Cook – Queensland 2024

ALP 6.3%

Incumbent MP
Cynthia Lui, since 2017.

• Geography
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2020 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
Far North Queensland. Cook covers all of Cape York and extends to the northern fringe of Cairns. It includes the towns of Port Douglas, Mossman and Cooktown, as well as all of Cape York and the Torres Strait Islands.

History
A seat by the name of Cook has existed since 1876, except for one term in the 1950s. The seat was held by the ALP for most of the twentieth century.

The seat was first won by the ALP in 1915, when Henry Ryan won the seat. The Country Party’s James Kenny won the seat in 1929 and held it until 1935. The ALP’s Harold Collins won the seat in 1935. He held it until Cook was abolished at the 1950 election. He moved to the seat of Tablelands, which he held until 1957.

Cook was restored at the 1953 election, when it was won by the ALP’s Bunny Adair. He left the ALP to join the anti-communist Queensland Labor Partyin 1957. He then became an independent in 1963, and held the seat until 1969.

The ALP’s Bill Wood held the seat from 1969 to 1972, followed by Edwin Wallis-Smith, also from the ALP, from 1972 to 1974.

The Country Party’s Eric Deeral won the seat in 1974 and lost it in 1977.

Bob Scott won the seat back for the ALP in 1977 and held it until 1989. Steve Bredhauer held the seat from 1989 to 2004, serving as Minister for Transport from 1998 to 2004. Bredhauer was succeeded in 2004 by his electorate officer Jason O’Brien.

Jason O’Brien was re-elected in 2006 and 2009. In 2012, O’Brien was defeated by LNP candidate David Kempton.

Kempton lost in 2015 to Labor candidate Billy Gordon. After he was elected, accusations surfaced against Gordon about previous criminal offences committed in the 1980s, as well as accusations of domestic violence. These offences had not been disclosed to his party, and Gordon was expelled from the Labor caucus over the issue. Gordon sat on the crossbench as an independent for the remainder of his term.

Gordon retired in 2017, and Labor’s Cynthia Lui won the seat. Lui was re-elected in 2020.

Candidates

• Duane Amos (Katter’s Australian Party)
• David Kempton (Liberal National)
• Cynthia Lui (Labor)
• Peter Campion (One Nation)
• Troy Miller (Greens)

Assessment
Cook is a reasonably safe Labor seat.

2020 result

2020 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths in Cook have been divided into three areas. Polling places in Port Douglas have been grouped together, and the remaining booths have been split into north and south.

Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in two out of three areas, with 55.3% in the Port Douglas area and 74.7% in the north of the seat. The LNP polled 61.5% in the south.

Election results in Cook at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal National Party and Katter’s Australian Party.

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