THE POLL BLUDGER
Queensland Legislative Assembly Election 2006

BURLEIGH
Labor 5.0%

Burleigh is the second southernmost seat along the Gold Coast, running from Mermaid Beach south to Palm Beach, with Currumbin separating it from New South Wales. It was created in 1992 as the successor electorate to South Coast, from which Currumbin had been detached in 1989. South Coast was held by Queensland National Party legend Russ Hinze from 1966 until his resignation in 1988, when it was held for the party at a by-election by Judy Gamin despite the odour surrounding it at the time. Gamin lost the seat at the next year's general election to Liberal candidate Bob Quinn, the recently deposed party leader who is now retiring as member for Robina. The shake-up of electoral boundaries occasioned by the new Labor government's one-vote one-value reforms saw the area divided between Merrimac and Burleigh; Quinn contested the former at the 1992 election, and Gamin returned to parliament as member for Burleigh after a narrow win over Labor. Gamin consolidated her position over the next two elections, but was buried in the 2001 landslide by a 10.3 per cent swing that delivered the seat to Labor's Christine Smith (right). Like many of Labor's surprise winners at that election, Smith performed strongly in 2004, lifting 3.0 per cent on the primary vote and 3.2 per cent on two-party preferred.

Christine Smith was once secretary and office manager to Senator Mal Colston, whose colourful history does not bear repeating here. Smith's first encounter with the spotlight came when Colston quit Labor to sit as an independent in 1996, prompting the party to exact revenge by bringing to light irregularities in his travel claims. Smith dutifully agreed to take the blame for what she understood to be "two or three" inconsistencies, only to be presented with a statement accepting responsibility for 31 wrongful claims amounting to $5,730. When Clerk of the Senate and Canberra legend Harry Evans pointed out to her that misleading the Senate was an offence punishable by imprisonment, Smith made another statement recanting all blame. In a February 2006 profile in the Courier-Mail, Smith claimed rumours that her preselection was a quid pro quo from Labor were the work of Colston, who had long hoped to install his son Douglas as the member for Burleigh. Smith sought her old job back when Colston's term ended in 1999 but says she was rejected by his successor, AWU chieftain Joe Ludwig, on the grounds that his father Bill Ludwig was friends with Colston. This prompted Smith to quit the AWU-dominated Labor Forum faction, and she is now aligned with Labor Unity. Smith subsequently landed a job with Centrelink, where she was still working when offered the uncoveted role of Labor candidate for Burleigh.

Smith was in the news before the 2004 election when her son Justin, who suffered from bipolar disorder, opted to stay in jail pending a court appearance for armed robbery to spare her embarrassment during the campaign. She was quoted in September 2005 as saying the government "probably deserves to be out on its ear" over the mental health system's handling of her son's case and others like it, though she later denied that this meant what it appeared to mean. Justin Smith's troubles reached a tragic culmination in June 2006 when he died of a drug overdose.

The Liberal candidate is Michael Hart (left), owner of the Burleigh Heads business Mastercut Technologies and a figure in the local surf lifesaving movement. Hart was the winner of an eventful Liberal preselection battle against Max Duncan, the Nationals candidate in 2004. Shortly after the election, the Gold Coast Bulletin received a leaked copy of a report Duncan wrote for the Nationals, which said "the demographics of the Gold Coast had changed so much there was little chance the party in its present form could ever win here again", and that "new residents from interstate had never voted National before and the few remaining party members were so old they could not help campaign". Duncan jumped ship to the Liberals in early 2005, leading to conflicting reports as to whether he had brought with him the entire membership of the Nationals' Burleigh branch. Lawrence Springborg also claimed that Duncan left the party owing it $30,000, which he denied. Despite Duncan's earlier assessment of the party's prospects, the Nationals were inevitably reluctant to abandon the right to contest the seat ahead of the Liberals, eventually agreeing to forsake it as part of the coalition agreement signed in September 2005.

On July 22 the Gold Coast Bulletin published a survey of 749 voters in Burleigh, Broadwater and Mudgeeraba which pointed to a 5 per cent anti-Labor swing, meaning defeat in the latter two and a photo finish in Burleigh.

ASSESSMENT: Labor retain