QUEENSLAND ELECTION 2009

CHATSWORTH Labor 0.1%
Region: Eastern Brisbane Federal divisions: Bonner/Griffith
	STEVE KILBURN Labor (top) JASON COONEY Greens JASON B. FURZE DS4SEQ TONY ZEGENHAGEN Independent ANDREA CALTABIANO Liberal National (bottom)

Chatsworth is located about 10 kilometres east of the city centre, from Carina east to Tingalpa Creek. The redistribution has transferred 2800 voters from Manly West and Tingalpa in the north to Lytton while adding 600 voters at Carina Heights in the south-west from abolished Mount Gravatt. Labor's strength in the former area has all but eliminated the slender 0.8 per cent margin from the 2006 election. The seat was held at the time of the election by Liberal factional warlord Michael Caltabiano, who had previously been state party president and a senior figure on Brisbane City Council. Caltabiano won the seat at a by-election held on 20 August 2005 after the retirement of Labor veteran Terry Mackenroth, who had been member since gaining the seat from the Liberals with help from a redistribution in 1977. The 13.9 per cent swing to Caltabiano at the by-election left him with a 2.5 per cent buffer, but this proved insufficient against a 3.3 per cent correction in Labor's favour.

Labor's successful candidate was Chris Bombalas, a veteran sports reporter and rugby league commentator for Channel Nine. Four days before the election was called, Bombolas made a surprise announcement that he would bow out at the election, saying doctors have advised him to reduce stress due to diabetes. An early report suggested the front-runners to succeed Bombolas as Labor candidate were his electorate officer Margaret Young and ministerial policy adviser Simon Tutt, but the party's administrative committee instead gave the nod to local firefighter and former Navy sailor Steve Kilburn, who ran in distant Hinchinbrook at the 2006 election.

The Caltabiano name will again be making its appearance on the ballot paper, but this time the candidate is Michael's wife Andrea, a school teacher who does not enjoy a particularly high profile in her own right. Her husband currently works as a consultant to lobbying firm Entree Vous and continues to wield influence in conservative politics, despite the dual blow dealt to his factional partnership with Santo Santoro by his own electoral defeat and Santoro's enforced departure from the Senate in March 2007. However, nothing has so far become of intermittent suggestions he might return to politics at either state or federal level.

PREDICTION: LIBERAL NATIONAL GAIN