Townsville Queensland—Legislative Assembly
State or territory:	Queensland
Dates current:	1878–present
MP:	Mandy Johnstone
Party:	Labor
Namesake:	Townsville

Townsville is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland. The seat is one of four within the Townsville urban area in North Queensland, and covers the Eastern and Northern suburbs of the City of Townsville as well as Magnetic Island and Palm Island.^[1]

Significant features in Townsville within the electorate are; The Strand, the Port of Townsville, Townsville Airport, RAAF Garbutt, Castle Hill, Museum of Tropical Queensland, Reef HQ, various administrative centres for Local, State and federal Governments. Suburbs of Townsville within the Electorate include; Townsville, North Ward, Castle Hill, Belgian Gardens, West End, Hyde Park, Garbutt, Mt Louisa, Currajong, Railway Estate, South Townsville, Rowes Bay, Bohle and Pallarenda.^[2] Two populated islands fall within the electorate; Magnetic Island and Palm Island, each have about 2500 residents^[3][4], 93% of Palm Island's population is Indigenous^[5].

This State electorate falls completely within the eastern portion of the Federal Division of Herbert. It encompasses the Local Government Areas of Palm Island and parts of Townsville.

Townsville Electorate is bordered by the Hinchinbrook (North), Burdekin (South), Mundingburra (South and West) and Thuringowa (West) Electorates.^[6]

Contents 1 History 2 Members for Townsville 3 Results 3.1 2006 election 4 References

[edit] History

The Electoral district of Townsville was created in 1878, in 1885 it was divided in two and then one year later it was remerged but it was determined that the reconstituted single Townsville Electorate would elect two representatives to the Legislative Assembly.^[7]

Premier Robert Philp (Premier 1899-1903 and 1907-08) was elected as one of the two Townsville members when his previous Electorate of Musgrave absorbed. His parliamentary activity was mainly in support of North Queensland and his own business interests - extending railway links to North Queensland, and the abolition of import tariffs. When the import of Pacific Islanders was temporarily halted in 1892 Philp was instrumental in securing its resumption.

In 1912 the Electoral district of Mundingburra was created to accommodate for the return to universal single member electorates. 1923 saw the further reduction in size of the Electorate with the northern part of the city ceded to Kennedy and the southern part to Mundingburra, and in 1959 it was abolished and divided into the two electorates of South Townsville and North Townsville. The 1971 redistribution recreated the Electorate with new neighbours, Townsville West and Townsville South, Townsville included most of the Northern part of the City and some rural areas which were formerly in Hinchinbrook. The Electorate was reduced in size again in 1986 redistribution with a new neighbour of Townsville East. When Townsville East was abolished in 1991 Townsville Electorate gained land but lost land in the South-West corner to the newly re-created seat of Mundingburra.^[7]

In 1998 Mike Reyolds was elected as the new Member for the Townsville Electorate taking over from retiring Labor Member Ken Geoff Smith and was immediately appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier in North Queensland. After increasing the Townsville margin in 2001 Reynolds was promoted to Cabinet as Minister for Emergency Services and Minister Assisting the Premier in North Queensland. In 2004, Reynolds was moved to the new Child Safety Ministry with Ministerial responsibilities for adoptions, child protection services, foster/kinship carers etc.

After the 2006 election, Reynolds was elected as Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly by the 52nd Parliament on 10 October 2006.

[edit] Members for Townsville

First incarnation (1878-1885, 1 member)
Member		Party	Term
	John Deane	Unaligned	1878–1879
	John Macrossan	Unaligned	1879–1885
Second incarnation (1885-1912, 2 members)
Member		Party	Term
	John Macrossan	Unaligned	1885–1891
	William Brown	Unaligned	1885–1888
	Robert Philp	Opposition/Ministerialist	1888–1912
	George Burns	Ministerialist	1893
	Anthony Ogden	Australian Labor Party	1894–1896
	William Castling	Ministerialist	1896–1899
	Patrick Hanran	Ministerialist	1899–1909
	Thomas Foley	Australian Labor Party	1909–1912
Third incarnation (1912-1960, 1 member)
Member		Party	Term
	Robert Philp	Opposition/Ministerialist	1912–1915
	Daniel Ryan	Australian Labor Party	1915–1920
	William Green	Northern Country Party	1920–1923
	Maurice Hynes	Australian Labor Party	1923–1939
	George Keyatta	Australian Labor Party	1939–1960
Fourth incarnation (1972-present, 1 member)
Member		Party	Term
	Norman Scott-Young	Liberal Party of Australia	1972–1983
	Ken McElligott	Australian Labor Party	1983–1986
	Tony Burreket	National Party of Australia	1986–1989
	Ken Davies	Australian Labor Party	1989–1992
	Geoff Smith	Australian Labor Party	1992–1998
	Mike Reynolds	Australian Labor Party	1998–2009
	Mandy Johnstone	Australian Labor Party	2009–present

[edit] Results

[edit] 2006 election

Registered Voters		26,144		Fairly Safe Labor
Votes Cast		22,621		Turnout %	86.52	-1.75
Informal Votes		526		Informal %	2.33	+0.08
Party		Candidate	Primary Votes	%	Swing%
	Liberal	Jessica Weber	7,858	35.56	+3.21
	Labor	Mike Reynolds	11,438	51.77	+9.33	Elected
		Steve Todeschini	1,288	5.83	+5.83
	Queensland Greens	John Boucher	1,511	6.84	-6.18
Total			22,095
Two Candidate Preferred
	Liberal Party of Australia	Jessica Weber	8,480	40.90	-3.61
	Australian Labor Party	Mike Reynolds	12,255	59.10	+3.61	Elected
Total			20,735			[8][9][10]

Booth of interest:

Booth 14 Palm Island^[9]

	votes	%
WEBER, Jessica LIB	67	11.20%
REYNOLDS, Mike ALP	482	80.60%
TODESCHINI, Steve	9	1.51%
BOUCHER, John GRN	40	6.69%
Total Formal	598
Informal votes	17	2.76%
Total	615
% of Total Electoral district		2.72

[edit] References

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