QUEENSLAND ELECTION 2009

TOOWOOMBA SOUTH Nationals 11.3%
Region: Regional City Federal division: Groom
	DAN TOOMBS Labor (bottom) PETER PYKE Independent BARNABY HEATON Greens MIKE HORAN Liberal National (top)

Toowoomba South has been drawn south by the redistribution, losing the city's centre to Toowoomba North and its western outskirts to the new seat of Condamine, and gaining the outer southern suburbs around Kearneys Spring which had previously been in Cunningham. The seat has been held since 1991 by Mike Horan, who went on to serve as Health Minister in the Borbidge government. Horan took the Nationals' reins in the aftermath of the 2001 election wipeout, but was deposed by Lawrence Springborg in February 2003. He has held various shadow portfolios since, taking over Attorney-General from Stuart Copeland when he moved to the back-bench in September 2008 after the redistribution abolished his seat of Cunningham. It was widely hoped within the party that Horan, now 64, would make his seat available to Copeland, but he has contentiously chosen to take advantage of the Liberal National Party merger agreement provision guaranteeing preselection for all sitting members in their existing seats. Copeland professed himself uninterested in the alternative offers of Beaudesert and Toowoomba North, before announcing on the first day of the election campaign he would take on sitting Nationals MP Ray Hopper in Condamine.

Peter Pyke, who held the Brisbane seat of Mount Ommaney for Labor from 1992 to 1995, is running as an independent. A former police constable, Pyke made a detailed submission on police corruption to the Fitzgerald inquiry and was reportedly in hiding in 1996 after complaining to the Criminal Justice Commission about “trumped-up charges” laid against him in 1993, for which he was cleared. His invitation for sitting members to join with him in a “confederation of independents” doesn't seem to have borne fruit.

PREDICTION: Liberal National retain