Fadden By-election 2023 Results – ABC News

Fadden is a Gold Coast City Council electorate covering the northern part of the Gold Coast, extending from Labrador to the Logan River generally east of the Pacific Motorway. It includes the coastal suburbs from Labrador to Hope Island, as well as the inland suburbs of Gaven, Coomera, Helensvale, Oxenford, Arundel and Pacific Pines. On the road to Brisbane, the electorate includes parts of Ormeau and Pimpama, as well as Jacobs Well and Steiglitz further east. Covers 387 square kilometres. (AEC map of district)

This electorate was created in 1977 and named after Arthur ‘Artie’ Fadden, Country Party Leader, Treasurer in the Menzies government after 1949, and for 40 days in 1941, Prime Minister of Australia. He replaced Menzies as Prime Minister in 1941 after Menzies resigned as United Australia Party leader, the UAP then voting to support Fadden as Prime Minister. Fadden is the only Country Party leader to truly serve as Prime Minister, Earle Page and John McEwen only filling the post temporarily following the death of respectively Joe Lyons and Harold Holt.

Former members for Fadden include Liberal Don Cameron (1977-83), Labor’s David Bedall (1983-84) and Liberal David Jull (1984-2007). All three members also represented other seats in the House of Representatives. Cameron represented three electorates, Griffith 1966-77, Fadden 1977-83 and Moreton 1984-90. After winning Fadden in 1983, Labor’s David Beddall moved to contest and win the new seat of Rankin at the 1984 election and represented the seat until retiring in 1998. David Jull represented Bowman from 1975 until defeated in 1983, returing to represent Fadden from 1984 until retiring in 2007.

The boundaries of electorates in this part of Queensland having undergone regular changes due to rapid population growth in the Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor. Fadden was originally a south-east Brisbane electorates but has migrated to the northern Gold Coast over the last four decades.

Labor has won Fadden only once, achieving victory in 1983 on the election of the Hawke government. The seat was lost on new boundaries in 1984. The slow drift of Fadden to the northern Gold Coast has boosted the Liberal/LNP position. As the chart below shows, the Liberal/LNP two-party preferred percentage in Fadden has been consistently 5-10 percentage points higher than the party’s Queensland two-party preferred result.

Results 1983-2022

Despite Labor’s victory at April’s Aston by-election, prospects for a repeat performance at the Fadden by-election are not high. Labor has never won a Gold Coast-based Federal seat and that record seems unlikely to change at the Fadden by-election.

(Victories by a party of government are indicated by thick coloured underlining.)

LNP majorities were recorded at 24 of the 31 polling places used at the 2022 election. Results ranged from 42.7% at the Pimpama State School external polling place on the other side of the Pacific Motorway in Forde, to 70.7% at the Paradise Point Community Centre.

(Click on polling place for results)

Only a third of votes were cast on election day at the 2022 election. The LNP two-party preferred percentage was 56.5% on election day, but the final LNP margin was significantly boosted by votes cast before polling day, the two-party vote 63.7% for pre-polls and 64.0% for Postal votes. The full break down of two-party vote by vote type is shown below.

Overall preferences split evenly in 2022 with strong flows to Labor from the Greens and Independent Brooker balanced out by strong flows to the LNP from One Nation, United Australia Party and Liberal Democrats.