KAP 22.5% vs ALP
Incumbent MP
Shane Knuth, since 2017. Previously member for Charters Towers 2004-2009, member for Dalrymple 2009-2017.
Geography
Far North Queensland. Hill covers parts of far north Queensland south of Cairns, including a coastal area and a large inland area. The seat covers Innisfail, Atherton and Tully.
History
The seat of Hill was created in 2017, primarily replacing the seat of Dalrymple. That seat was created at the 2009 election, largely replacing the former seats of Tablelands and Charters Towers.
Charters Towers was created most recently in 1992. Rob Mitchell held the seat for the National Party from 1992 until 2001, when the ALP’s Christine Scott won the seat.
Scott held the seat for one term, before losing to National candidate Shane Knuth in 2004. Knuth was re-elected in 2006 and joined the newly-merged Liberal National Party in 2008.
Tablelands had been restored in 1986, and was held from 1986 to 1998 by Tom Gilmore Jr, of the National Party.
In 1998, Gilmore was defeated by One Nation’s Shaun Nelson. Nelson left One Nation in 1999, and as an independent he was defeated in 2001 by Rosa Lee Long, the new One Nation candidate.
Lee Long held Tablelands for One Nation at the 2004 and 2006 elections.
When Charters Towers and Tablelands were abolished in 2009, Lee Long and Knuth both ran for Dalyrmple, and Knuth won the seat, with a 5.2% margin.
In October 2011, Shane Knuth resigned from the Liberal National Party to join Katter’s Australian Party.
Knuth has been re-elected as a KAP candidate four times, twice for Dalrymple and twice for the new seat of Hill.
- Jennifer Cox (Greens)
- Michael Hodgkins (Labor)
- Matt Lachlan (Independent)
- Brenda Turner (One Nation)
- Cameron McCollum (Liberal National)
- Shane Knuth (Katter’s Australian Party)
Assessment
Hill is a very safe seat for KAP.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Shane Knuth | Katter’s Australian Party | 16,970 | 52.6 | +4.5 |
| Michael Hodgkins | Labor | 6,354 | 19.7 | +0.8 |
| Nick Cuda | Liberal National | 5,466 | 16.9 | -5.9 |
| Jennifer Cox | Greens | 2,083 | 6.5 | -0.1 |
| Tara Garozzo | Informed Medical Options | 850 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| Peter Campion | Independent | 414 | 1.3 | +1.3 |
| Chester Gordon Tuxford | Independent | 114 | 0.4 | -0.4 |
| Informal | 1,179 | 3.5 |
2020 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Shane Knuth | Katter’s Australian Party | 23,398 | 72.5 | |
| Michael Hodgkins | Labor | 8,853 | 27.5 |
Booths in Hill have been divided into four areas. Polling places in the city of Innisfail have been grouped together, with the remainder split into north-east, south-east and west. There is only a small population in the north-east.
Katter’s Australian Party won a large majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 64.2% in the north-east to 74.1% in the west.
| Voter group | LNP prim % | KAP 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 14.1 | 74.1 | 4,404 | 13.7 |
| Innisfail | 18.3 | 68.3 | 2,650 | 8.2 |
| South-East | 19.8 | 69.1 | 2,450 | 7.6 |
| North-East | 20.9 | 64.2 | 979 | 3.0 |
| Pre-poll | 16.8 | 73.8 | 17,825 | 55.3 |
| Other votes | 17.1 | 72.2 | 3,943 | 12.2 |
Election results in Hill at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Katter’s Australian Party vs Labor) and primary votes for Katter’s Australian Party, Labor and the Liberal National Party.
The Hillbillies will vote KAP until the cows come home.
Easy KAP retain, however if Shane Knuth retires, it could come in play. However, even if Knuth retires – the Katter Party would still be the strong favourites to hold the seat.
Labor and the LNP’s primary votes were very low in 2020 and I just can’t see them improving anytime soon.
KAP hold.
I’ll add that I think it’ll be KAP vs LNP so I’d say the margin will be slightly lower for KAP but still an easy win.
Interestingly, one of the preceding seats was Tabelands which was held by One Nation over a long period. Rosa Lee Long was popular enough to hold the seat until the 2009 redistribution abolished it. If the redistribution had been more favourable i reckon she could have held the seat even in 2012 and One Nation could have won it even in 2017 with a successor.
Interestingly Rosa Lee Long was of Chinese descent yet she is One Nation’s longest serving lower house MP in history.
Are there even any Hills in this electorate?
@ NP, correction is Rosa Lee Leong is not Chinese Descent, it’s her husband plus there are quite a few old stock Australians with partial Chinese Descent due to the Gold Rush
@Daniel T the town of Atherton (@Marh there is a historic heritage-listed Chinatown in Atherton from the Gold Rush) is 752m above sea level, so yes.
This is one of only a few Queensland state seats named after people (named after geologist Dorothy Hill, though she was born in Brisbane and died in Brisbane, but worked a lot on the Great Barrier Reef).
Bill Lee Long was famous in Qld for Tennis, having a well known name can be helpful [unless it’s Downer].
@Daniel t A cursory look at a map would jave saved you that question. Hill contains the two tallest of all Queensland hills, Mount Bartle Frere and Mount Bellenden Ker.
@ NP/Marh
It is an interesting point about at what point does someone cease to be a minority and become part of the cultural majority
As Marh correctly stated there will be some Old Stock Australians with partial Chinese heritage but more European. Should Robbie Katter be classified as non Anglo Australian even though he is only 1/8th Lebanese. Wikipedia lists Trevor Khan and Prue Carr as Asian Australians while they do have heritage from that part of the world. I am not sure if they cultural minorities in Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Australian_politicians#House_of_Representatives
@Nimalan if they all speak another language at home then they are definitely CALD.
When someone in a rural area has mixed heritage they often just nominate Australian on the census, and the Katters have never really said much about their Lebanese heritage other than that it’s there (Bob Katter was adamant that his granddad is “an Australian” in an interview and that saying he’s Lebanese is racist and that the reporter who asked it deserved a hiding, typical colourful Katterspeak). Race isn’t a topic that’s commonly discussed, but Aboriginal people are proudly Aboriginal even if they’re also white. Though that’s sorta different.
Prue Car has Bengali heritage and Bangladesh is in Asia but in North America, Australia, PNG and New Zealand “Asian” usually means East Asian while South Asians are more commonly known as “South Asian” or “Indian” (in Fiji for example the term Indo-Fijian refers to the ~30% of the population that has heritage from parts of South Asia, mostly India but also Pakistan and Bangladesh), so I would say she is part South Asian.
I think it all comes down to personal identity in terms of how they define themselves.
@ Nether Portal/Marh
Agree with your points if they speak another language at home or if they maintain distinct traditions. I would say Jews are CALD even if they dont speak another language at home they celebrate different festivals like Hannukah etc. With respect to the Katter family i think they are now assimilated.
I agree South Asians are Asians. I am South Asian myself and i describe myself that way. I prefer the term Indian not be used to refer to other South Asians. With Prue Car while she does have some South Asian heritage if she was walking down the street would she be perceived to be non-white? I am not sure if she can speak Bengali or practice Bengali tradition. I dont mean this comment to be disrespectful to anyone but is it just more about who is considered part of the majority and who is in the minority.
@Nimalan I think it comes down to personal identity, and how the individual sees themselves. I also believe that you can be culturally Australian, and also part of a cultural minority. For me, I have grown up in Australia and am culturally Australian, but I am also proud of my south Asian heritage and family traditions.
Also that article includes Zaneta Mascarenhas (Indian heritage), Cassandra Fernando (Sri Lankan heritage) and Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Sri Lankan heritage) as Asian-Australian politicians. So I assume it’s grouping people of south Asian heritage into that category. Prue Car is in there because her father is Indian.
@ AA
Firstly, on your second point i totally agree. I agree that Asian does exclusively refer to East Asians so no dispute about that.
I agree that people can be both culturally. i grew up in Australia as well but practice other traditions as well most of my friends are not South Asian that is because i grew up in an area where South Asians are less compared to other parts of Greater Melbourne. Again, i did not mean to be dispectful to Prue Car or anyone else and i am happy for people to self-identify as they see fit i am not accusing her of cultural appropriation etc. However, i am not sure if Prue Carr would for example experience the same level of racial abuse if she ran into a neo-nazi for example than you or I would. Dave Sharma two daughters are 1/4 Indian but they can pass as white something you or i cant. In the US, Fair skinned Hispanics especially those who speak English Fluently experience much less racism than Darker Skinned ones thats all.
@AA I would assume Zaneta Mascarenhas also has some Brazilian or Portuguese heritage too given that Mascarenhas is a Portuguese surname. There is a state on the western coast of India with a lot of Portuguese history from colonisation called Goa, perhaps her family is from there. The capital of Goa is Vasco da Gama which is named after the Portuguese explorer.
@Nimalan that second point you’ve made there is absolutely fair, there are definitely very valid points to make about the varying levels of discrimination people face. Also I don’t think you were disrespectful at all.
I presume the Katters would be proud of the
Their Lebanese heritage