Blog CemeteryBonner
November 13th 2007 14:16
Booth Information
Surprisingly won by the Coalition in 2004, Bonner is their second most marginal seat in the country. But with recent results seeing it trend slightly to the ALP, and the ALP looking to make big gains across Queensland, the seat is expecting to fall to Labor in 2007.
Past Results
Keating Government minister Con Sciacca had expected Bonner to be a comfortable seat to parachute into after redistributions made his previous seat of Bowman decidedly risky in 2004. However the Coalition, riding a wave of support across the state, picked up almost 2% to take the seat for the first time (on current boundaries) since 1996. The swing was marginal in the North and South of the seat, with the ALP performing well in their strongest areas around Wynnum in the North and holding ground around Mount Gravatt. But the Coalition made sizeable gains across the centre of the booth, winning an 8% swing at the massive Belmont School booth (reversing a similar swing to Labor in 2001) and forging a solid majority across the region through a swing of almost 7%.
Booth Information
The seat can be divided into three relatively distinctive voting areas; the southern booths around Mount Gravatt in the South-West, the central booths around Carina, and the Northern coastal booths around Manly and Wynnum. As a general rule the ALP's vote increases the further North you travel through the seat.
The southern booths around Mount Gravatt are the slowest growing and also have tended to be the most stable in recent elections. It contains the slightly-Labor supporting suburb of Mount Gravatt, as well as Liberal-leaning Holland Park and a number of smaller, strongly-Liberal booths. The ALP has beaten their statewide average across the south without gaining a majority at any of the five elections covered; generally polling relatively better when the ALP perform poorly across the state. This suggests any gain across Queensland may be limited in the Mount Gravatt area although they would be hoping to cross 50% across the section for the first time, having polled just over 46% of the TPP in 2004. At the state level the ALP have slowly improved their vote, increasing by almost 5% agains the state average since 2001 and in 2006 polling higher than the seat average for the first time measured.
Booth Information
In the North of the seat are the strongly Labor-supporting suburbs of Manly and Wynnum. Up until 2001 the ALP were slowly losing votes against the state average, dropping from 16% above in 1993 to around 12.5% over in 2001. However the 2004 election saw Labor gain votes against the solid statewide swing to the Coalition, pushing the premium above the state average to near 1993 levels. Because of this, and the slowly growing population across the North, the area was not as affected by the interest rate campaign of 2004 and could be expected to be immune from any outer-suburban rebound for Labor.
This leaves the centre of the seat, around Carina and Tingalpa. Smaller than the North or South, it is also the fastest growing area in the seat and has also been the most volatile at recent elections. As mentioned above, it swung by almost 7% to the Coalition to be almost totally responsible for pushing the Liberals across the line in 2004. However that was largely correcting two successive swings of over 4% to the ALP across the region (the second of which was against the statewide and seatwide trend in 2001 - a swing which probably kept Labor in the majority). At each of the last four elections the area has swung by more than four per cent, with the party benefiting from the swing also winning the seat.
Booth Information
With this trend in mind, the Coalition can take heart from last year's state election. Across the centre of the seat, the Coalition gained over 12%, giving them a majority in this region of the seat. The ALP's best results at the state level have been in the southern booths rather than in the North, winning extra support in their weaker areas. This suggests that there is no real sense of rusted-on support for either party and would imply that any big swing to the ALP would see them easily sweep to victory in Bonner. Much will hinge on the volatile central section of the seat. But while the Coalition will be hoping state results in this part of the seat provide a good omen for the federal poll, the odds would have to be on a solid Labor victory.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
The ALP should win Bonner if...
- They gain 40% of the TPP vote at Belmont School (37.5% of 6440 voters in 2004)
- They win the Upper Mount Gravatt booth (48.38% in 2004)
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