Queensland State Election 2012: Mount Ommaney
Electorate: Mount Ommaney
Margin: Labor 4.8%
Region: Southern Brisbane
Federal: Oxley/Moreton
Outgoing member: Julie Attwood (Labor)
Click here for Electoral Commission of Queensland map
The candidates
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DOUGLAS JOHN NEWSON
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Electorate analysis: Mount Ommaney is located on the southern bank of the Brisbane River 10 kilometres south-west of the city, extending from Mount Ommaney itself west to Riverhills and east to Corinda. Support for Labor tends to be strongest further away from the riverfront, their weakest booths being at Jindalee and Corinda. The electorate was created in 1992 from parts of two abolished electorates, the Liberal seat of Sherwood and the Labor seat of Wolston. It is accordingly a naturally marginal seat which had an inflated Labor margin following the Labor landslides of 2001, 2004 and 2006. The seat will be vacated at the coming election by Julie Attwood, who announced her retirement in mid-January citing her husband’s ill health. Attwood has held the seat since defeating Liberal member Bob Harper in 1998, who in turn won it from Labor’s Peter Pyke (now a Katter’s Australian Party candidate in Toowoomba North) in 1995. A member of the Labor Unity faction, Attwood was one of the beneficiaries when Peter Beattie increased the number of parliamentary secretaries from six to 11 after the 2006 election, currently serving in the health portfolio. Her successor as Labor candidate is Ben Marczyk, an organiser with Together Queensland. The LNP candidate is Tarnya Smith, who ran for the federal seat of Oxley in 2010, and is said by the party website to have “an extensive background in industrial relations and human resources within the Queensland Health sector and private enterprise”.
Analysis written by William Bowe. Please direct corrections or comments to pollbludger-AT-crikey.com.au. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.