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| Australian federal election, 2016
Division of McPherson, Queensland
Gold Coast: Burleigh Heads, Coolangatta, Currumbin, Merrimac
Sitting member: Hon Karen Andrews (Liberal), elected 2010
Enrolment at close of rolls: 103,754
2013 Liberal majority over Labor: 13.0%
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Candidates in ballot-paper order:
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1. Hon Karen Andrews
Liberal Party |
2. Peter Burgoyne
Australian Greens |
3. Simon Green
Family First |
4. Sandy Gadd
Australian Labor Party |
5. Rob Jones
Independent |
2013 results
Statistics and history
McPherson was created in 1949, as a rural seat running from Southport to Warwick. Its first member was the Country Party leader Sir Arthur Fadden, who had been member for Darling Downs since 1936. The Gold Coast, at the eastern end of the seat, began to grow explosively in the 1960s, and the seat has been cut back by successive redistributions until it now occupies only the southern third of the Coast, based on Coolangatta and Currumbin.
Despite its superficial glamour, the Gold Coast is not a wealthy area, with its large number of retirees and a growing population of low-income service workers in new suburban developments. McPherson has a low median family income level and a low proportion of people in professional occupations. Nevertheless McPherson has always been a safe non-Labor seat, first for the Country Party and since 1972 for the Liberals. For 29 years McPherson was represented by three inconspicuous backbenchers, Peter White, John Bradford and Margaret May, who retired in 2010.
Karen Andrews, Liberal MP for McPherson since 2010, was an engineer and industrial relations and human resources consultant before her election. She became a parliamentary secretary in 2014 and is now Assistant Minister for Science. Her Labor oppponent in 2016 will be Sandy Gadd, a "personal and executive coach."
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Prospective pendulum, showing all candidates
State and territory maps, showing new boundaries
The thirty seats that will decide the election
Other seats of interest
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