THE POLL BLUDGER
House of Representatives Election 2007

FISHER
Liberal 13.0%

Knock-on effects from the creation of Flynn have resulted in a dramatic rearrangement of this Sunshine Coast seat, which moves south to take over most of Longman outside of Caboolture, and east to absorb the Shire of Kilcoy from Blair. It also loses the Buderim area in the north, which goes to Fairfax. When created in 1949 it extended inland to Gympie and Kingaroy, assuming a progressively more coastal orientation as the area developed. The seat was a fiefdom of the Adermann family for the first 35 years of its existence, being held for the Country Party first by Sir Charles until 1972 and thereafter by his son Evan. Evan Adermann moved to the new seat of Fairfax in 1984, and Fisher was retained for the Nationals by Peter Slipper. The seat was one of a number of gains for Labor in Queensland amid the Joh-for-PM debacle of 1987, a campaign which found an ardent proponent in Slipper. For the next two terms it was held for Labor by Michael Lavarch, in which the time the eclipse of the Nationals continued. A redistribution in 1993 made the seat notionally Liberal, and Lavarch moved to the new seat of Dickson. Slipper then made an improbable return to the seat as a Liberal, and has enjoyed double-digit margins since the seat swung by 14.0 per cent with the 1996 Queensland avalanche.

Late in the fourth week of the campaign, Sam Strutt of the Courier-Mail reported of “polling indicating a huge swing” in Fisher.