Electoral district of Gladstone

This article is about the Queensland state electorate. For the former South Australian state electorate, see Electoral district of Gladstone (South Australia).

Gladstone is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland.

Gladstone Queensland—Legislative Assembly
Electoral map of Gladstone 2017
State	Queensland
Created	1992
MP	Glenn Butcher
Party	Labor Party
Namesake	Gladstone
Electors	33,589 (2020)
Area	2,814 km2 (1,086.5 sq mi)
Demographic	Provincial
Coordinates	23°57′S 151°21′E
Electorates around Gladstone: Mirani Keppel Coral Sea Callide Gladstone Coral Sea Callide Callide Burnett

Electoral map of Gladstone 2008

The seat was created as a reconfigured version of Port Curtis for the 1992 election. It consists of the city of Gladstone and some of the towns of the former Shire of Calliope. This includes the localities of Ambrose, Benaraby, Boyne Island, Mount Larcom and Tannum Sands. The town of Calliope is now part of the Callide electoral district.

In the 2021 census, the electorate had a population of 50,317 people.

The current member is Labor MP Glenn Butcher. Butcher won the seat following the retirement of long-serving independent Liz Cunningham, who won the seat on National Party preferences after defeating then Labor MP Neil Bennett at the 1995 election. Cunningham was a well-known local figure, having previously been Mayor of the Shire of Calliope prior to entering State politics. Her 1995 victory made her the first non-Labor member for Gladstone and its predecessors since 1932, and only the second since 1915.

Even though Cunningham had held the seat without much difficulty, Gladstone had almost always been a safe Labor seat in calculations of "traditional" two-party matchups–i. e., Labor vs. National before 2009, and Labor vs. LNP since 2009. This is due almost entirely to the presence of the city of Gladstone, a Labor stronghold for the better part of a century. Proving this, Labor would have held the seat on a margin of 11 percent during its meltdown of 2012. Thus, it was not considered an upset when Butcher, who had been Cunningham's Labor opponent in 2012, easily reclaimed the seat for Labor at the 2015 election. Underlining Labor's strength in the seat, Butcher won an outright majority on the first count while pushing the LNP into third place.

Labor consolidated its hold on the seat in 2017, with Butcher picking up a healthy swing of 10.7 percent and again pushing the LNP into third place. He was reelected in 2020 with a two-party vote of 73.5 percent, making Gladstone the third-safest Labor seat in the state and the safest outside Brisbane.

Members for Gladstone

Member		Party	Term
	Neil Bennett	Labor	1992–1995
	Liz Cunningham	Independent	1995–2015
	Glenn Butcher	Labor	2015–present

Election results

Main article: Electoral results for the district of Gladstone

This section is an excerpt from Results of the 2020 Queensland state election § Gladstone.[edit]

2020 Queensland state election: Gladstone

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labor	Glenn Butcher	18,429	64.40	+0.09
	Liberal National	Ron Harding	4,339	15.16	+3.60
	One Nation	Kevin Jorgensen	3,677	12.85	−7.57
	Independent	Murray Peterson	1,162	4.06	+4.06
	Greens	Emma Eastaughffe	1,011	3.53	−0.18
Total formal votes			28,618	96.87	+0.21
Informal votes			924	3.13	−0.21
Turnout			29,542	87.95	+1.52
Two-party-preferred result
	Labor	Glenn Butcher	21,030	73.49	+0.20
	Liberal National	Ron Harding	7,588	26.51	−0.20
	Labor hold		Swing	+0.20

Primary vote results in Barron River (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)

  Labor

  Liberal National

  National

  Liberal

  One Nation

  Katter's Australian

  Independent

Two-candidate-preferred vote results in Barron River

External links

• Green, Antony (2 August 2024). "Electorate Profile". Australian Broadcasting Corporation.