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Division of Griffith | Groom |
 Hon Kevin Rudd (ALP) His ministerial website and his ALP website |  |
Location: Brisbane: Bulimba, Carina, Coorparoo, Greenslopes Division named for: Sir Samuel Griffith, chief author of the Australian Constitution Median weekly family income: $1,080 (35th highest) Persons born in non English speaking countries: 12.6% (61st highest) Persons in professional occupations: 35.2% (23rd highest) Persons aged 65 and over: 13.4% (71st highest) Couple families with dependent children: 31.0% (143rd highest) Dwellings being purchased: 21.6% (111th highest) Sitting member: Hon Kevin Rudd (Labor), elected 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 Born: 21 September 1957, Nambour, Queensland. Career: Diplomat 1981-88. Chief of Staff to Hon Wayne Goss 1988-91, Director-General, Qld Cabinet Office 1991-95, Senior China Consultant, KPMG Australia 1996-98. Member, Opposition Shadow Ministry 2001-08. Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs 2001-03, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Security 2003-05, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade 2005-06. Leader of the Opposition 2006-07. Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 4 December 2006 Prime Minister from 3 December 2007 1996 two-party majority: Liberal 01.5 Effect of 1998 redistribution: no change 1998 two-party majority: Labor 02.4 2001 two-party majority: Labor 05.7 Effect of 2004 redistribution: 00.5 shift to Labor 2004 two-party majority: Labor 08.6 Effect of 2006 redistribution: No change 2007 notional two-party majority: Labor 08.6 2007 two-party majority: Labor 12.3 
2004 enrolment: 90,950 2007 enrolment: 91,069 (+00.1%) (new boundaries) Griffith was created in 1934, when the old seat of Oxley, which had taken in the inner southern suburbs of Brisbane since Federation, was renamed. It has usually been a politically marginal seat, and until the 1970s changed hands regularly. Since then, like many inner city seats, it has drifted towards Labor as it has been colonised by high- income professionals with liberal-to-left political views. Today it has a fairly high median income level and a high proportion of people in professional occupations. There are still a few Liberal booths but most of the seat is now reliably Labor. Labor's Kevin Rudd has held the seat since 1998, having failed to win it at his first try in 1996. Rudd, a former diplomat and head of the Cabinet office during Wayne Goss's Labor government in Queensland, was on the Opposition front bench from 2001, and soon emerged as one of Labor's best performers. In December 2006 he defeated Kim Beazley in a Caucus ballot and became Leader of the Opposition. He presided over a remarkable rise in Labor's poll figures and had a comfortable win over the Howard government at the November 2007 election, becoming the first Prime Minister from Queensland since Frank Forde in 1945, and the first Queenslander to win an election since Andrew Fisher in 1914. The swing to Rudd in Griffith, however, was a modest 3.7%. Labor won all but two booths, polling 75% of the two-party vote at Princess Alexandra Hospital and West End, and also topping 70% at Dutton Park, Hill End, Junction Park and Seville Road. The Liberals polled 58% at Majestic Park and 54% at Kangaroo Point. | |  Two-party vote by booth, 2007
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