Barron River – Queensland 2012

ALP 2.3%

Incumbent MP
Steve Wettenhall, since 2006.

Geography
Far North Queensland. Barron River covers the northern suburbs of Cairns, including Whitfield, Brinsmead, Smithfield, Redlynch and Kuranda.

History
The electorate of Barron River was first created for the 1972 election. At most elections this seat has been won by one of the parties who won the election.

Bill Wood won the seat for the ALP in 1972. He had previously sat as Member for Cook since 1969. He lost Barron River in 1974. He later served as a member of the ACT Legislative Assembly from 1989 to 2004.

Martin Tenni won Barron River for the National Party in 1974. He held the seat until 1989, when the seat was won by Lesley Clark of the ALP, as part of the Labor Party’s return to government after decades of conservative rule.

Clark lost to Lyn Warwick of the Liberal Party in 1995 before returning to the seat in 1998. She retired in 2004.

Steve Wettenhall was elected for the ALP in 2004. He has been re-elected in 2006 and 2009, and now serves as a parliamentary secretary in the Bligh Labor government.

Candidates
Sitting Labor MP Steve Wettenhall will be running for re-election. The Liberal National Party is running Michael Trout. Katter’s Australian Party is running Brendan Fitzgerald. The Queensland Party is running Wendy Richardson.

Political situation
Barron River could be argued to be a long-standing bellwether seat in Queensland state politics. With the exception of the 1972 and 1995 elections, the winner of this seat formed part of the government at every election. In addition, the 1995 election originally resulted in a Labor government which was replaced soon after by a conservative government.

Considering this history, and the small margin for the sitting Labor MP, the Liberal National Party will surely be targeting this seat as a high priority at the next election.

2009 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Wendy Richardson LNP 12,025 43.8 +8.6
Steve Wettenhall ALP 11,864 43.2 +1.9
Sarah Isaacs GRN 3,545 12.9 -0.8

2009 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Steve Wettenhall ALP 13,742 52.3 -2.4
Wendy Richardson LNP 12,522 47.7 +2.4

Booth breakdown
Booths in Barron River have been divided into three areas: Central, North and South.

The ALP outpolled the LNP in the north and centre of the electorate while the LNP outpolled the ALP in the south of the seat. The Greens vote was also substantially higher in the north and centre than in the south.

Polling booths in Barron River at the 2009 state election. North in orange, Central in green, South in blue.

 

Voter group ALP % LNP % GRN % Total votes % of votes
North 43.6 43.2 13.3 7,867 28.7
South 42.9 46.6 10.5 7,655 27.9
Central 43.7 42.2 14.1 6,682 24.4
Other votes 42.7 42.8 14.5 5,230 19.1
Labor primary votes in Barron River at the 2009 state election.
Liberal National primary votes in Barron River at the 2009 state election.
Greens primary votes in Barron River at the 2009 state election.

5 COMMENTS

  1. I presume the Katter Party will have a certain amount of success in this seat.

    This is just the sort of seat that one would think that the Katter Party`s probable greater success in taking votes of the LNP compared to the ALP and “just vote 1” attitude would give the ALP a greater chance of retaining it.

  2. Wendy Richardson is also running for the Queensland Party here, I suspect a 3 way split in the conservative vote could help Wettenhall. But still expect that Michael Trout will easily win.

  3. If you read the polling thats been published, KAP is taking votes from the ALP primary not from the LNP primary. Wendy Richardson is a non factor here…. Trout should win this easily.

Comments are closed.