Queensland candidates shoot for teal-free independents’ day

It’s the second-safest Coalition seat in the nation, beaten only by its immediate neighbour to the west.

But something is happening in the Toowoomba-based federal seat of Groom. All of a sudden, after years of solid Coalition support, Groom is in play.

Held by first-term LNP member Garth Hamilton with a margin of 20.5 per cent – bettered only by neighbouring Maranoa’s 25.4 per cent – Groom is one of two Queensland seats in which independents could prove problematic for the Coalition.

Many believe Suzie Holt’s grassroots campaign has made Groom competitive for the first time in generations.

Many think Bundaberg-based Hinkler is also in play, thanks to a popular local mayor throwing his hat into the ring.

Like other seats in which spirited campaigns by independents have rattled Coalition incumbents, the LNP’s jitters in Groom are down to one woman – Suzie Holt.

Just don’t apply the teal logo to her.

“We’ve made a really big distinction that we’re not a teal campaign,” Holt said.

“We’re very separate to how they’re running their campaigns, and we’ve aligned ourselves more with a true regional model, and certainly, I’ve been pushing for a national regional strategy.

“We’ve been able to bring people from both major parties into the centre, and I think people are looking for that place, for someone to represent the majority of people.

Groom, centred on Toowoomba, has been LNP heartland for generations.Credit: Tony Moore

“So we have certainly been able to bring over the small-l liberals – and probably people from Labor – into the centre, and that’s what they’re looking for.

“I think they’re just tired of the major parties.”

For those looking for comparisons, they should look no further than the once-safe Coalition seat of Indi in Victoria.

Independent Cathy McGowan, with the help of community organisation Voices for Indi, won Indi at the 2013 election, knocking off divisive Liberal firebrand Sophie Mirabella in the process.

Not even McGowan’s 2019 retirement put Indi back into Coalition hands. Helen Haines, Voices for Indi’s endorsed candidate at the past election, kept the seat independent.

Holt, meanwhile, has the backing of Voices of Groom, and McGowan has been in Toowoomba campaigning for the upstart independent, whose campaign has been turning heads across the state.

John Mickel, a former state Labor minister who has transitioned to academia to lecture in politics at the Queensland University of Technology, thinks Hamilton might be in trouble, even with his considerable margin.

A 30 per cent primary vote, Mickel said, could be enough to send Holt to Canberra.

“She is competitive, particularly as [Hamilton’s] votes drifted below 40 per cent according to the Toowoomba Chronicle poll,” he said.

“This is a seat to keep an eye on. It’s not classically a teal seat, because there isn’t that demographic, but what there is is safeness, a sitting member who’s new and hasn’t had time to establish himself.”

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Further north, Bundaberg mayor Jack Dempsey is taking it to his former party.

Dempsey, a breast cancer survivor who served as police minister in Campbell Newman’s short-lived LNP Queensland government, quit the party in 2016.

Bundaberg mayor Jack Dempsey, pictured at Hervey Bay, is running against his old party, the LNP, in Hinkler.

Running for mayor in Bundaberg, which has a strong Labor tradition, Dempsey attracted 71 per cent of the primary vote.

If Resources Minister Keith Pitt isn’t looking nervously at his 14.5 per cent margin, Mickel thinks he should be.

“You have a renegade former party member who stood for mayor and won comprehensively in his own right,” Mickel said.

“So in other words, you’ve got a popular local identity who left a major party campaigning on a series of issues.

“If he can get Pitt’s vote down and garner up Labor, the Greens and, particularly in that seat, One Nation, then he is competitive.”

Mickel said he understood the LNP’s internal polling meant they were “not too worried about it”.

Hinkler takes in a lot of cane country.Credit: Rob Homer

“They’ve checked it, and they don’t see a problem,” he said. “That’s not my view.”

While not bullish about his chances, Dempsey said he was cautiously optimistic, while acknowledging it was a “big mountain to climb”.

“It’s going to be a lot closer than people think,” he said.

“Look, I’ve got to get 25 per cent and, between here and Hervey Bay, I’m going to be close to that figure.”

Pitt’s how-to-vote card encourages voters to preference Labor ahead of Dempsey, with only the Greens further down.

Dempsey took that slight from a former party colleague as a compliment.

“We’ve obviously put the wind up him,” he said. “That’s why I’m having a go at him. He’s the minister for coal and I want him to rule out bloody coal and fracking for Hinkler.”

While focusing on her own race in Groom, Holt said she was also watching Hinkler with interest, looking ahead to a possible voting bloc in parliament.

“It would be great if Jack Dempsey got up in Queensland because we’d offer a really nice balance,” she said.

“We’ve got some similar issues to Jack Dempsey, we would align ourselves with Helen Haines because what they’re doing down in the seat of Indi, certainly we’re very similar.”

The formation of his eponymous party ended Bob Katter’s tenure as an independent member for the outback Queensland electorate of Kennedy, but few would dispute he’s about as independent as they come in Canberra.

Katter, who is 76 and all but certain to be elected for an 11th straight term on Saturday, said he would welcome some more company on the crossbench, particularly in a hung parliament.

“We might have some democracy in Australia,” he said.

“The party system is just a farce. The most powerful weapon available is question time. I don’t know how many things I’ve got out of question time.

“[Crossbench MPs] are the only people who will ask genuine questions. We’re the people who really make parliament operate as it should.”

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Despite the hype, however, long-term Queensland political observer Paul Williams is not convinced that either Holt or Dempsey will oust their LNP rivals.

“I don’t think the independents will change the result,” he said.

“I think Jack Dempsey will fall well short of what he’s expecting. He’s a popular figure and all, but being a popular mayor and one-time state member is not enough.

“It’s an LNP seat, not a populist independent seat. It could be, with the right populist independent, but Dempsey is not that person.

“And Groom is really interesting. Again, I can’t see the LNP losing that, but it’ll be an interesting one to watch.

“But I can’t see how they’d lose it.”

Williams said most voters who would be tempted to split from the LNP to back one of the independents would end up preferencing the LNP further down the ticket.

“But it may well be that, on a two-candidate basis, it’s reduced down to the independent and the LNP, in which case, Labor and the Greens and other minor parties would be the deciding factor,” he said.

“That’s the only way they could do damage, is that everyone else preferences against the LNP and preferences this independent. That could do the LNP damage.

“But One Nation and UAP will hive off a fair vote, I would have thought, but most of those preference the LNP.

“[Groom] is a 20 per cent margin. If it was 10 per cent, I’d say maybe it’s something for the LNP to be worried about, but 20 per cent is a big margin.”

Still, Williams was not ready to completely write off Holt’s chances.

“It’s an interesting development because Groom is not a so-called traditional elite seat, but I suppose it’s not different from Indi,” he said.

“Indi is not a traditional elite seat either.”

And we all saw what happened there.

Still, Williams said the rise of formidable independents across the country should provoke some soul-searching in LNP/Liberal ranks.

“The Liberals are really crapping themselves, and it’s not just about this election,” he said.

“They’d be asking themselves, ‘if this is the future, have we lost the entire left wing of our constituency?’.”