Created 1949 Electors 98,637 (2016) Area 1,170 km² Member of parliament Andrew Wallace Namesake Andrew Fisher | MP Andrew Wallace Demographic Rural Founded 1949 Elector 98,637 | |
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Party Liberal National Party of Queensland | ||
The Division of Fisher is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was created in 1949 and is named after Andrew Fisher, three times Prime Minister of Australia. It is located in the Sunshine Coast area north of Brisbane and includes the towns of Caloundra, Mooloolaba, Beerwah, Maleny, Woodford and Kilcoy.
As originally created, it extended as far inland as Kingaroy, but gradually moved eastward from the 1960s onward to become an entirely Sunshine Coast-based seat. It was a safe seat for the National Party until the 1980s. However, some of its more conservative territory was shifted to the new seat of Fairfax in 1984, replaced by some more marginal territory in the outer northern suburbs of Brisbane. On these boundaries, Labor took the seat in 1987.
The Brisbane portion was removed before 1993, erasing Labor's majority and making Fisher notionally Liberal. The Liberals took the seat in 1993, and have held it for all but two years since then without much difficulty. To date, it is the last time Labor has held a Sunshine Coast seat.
Its most prominent members have been Sir Charles Adermann, who was Deputy Leader of the Country Party 1964–66, and Peter Slipper, who served as Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives from 2011 to 2012.
Members
Following the resignation of Harry Jenkins as Speaker in the 43rd Parliament, Peter Slipper was nominated unopposed and installed as Speaker on 24 November 2011. Slipper resigned from the Liberal National Party on taking the Speaker's seat and continued in parliament as an independent member and resigned as speaker and went to the cross bench on 9 October 2012. On 11 May 2013, he joined businessman Clive Palmer's recently formed Palmer United Party, becoming its first member in federal parliament. However, a matter of hours later his membership of the party was revoked and Slipper returned to being an independent.