QUEENSLAND ELECTION 2009

PUMICESTONE Labor 5.4%
Region: Caboolture/Bribie Island Federal divisions: Longman/Fisher
	COLIN R. BISHOP Independent IAN BELL Greens CARRYN SULLIVAN Labor (top) SHANE MOON Liberal National (bottom) PAUL McGRANE Independent BERT BOWDEN Independent

Pumicestone extends from the northern part of Caboolture, an outer metropolitan centre located 50 kilometres north of central Brisbane, to the inhabited southern end of Bribie Island. Labor's vote is considerably higher in Caboolture than in Ningi and Bellara, which face each other across the Pumicestone Channel separating Bribie Island from the mainland. The redistribution has seen it exchange 8400 voters in southern Caboolture (transferred to Morayfield and Murrumba) for 6900 in its central and western parts (previously in Glass House). The changes have had no effect on the Labor margin of 5.4 per cent.

The electorate was created in 2001 in place of abolished Caboolture, which was held by the National/Country Party from its creation in 1977 until it fell to Labor in 1986. Caboolture was one of the 11 seats won in 1998 by One Nation, whose candidate Bill Feldman defeated Labor member Jon Sullivan by 2.7 per cent after outpolling the Nationals and sailing home on their preferences. Feldman became parliamentary leader of the One Nation splinter group the City-Country Alliance in January 2000, which variously had five or six members. This distinction didn't save him at the 2001 election, when Labor's Carryn Sullivan – wife of the aforementioned Jon – polled 46.2 per cent while the rest divided between Feldman, the Liberals and One Nation. Jon Sullivan has since re-emerged as federal member for Longman, after unseating Mal Brough at the November 2007 election.

The anti-Labor vote at the 2004 election consolidated impressively behind the Liberals, whose primary vote was up 17.8 per cent. However, the 2006 election produced a status quo result on two-party preferred after both parties yielded an equal primary vote dividend from the absence of One Nation. The Liberal National Party has nominated the Liberal candidate from 2006, Shane Moon, a local swim school owner and president of the Caboolture Business Enterprise Centre (a position filled until 2006 by Jon Sullivan).

One day out from the election, Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail reported Labor sources believed the recent oil spill had cost the party “crucial support” in this and other coastal metropolitan seats. Sarah Elks of The Australian earlier reported the recreational fishing lobby was hoping to stir a backlash against the government's expansion of Moreton Bay Marine Park “green zones”, which came into effect a week into the campaign.

PREDICTION: LIBERAL NATIONAL GAIN