| Election Name: | 2009 Queensland state election |
| Country: | Queensland |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 2006 Queensland state election |
| Previous Year: | 2006 |
| Next Election: | 2012 Queensland state election |
| Next Year: | 2012 |
| Seats For Election: | All 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland 45 Assembly seats were needed for a majority |
| Turnout: | 90.93 (0.46 pp) |
| Leader1: | Anna Bligh |
| Party1: | Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch) |
| Leaders Seat1: | South Brisbane |
| Last Election1: | 59 seats, 46.92% |
| Seats1: | 51 seats |
| Seat Change1: | 8 |
| Popular Vote1: | 1,002,415 |
| Percentage1: | 42.25% |
| Swing1: | 4.67 |
| Leader2: | Lawrence Springborg |
| Party2: | Liberal National Party of Queensland |
| Leaders Seat2: | Southern Downs |
| Last Election2: | 25 seats, 37.92% |
| Seats2: | 34 seats |
| Seat Change2: | 9 |
| Popular Vote2: | 987,018 |
| Percentage2: | 41.60% |
| Swing2: | 3.68 |
| Leader3: | Rosa Lee Long |
| Party3: | One Nation |
| Leaders Seat3: | Tablelands (lost seat) |
| Popular Vote3: | 9,038 |
| Percentage3: | 0.38% |
| Swing3: | 0.22 |
| Last Election3: | 1 seat, 0.60% |
| Seats3: | 0 |
| Seat Change3: | 1 |
| 1Blank: | TPP |
| 1Data1: | 50.9% |
| 1Data2: | 49.1% |
| 2Blank: | TPP swing |
| 2Data1: | 4.1 |
| 2Data2: | 4.1 |
| Map Size: | 400px |
| Premier | |
| Before Election: | Anna Bligh |
| Before Party: | Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch) |
| After Election: | Anna Bligh |
| After Party: | Australian Labor Party (Queensland Branch) |
The 2009 Queensland state election was held on 21 March 2009 to elect all 89 members of the Legislative Assembly, a unicameral parliament.
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]
The 2009 election marked the eighth consecutive victory of Labor 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.
See also: 2006 Queensland state election and Candidates of the 2009 Queensland state election.
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.[2]
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.[3]
Former Premier Peter Beattie resigned in September 2007, which triggered the October 2007 Brisbane Central by-election.
| Date | Event | |
|---|---|---|
| 23 February 2009 | Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.[4] | |
| 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[5] | |
| 7 April 2009 | The writ was returned and the results formally declared | |
| 12 April 2009 | 53rd Parliament convened |
A redistribution of electoral boundaries occurred in 2008.
The electorates of Charters Towers, Cunningham, Darling Downs, Fitzroy, Kurwongbah, Mount Gravatt, Robina, and Tablelands were abolished.
The electorates of Buderim, Condamine, Coomera, Dalrymple, Mermaid Beach, Morayfield, Pine Rivers, and Sunnybank were created.
The redistribution merged Charters Towers with Tablelands to create Dalrymple, Fitzroy into Mirani, and Cunningham with Darling Downs to create Condamine, all in regional Queensland. Buderim was created on the Sunshine Coast, Morayfield in the corridor north of Brisbane, and Coomera was created on the Gold Coast. Kurwongbah was renamed Pine Rivers, Mount Gravatt was renamed Sunnybank, and Robina was renamed Mermaid Beach. Burdekin, Clayfield, and Mirani notionally became Labor-held, while Glass House notionally became National-held.
The changes resulted in 62 notionally Labor-held seats, 8 notionally Liberal-held seats, 15 notionally National-held seats, and 4 notionally Independent-held seats.
See main article: Results of the 2009 Queensland state election.
| colspan=7 |* The two-party preferred summary is an estimate by Antony Green using a methodology by Malcolm Mackerras.|}
| Seat | 2008 Redistribution | Swing | 2009 Election | |||||||||
| Party | Member | Margin | Margin | Member | Party | |||||||
| Aspley | Labor | Bonny Barry | 3.0 | -7.46 | 4.46 | Tracy Davis | Liberal National | |||||
| Burdekin | Labor | notional | 0.9 | -4.05 | 3.15 | Rosemary Menkens | Liberal National | |||||
| Clayfield | Labor | notional | 0.3 | -6.14 | 5.84 | Tim Nicholls | Liberal National | |||||
| Cleveland | Labor | Phil Weightman | 1.2 | -1.48 | 0.28 | Mark Robinson | Liberal National | |||||
| Coomera | Labor | notional | 8.3 | -10.21 | 1.91 | Michael Crandon | Liberal National | |||||
| Gaven | Labor | Phil Gray | 3.2 | -3.92 | 0.72 | Alex Douglas | Liberal National | |||||
| Hervey Bay | Labor | Andrew McNamara | 2.1 | -8.60 | 6.50 | Ted Sorensen | Liberal National | |||||
| Indooroopilly | Labor | Ronan Lee¹ | 2.7 | -8.57 | 5.87 | Scott Emerson | Liberal National | |||||
| Mirani | Labor | Jim Pearce | 1.2 | -1.79 | 0.59 | Ted Malone | Liberal National | |||||
| Mudgeeraba | Labor | Dianne Reilly | 2.7 | -6.62 | 3.92 | Ros Bates | Liberal National | |||||
| Redlands | Labor | John English | 6.7 | -6.77 | 0.07 | Peter Dowling | Liberal National | |||||
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. | |||||||||||