THE POLL BLUDGER
House of Representatives Election 2007

HINKLER
Nationals 8.8%

Created with the enlargement of parliament in 1984, Hinkler has been based around Gladstone in the north and Bundaberg to the south. These cities had respectively been mainstays of Labor-leaning Capricornia and Country Party-leaning Wide Bay, producing a highly marginal electorate which swung from the Nationals in 1984 to Labor in 1987, and back again in 1993. The member since then has been Paul Neville, who won by 344 votes in 1993, 510 votes in 1998 and 64 votes in 2001. One Nation polled 19.3 per cent in 1998, their preferences flowing heavily to Neville and saving him from a substantial primary vote deficit compared with Labor. Neville's charmed political life has continued with two successive redistributions that have added conservative territory from Wide Bay. Rural Monto and Gayndah added 2.3 per cent to his margin in 2004, and he now loses Gladstone to the new seat of Flynn in exchange for Hervey Bay, adding a further 4.0 per cent.

Both sides have been targeting Hinkler by promising upgrades to the Bruce Highway, which runs through the electorate on its way from Brisbane to Cairns. In early October, the government promised to spend $2 billion out of a $5 billion national infrastructure package upgrading the road. A week earlier, Shadow Roads Minister Martin Ferguson signalled that a Labor government would prioritise upgrading the highway as far north as Gin Gin, just beyond Hinkler's northern boundary in Flynn. Hinkler is one of the electorates where the council amalgamations issue is expected to have an impact.

In the third week of the campaign, Garry Parr was forced to apologise to the parents of a soldier serving with British forces in Afghanistan after he called them “English warmongers”. A week earlier, an article by Greg Roberts of The Australian painted an unflattering picture of his media-shy campaign efforts. Roberts reported that Parr was suffering a campaigning boycott from members of Queensland Labor's Left and Unity (“Old Guard”) factions. Parr is backed by the Labor Forum (AWU) faction, whose chieftain Bill Ludwig has evidently put a few noses out of joint. In the second last week of the campaign, former Labor member Brian Courtice appeared in Coalition television commercials attacking Labor's union influence. Quoth Courtice: “Kevin Rudd couldn't go three rounds with Winnie the Pooh, so there's no way he can stand up to the union bosses. They've thrown $30 million at this campaign to buy the election. This is about a brutal grab for power. It's too big a risk to risk Rudd.”. Courtice was expelled from the party in 2005 for leaking party documents to state Nationals MP Rob Messenger, which purportedly exposed the “siphoning” of $7,000 in branch funds. At around this time, Courtice's wife Marcia was sacked from her job with state Bundaberg MP Nita Cunningham, which she claimed to be in revenge for her husband's actions. Marcia Courtice reportedly had the backing of local branches to replace the retiring Cunningham at the 2006 election, but the party's union-appointed electoral college instead imposed former nurse Sonja Cleary. McMahon ran against Cleary as an independent, and the seat fell by a narrow margin to Nationals candidate Jack Dempsey, who was assisted by the fallout over the Bundaberg Hospital “Dr Death“ scandal.

Labor strategists quoted by Dennis Atkins of the Courier-Mail in early October said regional Queensland polling pointed to “two party preferred votes north of 55 per cent”. Presumably this referred to relatively marginal seats such as Hinkler, Herbert and Flynn. However, Greg Roberts of The Australian reported that both parties' polling had Paul Neville holding a 55-45 lead.