QUEENSLAND ELECTION 2009

REDCLIFFE Labor 6.0%
Region: Northern Brisbane Federal divisions: Petrie/Bonner
	PHILIP CRAMER Family First LILLIAN VAN LITSENBURG Labor (top) PETER HOUSTON Independent PETE JOHNSON Greens BILL GOLLAN Liberal National (bottom)

Redcliffe occupies the peninsula that bears its name, located 25 kilometres north of the centre of Brisbane, along with Moreton Island. The Liberals are strong at the peninsula's northern tip around Scarborough, while the remainder leans to Labor. The redistribution has expanded the electorate westwards into the light industrial area of Kippa-Ring, taking 3800 voters from Murrumba and increasing Labor's margin by 0.6 per cent. The electorate was created in 1960 and held for its first 19 years by Jim Houghton, first as a Liberal and later with the National/Country Party. The Liberals did not take his defection lying down, and the electorate became a battleground between the two parties throughout the 1970s. Only with Houghton's mid-term retirement in 1979 did the seat return to the Liberal fold, the ensuing by-election being won by Terry White. White became leader of the party in August 1983 at the head of the disastrous anti-Joh rebellion which cost most of his colleagues their seats when an election was held two months later. He eventually lost the seat when it fell to Labor in 1989, and now lends his name to a national chain of pharmacies.

Labor's Ray Hollis retained the seat on uncomfortable margins in 1995 and 1998 before picking up a 13.7 per cent swing with the 2001 landslide, but he was nearly brought back to earth in 2004 when Liberal candidate Terry Rogers picked up a 10.5 per cent swing. Rogers was rewarded for his performance with an uncontested preselection when Hollis retired mid-term in July 2005, which along with Terry Mackenroth's departure initiated the twin by-elections of Redcliffe and Chatsworth the following month. Both were won by the Liberals, with Rogers securing a 1.2 per cent margin after an 8.3 per cent two-party swing. As with Michael Caltabiano in Chatsworth, Rogers' parliamentary career did not survive beyond the end of the term. The September 2006 election saw Labor's defeated by-election candidate, Lillian van Litsenburg, win by a 5.4 per cent margin which represented a 6.6 per cent swing to Labor compared with the by-election, and a 1.7 per cent swing to the Liberals compared with the 2004 election.

Lillian van Litsenburg is a former school teacher and Redcliffe councillor associated with the Labor Forum faction. The Liberal National Party candidate is Sandgate car dealer and Bulwer Residents Association president Bill Gollan.

Shadow Transport Minister Fiona Simpson initiated an ongoing saga in the first week of the campaign when she promised a $640 million rail line from Petrie to Kippa-Ring by no later than 2016, with or without federal funding. A week later she issued a press release which conceded the promise was “subject to financial constraints and GFC”. Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail suggested there was “already a whiff of disunity about Simpson's announcement as it was made away from the main campaign spotlight and remains the LNP's biggest single infrastructure component”, prompting some in the party to speculate she had “gone rogue”. Wardill further described Springborg's uncertain media response to the episode as “an appalling moment”, as it “reaffirmed the line being pushed by Labor that he is in denial about the financial crisis as his policy treated the ‘GFC’ as an afterthought”, and because it related to a project about which local voters were deeply cynical. Andrew Bartlett wrote that the project was “first proposed in the 1890s”, and had re-emerged “many times since”.

Redcliffe covers Moreton Island, which copped the brunt of the oil spill which struck in the second last week of the campaign – although the population of the island itself was only 252 as of the 2006 census. One day out from the election, Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail reported Labor sources believed the 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. Speaking on Madonna King's program on ABC Brisbane early in the campaign, Antony Green nominated Redcliffe as one of three seats where vote-splitting with independents might cause trouble for incumbents. Here the threat is from local dentist and Redcliffe councillor Peter Houston, who quit the ALP before announcing his candidacy.

Two days out from election day, a report on internal polling by Peter van Onselen in The Australian said Labor was “tracking badly” in the seat, indicating a swing of between 8 and 10 per cent.

PREDICTION: LIBERAL NATIONAL GAIN