Electorate: Coomera
Margin: Liberal National 1.9%
Region: Gold Coast
Federal: Fadden/Forde
Click here for Electoral Commission of Queensland map
The candidates
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CHRIS WISBEY
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Electorate analysis: Coomera was created at the 2009 election to accommodate the Gold Coast’s population explosion, and it became a notional eighth LNP gain from Labor after a 10.2 per cent swing obliterated an 8.3 per cent Labor margin. The electorate covers the northern end of the City of Gold Coast between the Pacific Motorway and the Broadwater as far south as Helensvale, along with the Logan City suburb of Eagleby at its northern extremity. The populous southern end was previously covered by Broadwater and Gaven, which respectively provided 36 per cent and 14 per cent of its voters, while the remaining half from the intermittently developed north and centre came from Albert. The 2009 election saw Pimpama financial adviser Michael Crandon defeat Labor’s Leeanne Enoch, a Red Cross community development manager of indigenous background. Labor’s candidate this time is Graeme Higgs, Queensland manager of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
Three weeks out from the election, police were investigating the firing of a “large-calibre bullet” through Michael Crandon’s electorate office window. Crandon said he had also received a threatening letter that morning. Two days before the election, Greg Stoltz of the Courier-Mail reported that residents near Crandon’s property were “furious” at his move to lease part of his Kingsholme property to Telstra to erect a mobile phone tower, which would “earn him hundreds of thousands of dollars”. Crandon’s property is located in the neighbouring electorate of Albert. This has evidently been in the works for over three years, but with the tower due to be erected within weeks, residents were seeking to express their ire by whipping up controversy days out from the election.
Analysis written by William Bowe. Please direct corrections or comments to pollbludger-AT-crikey.com.au. Read William’s blog, The Poll Bludger.
