| THE POLL BLUDGER GRIFFITH
Griffith covers inner city Brisbane immediately south of the Brisbane River, from South Brisbane east to Bulimba and Queensport, south to Annerley and south-west to Carina Heights. The redistribution has detached a small area around Annerley to Moreton in the south, with no impact on the margin. The seat was called Oxley until 1934, the modern Ipswich-based seat of that name bearing no relation to the original entity. Highly marginal historically, Griffith changed hands between Liberal and Labor in 1949, 1954, 1958, 1961, 1966, 1977, 1996 and 1998. Kevin Rudd first attempted to win the seat in 1996 upon the retirement of Ben Humphreys, losing to Liberal candidate Graeme McDougall following a 6.2 per cent swing. Rudd was successful on his second attempt in 1998 and did well to be returned with a 3.3 per cent swing against the trend in 2001. Griffith was dramatically redrawn at the redistribution ahead of the 2004 election, losing half its geographic area to newly created Bonner in the east and moving into the inner city to absorb Labor-friendly East Brisbane, South Brisbane and Dutton Park. Encouragingly for Rudd, there were very heavy swings to the Liberals in the Bonner booths which had previously been in his electorate. The Liberal candidate is Craig Thomas, a businessman in the IT industry and former director of the Fortitude Valley Chamber of Commerce. Thomas won a 5 per cent swing as the Liberal candidate in Peter Beattie's seat of Brisbane Central at last September's state election. There had earlier been much speculation that the Liberals would pick a high-profile candidate to match Labor's Maxine McKew gambit in Bennelong. Those mentioned included senior party figure Michael Caltabiano (a former state party president, Brisbane City Council opposition leader and, briefly, state member for Chatsworth) and Olympic kayaker Andrew Trim (who unsuccessfully sought preselection for Fadden). | |