2009 Queensland state election

The Queensland state election was held to elect members to the unicameral Parliament of Queensland on 21 March 2009. The election saw the incumbent Labor government led by Premier Anna Bligh defeat the Liberal National Party of Queensland led by Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, and gain a fifth consecutive term in office for her party. Bligh thus became the first female Premier of any Australian State elected in her own right.[1]

2009 Queensland state election
21 March 2009 (2009-03-21)
All 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
45 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
Turnout90.93 ( 0.46 pp)
  First party Second party
 
Leader Anna Bligh Lawrence Springborg
Party Labor Liberal National
Leader since 13 September 2007 (2007-09-13) 21 January 2008 (2008-01-21)
Leader's seat South Brisbane Southern Downs
Last election 59 seats 25 seats
Seats won 51 seats 34 seats
Seat change 8 9
Popular vote 1,002,415 987,018
Percentage 42.25% 41.60%
Swing 4.67 3.68
TPP 50.9% 49.1%
TPP swing 4.1 4.1
The top map shows the first party preference by electorate. The bottom map shows the final two-party preferred vote result by electorate.
Premier before election

Anna Bligh
Labor

 Elected Premier

Anna Bligh
Labor

The 2009 election also marked the eighth consecutive victory of the ALP in a general election since 1989 although it was out of office between 1996 and 1998 as a direct result of the 1996 Mundingburra by-election.

Key dates
Date Event
23 February 2009 Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.[2]
28 February 2009 Close of electoral rolls
3 March 2009 Close of nominations
21 March 2009 Polling day, between the hours of 8am and 6pm
26 March 2009 The Bligh Ministry was reconstituted[3]
7 April 2009 The writ was returned and the results formally declared
12 April 2009 53rd Parliament convened

Results
Winning party by electorate.
The Gallagher Index result: 12.47

Queensland state election, 21 March 2009[4]
Legislative Assembly
<< 2006–2012 >>

Enrolled voters 2,660,940
Votes cast 2,419,559 Turnout 90.93 +0.46
Informal votes 46,908 Informal 1.94 –0.14
Summary of votes by party
Party Primary votes % Swing Seats Change
  Labor 1,002,415 42.25 –4.67 51 –8
  Liberal National 987,018 41.60 +3.68 34 +9
  Greens 198,475 8.37 +0.38 0 ±0
  DS4SEQ 22,170 0.93 +0.93 0 ±0
  Family First 19,379 0.82 –1.07 0 ±0
  One Nation 9,038 0.38 –0.22 0 –1
  Independent 134,156 5.65 +0.97 4 ±0
Total 2,372,651     89  
Two-party-preferred
  Labor 50.9 −4.1
  Liberal National 49.1 +4.1
* The two-party preferred summary is an estimate by Antony Green using a methodology by Malcolm Mackerras.

Seats changing hands
Seat Pre-2009 Swing Post-2009
Party Member Margin Margin Member Party
Aspley   Labor Bonny Barry 3.0 -7.5 4.5 Tracy Davis Liberal National  
Burdekin Labor notional 0.9 -4.0 3.1 Rosemary Menkens Liberal National
Clayfield Labor notional 0.2 -6.1 5.8 Tim Nicholls Liberal National
Cleveland Labor Phil Weightman 0.5 -1.5 0.3 Mark Robinson Liberal National
Coomera Labor notional 8.3 -10.2 1.9 Michael Crandon Liberal National
Gaven Labor Phil Gray 3.1 -3.9 0.7 Alex Douglas Liberal National
Hervey Bay Labor Andrew McNamara 2.1 -8.6 6.5 Ted Sorensen Liberal National
Indooroopilly Greens Ronan Lee N/A -8.6 5.9 Scott Emerson Liberal National
Mirani Labor notional 1.2 -1.8 0.6 Ted Malone Liberal National
Mudgeeraba Labor Dianne Reilly 2.9 -6.6 3.9 Ros Bates Liberal National
Redlands Labor John English 6.8 -6.9 0.1 Peter Dowling Liberal National

Ronan Lee was elected as a member of the Labor Party in 2006, but he defected to the Greens in 2008.

One of the gains by the Liberal Nationals was the defeat of the Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara (Hervey Bay). The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Training and the Arts, Bonny Barry (Aspley), was also defeated.

Date

The previous state election was held on 9 September 2006 to elect the 89 members of the Legislative Assembly. In Queensland, for the government to serve a full-term, an election will be held approximately three years following the previous election. In Queensland, Section 80 of the Electoral Act 1992 states that an election must be held on a Saturday; and that the election campaign must run for a minimum of 26 or a maximum of 56 days following the issue of the writs. Five to seven days following the issue of the writs, the electoral roll is closed, which gives voters a final opportunity to enrol or to notify the Electoral Commission of Queensland of any changes in their place of residence.[5]

Legislative Assembly
See also: 2006 election pendulum and maps, Candidates of the Queensland state election, 2009

The Labor Party, led by Premier Anna Bligh, and the LNP, led by Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, were the two main parties in Queensland at the election. It was the first election contested by the LNP following its creation with the merger of the National and Liberal parties. At the previous election, Labor won 59 seats, the Nationals won 17 seats, the Liberals won eight seats, One Nation won one seat, and independents won four seats. Former Labor MP Ronan Lee joined the Greens in 2008, thus becoming their parliamentary leader. Lee lost his seat at the election.[6]

A redistribution saw Labor notionally pick up three seats. Therefore, the LNP notionally needed to pick up 22 seats rather than 20 seats to form a majority government, which equated to an unchanged uniform 8.3 percent two party preferred swing.[7]

Former Premier Peter Beattie resigned in September 2007, which triggered the October 2007 Brisbane Central by-election.

Parties contesting the election
Party Seats Contested
(2009)		 Seats Contested
(2006)
Australian Labor Party 89 89
LNP 88 89†
The Greens 89 75
DS4SEQ 32 N/A
Family First 25 26
One Nation 2 4
Independents & Others 72 46

† Contested 2006 elections as Liberal Party (49 seats) and National Party (40) seats.

Both the Australian Labor Party and the Greens contested all 89 seats. This was the first Queensland state election in which the Greens contested every seat. The LNP contested every seat except Gladstone (held by an Independent), which they avoided for strategic reasons. A total of 397 candidates contested the election—the largest number of candidates to contest a Queensland election since 1998.

Polling

Newspoll polling was conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consist of around 1000 electors, with the declared margin of error at around ±3 percent.

Better Premier ratings^
Date Labor
Bligh		 Coalition/LNP
Springborg
18 – 19 Mar 2009 53% 33%
27 Feb – 8 Mar 2009 48% 34%
Jan – Feb 2009 48% 31%
Oct – Dec 2008 49% 30%
Jul – Sep 2008 53% 27%
Apr – Jun 2008 60% 24%
Jan – Mar 2008 64% 18%
Oct – Dec 2007 66% 11%2
Jul – Sep 2007 54%1 25%2
Apr – Jun 2007 54%1 19%2
Pre 2006 election 58%1 28%
Pre 2004 election 62%1 22%
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian.
^ Remainder were "uncommitted" to either leader.
1 Peter Beattie, 2 Jeff Seeney
Legislative Assembly opinion polling
Political parties Two party preferred
Dates ALP Lib Nat LNP Grn FFP Oth ALP LNP
18 – 19 Mar 2009 42% 42% 7% 0.5% 8% 49.9% 50.1%
27 Feb – 8 Mar 2009 41% 43% 8% <0.5% 8% 49% 51%
Jan – Feb 2009 42% 41% 7% <0.5% 10% 53% 47%
Oct – Dec 2008 45% 37% 8% <0.5% 10% 57% 43%
Jul – Sep 2008 38% 41% 9% 1% 11% 51% 49%
Apr – Jun 2008 43% 26% 12% 38% 10% <0.5% 9% 55% 45%
Jan – Mar 2008 50% 22% 10% 32% 8% <0.5% 10% 60% 40%
Oct – Dec 2007 50% 26% 9% 35% 6% 1% 8% 59% 41%
Jul – Sep 2007 50% 21% 12% 33% 5% 2% 10% 59% 41%
Apr – Jun 2007 51% 20% 11% 31% 6% 1% 11% 61% 39%
2006 Election 46.9% 20.1% 17.8% 37.9% 8.0% 1.9% 5.3% 55.0% 45.0%
6 – 7 Sep 2006 48% 21% 17% 38% 4% 1% 9% 55% 45%
2004 Election 47% 18.5% 17% 35.5% 6.7% 4.9% 5.9% 55.5% 44.5%
Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian.
gollark: Yes, apparently people have just gotten used to this in the 8 years or so since.
gollark: Mostly not phone lines, but ridiculous bulk gathering of internet traffic and data from internet companies.
gollark: Not that that stopped said vast quantities of surveillance.
gollark: Edward Snowden? They exposed a bunch of mass surveillance.
gollark: I stopped doing all essay subjects last year.

See also

References
  1. "Queensland elects female premier". BBC News Online. 21 March 2009.
  2. "Election Timetable: 2009 State General Election". Electoral Commission of Queensland. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012.
  3. Queensland, Gazette: Extraordinary Archived March 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, No 71, 26 March 2009, 1307
  4. ECQ. "Parliament of Queensland, Assembly election, 21 March 2009". Archived from the original on 26 February 2011.
  5. Electoral Act 1992
  6. "Qld Labor MP jumps ship to Greens". ABC News. 5 October 2008. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  7. "2008 QLD redistribution". ABC. 21 March 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
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