QUEENSLAND ELECTION 2009

BEAUDESERT Nationals 5.9%
Region: Rural South-Eastern Federal divisions: Forde/Blair Outgoing Member: Kev Lingard (Nationals)
	BRETT McCREADIE Labor (bottom) RUSSELL PATA DS4SEQ KEITH GEE Independent AIDAN McLINDON Liberal National (top) PAULINE HANSON Independent ANDY GRODECKI Greens RICHARD SOMERS Independent

Beaudesert is located inland of the Gold Coast seats of Gaven and Mudgeeraba, covering the 80 kilometre distance from Rosevale in the west to Tamborine in the east. Labor's vote matches the Nationals in the semi-urban area around Jimboomba in the north-east, but diminishes rapidly deeper in the interior. The redistribution has reduced its enrolment to the required level by transferring 4000 voters in the former area to Logan, increasing the margin by 1.4 per cent. Beaudesert is being vacated by retiring member Kev Lingard, who has held it since its creation in 1992, and its abolished predecessor Fassifern from 1983. Lingard hit an electoral rough patch amid the One Nation challenge of 1998 and 2001, when his primary vote slumped from 56.3 per cent to 31.9 per cent, and he was lucky on the latter occasion to finish ahead of both One Nation in the race for second place, and Labor in the race for first. The margin blew out again amid the relative tranquility of 2004, but a 2.6 per cent swing to Labor in 2006 perhaps indicated the long-term trend in a seat becoming progressively more metropolitan in outlook.

With Lingard's retirement, the Liberal National Party has nominated Aidan McLindon, who at the age of 23 was elected to Logan City Council as a Liberal candidate in 2004. McLindon is not from the normal conservative mould: a few years ago he was in a “punk grindcore” band called KILL TV (musical samples are available on his MySpace page), whose hits included an apparently unironic tribute to Noam Chomsky. In 2005, he and a bandmate intruded on to the stage of Big Brother as Gretel Killeen announced the winner, which resulted in a $250 fine for creating a public nuisance. Others mentioned as potential candidates for the nomination were John Brent, the mayor of Scenic Rim, and Hajnal Ban, who made a minor splash as Nationals candidate for Forde at the 2007 federal election.

The campaign for Beaudesert was thrown wide open during the first week of the campaign when Pauline Hanson announced she would target the seat in yet another political comeback bid. A comprehensive analysis of Hanson's likely electoral impact has Antony Green concluding there is a “real possibility of Labor winning the seat because of the LNP and Hanson splitting the conservative vote but not swapping preferences”. The contest took a strange turn the following weekend when former Sydney Swans AFL star Warwick Capper announced through his sponsors at Zoo Magazine that he was throwing his hat into the ring. Capper was renowned in his 1980s heyday for his tight shorts and goal-kicking abilities, and has more recently sought to remain in the public eye through exploits such as his role in a “tasteful” pornographic film. However, the declaration of candidates on the second Tuesday of the campaign revealed he had neglected to submit his nomination before the deadline. Like Hanson, Capper is a client of celebrity agent Max Markson.

The campaign took yet another weird twist a week out from polling day when News Limited's Sunday tabloids, led by Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, published what were purported to be semi-nude photographs of Pauline Hanson taken by a man called Jack Johnson, who claimed to have been her boyfriend when she was 19. Hanson denied she had ever met him, and said the person in the photos was not her. Two experts came forward in support of her denial: Associate Professor Gale Spring of Melbourne’s RMIT University, described by The Australian as “the country's leading expert on forensic photography”, and forensic anatomist Meiya Sutisno of the University of Technology, Sydney.

Tony Keim of the Courier-Mail reported in the second week of the campaign that Aidon McLindon and his brother, Logan candidate Triston, had lost $2000 on their scheme to sell party political licence plates (including Labor ones) on eBay. Meanwhile, Queensland Police investigated reports Pauline Hanson had transferred $200,000 from the party account she nominated for receipt of public funding from her 2007 Senate election bid. One suspects those of a mind to vote for Hanson are unlikely to be dissuaded by news that she is again exercising the attention of the authorities just as she prepares to return to politics.

Reflecting the intense level of interest, Beaudesert is the only individual electorate on which bookmakers are taking bets. Centrebet started with $1.50 for LNP candidate Aidan McLindon, $2.40 for Labor's Brett McCreadie, $6.50 for Pauline Hanson and $41 for Warwick Capper. After Capper was scratched, McLindon was cut to $1.40 and McCreadie went out first to $2.60, and now to $3.00. The latter adjustment seemed to have resulted from interest in independent candidate Keith Gee, now at $9.00. The Courier-Mail reported there had been “a late rush of bets” for Pauline Hanson after the nude photos controversy, with SportingBet cutting her from $6.50 to $3.50 while McLindon went out to $1.65.

PREDICTION: Liberal National retain