade College have retained their culture much better than other Italians although like Trent pointed out not to the extent of Greeks as they had the benefit of community language schools. Much of the Greek Community language schools are closely linked to the Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek schools are still flourishing today and probably have the same number of students that they did 20 years ago. It is is amazing to think that these current students are 4th generation and would likely have Australian born grandparents. Other Orthodox communities such as Macedonians and Serbs also have community language schools linked to their respective churches and they languages remain strong like Greek.

Was just mentioning in the Logan State election profile that Wright might become more marginal over the next two elections due to Yarrabilba’s (and Kairabah’s) increasing weight within the division (and likely boundary changes).

I noticed that the primary votes in Yarrabilba’s booth is extremely fascinating.

It really splintered in about four or five different ways, with both ONP and the Greens managing votes above 15%. UAP also managed more than 10%, surely directing a sizable share of preferences to ONP. The incumbent Buchholz had less than a quarter of voters offering him their first preference. Labor received the most first-preference votes, but still didn’t manage to breach past 30%.

Buchholz (LNP) 341 23.1% -5.5%
Duffill (UAPP) 166 11.3% +4.1%
Hicks (ON) 250 16.9% +4.7%
Banasiak (CYA) 26 1.8%
Mccreadie (ALP) 427 28.9% -3.8%
Thompson (GRN) 265 18.0% +6.2%

Worth emphasising that this is only an election day booth, likely that many Yarrabilba residents likely voted early where they could have.

1,475 total votes were captured at this booth in 2022.

Likely that there is significantly more electors here already. At the Voice Referendum last year, 1,849 (+25%) electors voted at this booth than 2022. ~69% voted No at this booth if anyone’s wondering.

*voted at this booth compared to 2022

@SEQ doubtful wright is held on a whooping 10% margin and only managed a mediocre 3.69% swing on a good election year il wager the lnp will recover that at the next election

I’m wondering if Queensland’s next redistribution could see Wright losing the Lockyer Valley to Blair or Groom, and becoming a seat based on Logan and Scenic Rim, similar to the old boundaries of Forde. Is there any case to be made for Greater Springfield to become part of such a division, given its similarities to the new housing estates in Logan? There is talk of a “Greater Flagstone” in a similar spirit to that of Greater Springfield.

also its worth noting that even during Kevin 07 the division would still have been 54-46 to the libs (notionally) and they barely made a dent during the turnbull election in 16.

@nicolas blair is over quota and so is wright maranoa will most likely take territory from groom and will take part of the lockyer valley from wright. however i do believe that ulge in wright needs to be addressed possibly by territory swap

Agree Nicholas, Ipswich may well have to be broken up into two to make the numbers fit evenly. Blair will likely become more rural, losing urban parts of Ipswich including Springfield (especially if Queensland gains a new seat in reapportionment). The rural parts of Ipswich like Rosewood and Marburg would be a good fit with neighboring Lockyer Valley and Somerset.

If Queensland gains a new seat, I probably see Forde contracting to cover just the Northern Gold Coast centered on Coomera and Beenleigh, with other gold coast seats restructured to take in all the hinterland areas from Wright. Wright would then be left as a purely Scenic Rim and Logan based seat, with room to create a new seat in the Springfield area that also includes central Ipswich.

Greater Springfield & Greater Flagstone together has some merit.

It will be Rankin that becomes key to resolving community of interest but balance numbers amongst Wright/Blair/Oxley/Forde.

I agree @Yoh An that these probably are the cleanest boundaries when dividing things up on an LGA basis. However, I am not sure that the numbers for these redistributions will work out evenly. Wright is still going to have to take in parts of the Gold Coast Hinterland under your proposal to chop the Lockyer Valley. I also think that Queensland is unlikely to gain another Federal seat in the near term because of the resumption of international migration which is now buoying Victoria and NSW’s population numbers. Even despite the huge interstate migration that Queensland is still experiencing from these states.

I also think it would be a shame that Beenleigh and the Albert region more broadly, a significant CoI, with a distinct identity from both the Gold Coast and Logan will lose having Forde being centered on itself under your model. I alternatively could foresee a Forde which remains centered on the Beenleigh and Loganlea-Carbrook SA3s. It loses its Southern boundaries encompassing Ormeau and Upper Coomera and reorients itself further East-West. West into the Waterford-Tamborine road corridor which shares the same 4207 postcode with Beenleigh. SA2s including Logan Village, Yarrabilba. And then further East into rural Albert localities on the Northern end of the Gold Coast from Stapylton out to Jacobs Well. It will hold onto Yatala, and split parts of Ormeau with Fadden. With Fadden losing some of its southern fringes so that Upper Coomera can belong in the same division as Coomera and Pimpama.

Yeah agree SEQ Observer. I had a look at ABS figures and Queensland’s rate of growth whilst still high is now equal or just under the rates for Victoria and WA. As a result, the next apportionment quota could still fall just under 30.5 and not enough to be allocated a 31st seat.

Based on the 30 seat enrolment quotas, it looks like some of the messy geographic configurations of outer Brisbane seats will still have to continue.

@Nicholas largely agree with your proposed boundary changes for Wright. While I think the ABS were probably clever in combining Lockyer Valley and Scenic Rim because of their similar ex-urban/rural profiles, I personally dislike it because they are still quite disconnected geographically from each other. Agree that Lockyer Valley is a far better fit with Somerset, Ipswich’s fringes and Toowoomba’s fringes so should be split in some fashion between Blair and Groom. And agree that Wright could justify its existence by orienting itself around the new emerging Western corridor including many of its new housing developments, while at the same time extending to the Queensland-NSW border, taking in Scenic Rim and parts of the Gold Coast Hinterland. I am just not sure it could fit Springfield within it. I think Springfield is probably still best matched to Blair, but the others like Greater Flagstone and Ripley Valley would make more sense in Wright. Wright is becoming very much like McEwen, in Melbourne.