Federal election 2025: Groom candidates, live results
Garth Hamilton will remain the member for Groom following the Coalition’s thumping loss to Labor, but has suffered another large swing against him to Independent Suzie Holt.
Electorates
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Groom MP Garth Hamilton remains ahead on primary in the once-safe Toowoomba seat, but a tight preference count will determine whether he defeats rising Independent Suzie Holt.
With 67.74 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Hamilton led the first preference tally with 39.25 per cent of votes, followed by Ms Holt with 18.34 per cent of first preference votes and Richard Edwards with 16.55 per cent.
The seat was called in LNP’s favour before 10pm on Saturday.
The traditional LNP stronghold saw its greatest battle in years, with Mr Hamilton’s major opponent running a high-profile campaign backed by Climate 200.
The fight for the seat, encompassing Toowoomba and Oakey, did not perturb the incumbent member.
“Locally we’ve had a great response … I think there’s been a long three years there that we’ve been working together on a lot of issues,” Mr Hamilton said.
He added cost of living measures were at the top of voter’s minds.
“It’s always cost of living, it just comes out in different ways for different people,” he said.
“However it is that they’ve been experiencing it – whether it’s their insurance cost, whether it’s been their electricity costs – I think it’s been there for quite some time now and I think that’s driving their votes.”
The campaign has been marked by a slew of pledges, controversies and verbal spats, but two countering messages have dominated the past five weeks.
Mr Hamilton has run on a belief in majority government’s mandate, arguing the LNP’s campaign based on nuclear power, lower immigration, first homebuyers incentives and short-term cost-of-living sweeteners can improve Toowoomba residents’ lives.
The countering narrative by Ms Holt and Ms Smolenski is that Groom has been let down by the major parties, and that an independent can leverage their vote in a minority government to secure more investment in Toowoomba.
Originally published as Federal election 2025: Groom candidates, live results
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