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THE POLL BLUDGER DICKSON
Dickson was created when Queensland's relentless population growth demanded a new seat in 1993, taking its place in Brisbane's expanding northern outskirts. It was won at its first election by Michael Lavarch, previously member for Fisher, who narrowly survived a 3.0 per cent swing to Liberal star of the future Bruce Flegg. Lavarch went on to serve as Attorney-General in the second term of the Keating government, and became one of its biggest casualties of the 1996 election. The winning Liberal candidate was Tony Smith (not to be confused with the current member for Casey), whose career imploded when police questioned him after he left a building that housed a brothel. Smith forestalled preselection defeat by quitting the Liberal Party and declaring his intention to run as an independent. By this time it had emerged that the Labor candidate for the 1998 election would be defecting Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot, who had declared her determination to win a marginal seat for Labor. It appeared on election night that her bid had failed, prompting a television interview in which she lashed out at a party network that had deprived her campaign of resources. She would go on to win by 276 votes, “courtesy of some late postal votes from holidaying teachers”, as former Labor MP Gary Johns put it in the Adelaide Review. Kernot proved to be a political disaster area throughout her one and only term as a Labor MP, and was booted out with a thumping 6.1 per cent swing in 2001. The new Liberal member was Peter Dutton, a former police officer who later owned a child care centre in Brisbane. | |