ALP 6.2%
Incumbent MP
Nikki Boyd, since 2015.
Geography
South-East Queensland. Pine Rivers covers southern parts of Moreton Bay LGA, including Strathpine, Bray Park, Warner Dayboro, Mount Nebo, Samford Village and Mt Pleasant, and parts of Lawnton.
History
The seat of Pine Rivers first existed from 1972 to 1992. It was abolished in 1992 and restored in 2009. Ever since 1974 the seat has gone with the party of government.
Pine Rivers was held by the ALP’s Kenneth Leese from 1972 to 1974. The seat was held by Rob Akers from 1974 to 1983, when he lost to National candidate Yvonne Chapman. Chapman held the seat until her defeat in 1989. Chapman went on to serve as Mayor of Pine Rivers Shire from 1994 to 2008.
Margaret Woodgate won Pine Rivers for the ALP in 1989. When the seat was abolished in 1992 she moved to the seat of Kurwongbah. She served as a minister in the Goss government from 1995 to 1996. She retired in 1997.
Carolyn Male won the new seat of Glass House in 2001. She held the seat until 2009, when a redistribution changed the seat into a notional LNP seat. She then moved to the restored seat of Pine Rivers in 2009.
In 2012, Male retired, and Labor candidate Patrick Bulman lost to LNP candidate Seath Holswich.
Holswich lost to Labor’s Nikki Boyd in 2015. Boyd was re-elected in 2017.
Candidates
- Christopher Leech (One Nation)
- Tara Seiffert-Smith (Greens)
- Nikki Boyd (Labor)
- Bruce Vaschina (Independent)
- Kara Thomas (Liberal National)
- Steve Austin (United Australia)
- Maureen Brohman (Animal Justice)
- Alissa Pattrick (Informed Medical Options)
Assessment
Pine Rivers has a recent history of changing hands although it’s not likely to be a decisive seat in determining who forms government.
2017 result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Nikki Boyd | Labor | 12,002 | 36.9 | -6.6 |
| Chris Thompson | Liberal National | 8,727 | 26.9 | -15.1 |
| Peter Warren | One Nation | 3,956 | 12.2 | +12.2 |
| Jack Margaritis | Greens | 2,849 | 8.8 | -1.1 |
| Seath Holswich | Independent | 2,545 | 7.8 | +7.8 |
| Michael Kosenko | Independent | 2,055 | 6.3 | +6.3 |
| Greg French | Consumer Rights | 355 | 1.1 | +1.1 |
| Informal | 1,314 | 3.9 |
2017 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Nikki Boyd | Labor | 18,255 | 56.2 | +2.1 |
| Chris Thompson | Liberal National | 14,234 | 43.8 | -2.1 |
Booth breakdown
Booths in Pine Rivers have been divided into three areas: east, south and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in the west (52.5%) and the east (61.3%). The LNP won 51.3% in the south.
One Nation came third, with a vote ranging from 8.9% in the south to 13% in the west.
| Voter group | ON prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 12.5 | 61.3 | 10,765 | 33.1 |
| South | 8.9 | 48.7 | 4,041 | 12.4 |
| West | 13.0 | 52.5 | 3,144 | 9.7 |
| Pre-poll | 12.9 | 56.1 | 9,225 | 28.4 |
| Other votes | 12.3 | 53.8 | 5,314 | 16.4 |
Election results in Pine Rivers at the 2017 QLD state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and One Nation primary votes.
Why is Kara running in this seat? She ran in my seat of Bancroft last time and got a swing to her against the statewide trend. I thought it would have been better for her to run in Bancroft. Oh well.
I believe the ALP will win this seat (on nothing more than historical precedent), but I was amused by some of the booth figures.
The Bray Park High booth (the big 60 in the middle) was won by Dutton in 2019 (although with a 6% swing), and so was the Warner booth (the 54 just outside – although for the federal I’m using what was termed the Warner west booth as a substitute).
There was something fascinating about watching QLD in the 2000s deliver landslide victories to the ALP in State elections, but the LNP in Federal.
Like Daniel said Kara running here is a huge puzzle. She should have had a stab at Bancroft again.
Political Nomad
Queensland has delivered landslides not to elect but to get rid of. Palaszczuk is my hated in way Newman and to some extent Anna Bligh were.
QLD Observer: Not much of a puzzle – Kara and her family live in Pine Rivers.
And since Goss has been a series of labor govts interrupted by single term lnp govts… like Victoria
Thanks for the info re Kara. I have this one as ALP Retain just based on history and don’t see a big swing in Brisbane to remove AnnaPal and her team. Although that primary vote in the 30s isn’t the strongest and anything can change between now and polling day…
Prediction (August 2020): ALP Retain
The margin is heavily inflated here given the former LNP MP ran as an Independent, pulling almost 8%.
He also preferenced Labor higher than the LNP and had HTVs and volunteers on all booths. This most definitely impacted the LNPs overall result. Couple that with the 12% primary for PHON, that’s over 20% of the conservative vote that’s now up for grabs.
I note Dutton is campaigning for Kara quite a bit – could be one to watch.
It should be noted that Kara Thomas was director of research, policy and advocacy at anti-abortion lobby group Cherish Life Queensland.
@sine All the more reason to vote for Kara Thomas! The Queensland Labor Government legalised abortion up to birth for ANY reason in 2018 via the extreme Termination of Pregnancy Act (2018) – Babies born alive in failed abortions are left to die – “ if during an abortion a live birth occurs, do NOT provide life sustaining treatment, document the time and date of death” – Queensland Health’s Clinical Guidelines for abortion. Thank your mother you weren’t aborted PROTECT LIFE!
That’s one part of Kara’s background. She’s also a theatre nurse, foster carer and has a Masters degree in international and community development and done several government submissions on child safety (including part of the Foster Care QLD peak body submission to the Carmody Inquiry).
As a campaigner, I’ve heard her ground game has been solid and grass roots.
It might be interesting to watch this seat on Halloween night.
Won’t flip, Australia is very Pro-Choice, Anti-Abortion advocates don’t stand a chance of winning because of their fiction lies saying life starts at conception. Same people who want Roe v Wade overturned over in the United States smh, If you are suggesting the LNP will win here you are suggesting the LNP will get a majority government which they have no chance of, Look at the opinion polls 52-48 Labor, And you wonder why Labor is focusing on the regions up north now? Because Brisbane is a lock for Labor, The real battleground is the regions. And considering how unpopular Dutton is that might hurt her (Remember Dutton only got a small swing to him the Morrison Coattails didn’t affect him as much as his other LNP colleagues, And Nikki Boyd is a hard working local member as another reason why it won’t chance hands. The LNP winning majority government and this seat is Fantasy, Won’t happen. If the LNP win it will be Minority government and even then they won’t win this seat, Aspley is much more likely, And the Regions. That would deliver a Minority government, It is ASB to suggest the LNP will win here unless they were polling 52-48+ statewide which is the polar opposite as of right now.
The more I think about this seat the more I think of how it really is two rather distinct communities of interest. The divide is really shown by the booth results from 2015. In the west (Ben’s south and west) there’s the rural residential area, +10 LNP booths. In the east around Strathpine there’s the old suburbia (ex housing commission?) +10 ALP booths. (Boyd’s office is at Strathpine.)
The pivot is that there’s a lot of new development around the Warner area. These are the people the LNP need to win over to flip the seat. But “mortgagee family with young kids” is exactly the sort of people I’d expect to vote Labor at a state level (health, education) and LNP federally (interest rates).
Some good points Alexj, the middle of the electorate is the pivot point.
I still think this will be an interesting one to watch with some of the factors of the last election not present this time: e.g. Nick K and Seath H.
Ground game is pretty much non-existent apart from the majors. Will be interesting to see where people put their #1 if not reaching for a major. Greens will probably continue to get their 8-9% but really unsure about any of the others.
Daniel
I think abortion is a vote changer for maybe 2-3% of population. Ask Bonney Barry why she lost Aspley or Karen Struthers in Sunnybank 3 years later. I can assure you there are voters who determine the direction of their vote solely on this issue.
The issue is very complicated as was described by I think Greg Sheridan in Week end Australian. Only a small percentage of population regard the human foetus seconds after conception as bein fully human but only a very few percentage of voters regard a partial birth foetus at 8 1/2 months as being unworthy of pain relief. Cherish Life has been running adverts in Courier Mail showing a foetus lefty to die on a stainless steeel hospital trolley. These ads are authorised by probably my oldest living friend Gavan Duffy who
I met in 1960’s when he was the Qld DLP organise and I was still at school.
The adverts are hard hitting and show the extremity of abortive immorality. They show up that abortion is a crime against humanity. Very few voters would tolerate the Qld Abortion Laws if they had to watch this murderous operation.
When Holswich excluded in 2017, about 41% of the votes he held at exclusion went to Labor. PHON 33%, LNP 26%. (I don’t know what his preference card said, nor how many voters saw it.) A part of that 40% to Labor might’ve been originally from the Greens or Kosenko voters.
In any event the 3PP was Labor 50.3%, LNP 31.5%, ONP 18.2%.
The other factor (albeit minor) in Nikki Boyd’s favour is that this seat lost an estimated 3 points with the 2017 redistribution in picking up the Samford area from Ferny Grove. That area’s always going to lean conservative but Boyd has now had 3 years of being the incumbent MP there; that should be good for a little bit of improvement at the margin in those booths.
A conservative area shifting from one Labor electorate to another shouldn’t have that much of an effect. If it had come in from a Lib seat (like Everton) then it’d be more of a shift.
That end of the electorate also has Mt Nebo, one of the most ridiculously strong Greens booths anywhere (48% primary, 79% ALP 2pp). Kinda like that island in the Hawkesbury River in Bronwyn Bishop’s old seat.
Prediction: ALP Retain
ALP retain
ALP keep
Labor retain