| Blair AustralianHouse of RepresentativesDivision | |
|---|---|
  Interactive map of boundaries since the2019 federal election | |
| Created | 1998 |
| MP | Shayne Neumann |
| Party | Australian Labor Party |
| Namesake | Harold Blair |
| Electors | 142,021 (2025) |
| Area | 6,472 km2 (2,498.9 sq mi) |
| Demographic | Provincial |
TheDivision of Blair is anAustralian Electoral Division inQueensland. The current MP isShayne Neumann of theAustralian Labor Party (ALP).
Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by theAustralian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.[1]
The division was created in 1998 and is named afterHarold Blair, anAboriginal singer andcivil rights campaigner. The Division is based onIpswich, and extends from rural and exurban areas west ofBrisbane to theScenic Rim andLockyer Valley regions.
The founder ofOne Nation,Pauline Hanson, contested Blair in1998. Her previous seat,Oxley, had been essentially split in half in the redistribution ahead of the election. Oxley was reconfigured into an exclusively Brisbane-based seat that tilted strongly towardLabor, while most of the rural area near Ipswich shifted to Blair. Although it was a very safeLiberal seat on paper, it contained most of Hanson's base, so it was a natural choice for Hanson to attempt to transfer. The Liberals,Nationals and Labor preferenced each other ahead of Hanson, allowing Liberal challengerCameron Thompson to win on the eighth count. Thompson overtook the Labor candidate on National preferences, then defeated Hanson on Labor preferences.
Thompson held the seat without serious difficulty in the next two elections, and it was widely considered as a safe Liberal seat. In the 2006 redistribution, the2004 Liberal margin of 11.2% was almost halved to 5.7%. Conservative-leaningEsk,Nanango andKingaroy were transferred toMaranoa, while Blair was pushed further into Ipswich andBoonah. Blair had been rated as having received more funding promises from theHoward government than any other electorate in the country.[2] The redistribution pushed Blair just outside the range of seats Labor needed to win government. In the2007 election, Thompson was defeated by Labor challengerShayne Neumann, with a 10.2 percent swing to Labor. Since then, the growth of Ipswich has allowed Neumann to consolidate his hold on the seat. For instance, in2013, he actually picked up a small swing in his favour even as Labor lost government. In2016, Neumann made Blair a safe Labor seat with 58.9 percent of the vote. However, in the following 2019 Federal Election, Neumann suffered one of the largest swings against a Labor member, with a primary vote of just 31.3%, cutting the two-party preferred vote to 51.2%, a massive and unexpected swing against him of 6.9% on a two-party preferred basis. This was in keeping with the heavy swing to theLiberal National Party (LNP) in Queensland in that election. In2022 the seat swung back to Neumann somewhat, with 35% of the primary vote and 55.2% of the two-party preferred vote, with the 4.02% swing in his favour slightly higher than the national swing to Labor of 3.66%.
| Image | Member | Party | Term | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Cameron Thompson (1960–) | Liberal | 3 October 1998 – 24 November 2007 | Lost seat | |
.jpg) | Shayne Neumann (1961–) | Labor | 24 November 2007 – present | Incumbent | |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labor | Shayne Neumann | 42,825 | 36.62 | +1.61 | |
| Liberal National | Carl Mutzelburg | 31,797 | 27.19 | −1.70 | |
| Greens | Paul Toner | 12,104 | 10.35 | −2.23 | |
| One Nation | Brendan Kross | 11,344 | 9.70 | −0.29 | |
| Legalise Cannabis | Anthony Hopkins | 5,353 | 4.58 | +4.58 | |
| People First | Kathryn Chadwick | 4,421 | 3.78 | +3.78 | |
| Trumpet of Patriots | Edward McDonald | 3,769 | 3.22 | +3.22 | |
| Family First | John Purdon | 2,334 | 2.00 | +2.00 | |
| Animal Justice | Angela Lowery | 1,874 | 1.60 | −0.85 | |
| Libertarian | Anthony Bull | 1,132 | 0.97 | −1.98 | |
| Total formal votes | 116,953 | 93.43 | −1.27 | ||
| Informal votes | 8,219 | 6.57 | +1.27 | ||
| Turnout | 125,172 | 88.15 | +1.04 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Labor | Shayne Neumann | 65,156 | 55.71 | +0.48 | |
| Liberal National | Carl Mutzelburg | 51,797 | 44.29 | −0.48 | |
| Laborhold | Swing | +0.48 | |||
27°06′54″S152°27′43″E / 27.115°S 152.462°E /-27.115; 152.462