By Jeremy Sollars
State member-elect for Southern Downs James Lister is under no illusions about the task ahead of him following in the footsteps of one of Queensland’s longest-serving MPs in the now-retired Lawrence Springborg.
At the time of printing of the Free Times this week, the LNP’s James Lister had not been “officially” declared the winner of last weekend’s election by the Electoral Commission of Queensland – that doesn’t usually happen until 10 days after the poll – but given the way the votes fell last Saturday there appeared to be zero impediment to that being the outcome.
Lister and the LNP achieved just over 41 per cent of the primary vote in Southern Downs, a marked reduction compared to ‘The Borg’s’ 10 terms of office – with second place-getter on primaries being One Nation’s Josh Coyne, who garnered just over 20 per cent.
When he came out of the 2015 State Election, Springborg and the LNP held Southern Downs with a rock-solid margin of 19.2 per cent on a two-party preferred basis, but James Lister expected that to be halved when the last preferences and postal votes were finally counted this week.
But he doesn’t believe the State-wide swing against the LNP was reflected in the party’s vote here – he believes Southern Downs was a “truly local contest”.
“To be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was happening in the rest of the state, other than reading the main headlines,” Lister told the Free Times this week.
“I was so focused on the local campaign here.
“With Lawrence out of the contest, it did open things up – it was a local contest between myself and the other candidates.
“I always expected One Nation to come in second, which is what happened, I expected them to finish with between 20 and 25 per cent of the primary vote.”
Lister – who phoned his opponents last Sunday afternoon to advise them he believed he would have the final numbers to take the seat – this week responded to criticism from some current and former local LNP members who objected to their candidate not being a ‘born and bred’ local, and took the view he had been effectively ‘parachuted’ into Southern Downs by the party machine.
For the record, Lister was born on the Gold Coast and his parents, Paul and Jenny, own a property at Severnlea near Stanthorpe.
“LNP headquarters didn’t know who I was when I nominated – even though I had worked in party headquarters back when I was the Young Nationals youth development officer,” he said.
“It wasn’t a head office job – I nominated along with others and won the support of the majority of local party members in the pre-selection process, there was no special treatment.
“I was visiting Dad when we heard on the radio that Lawrence was going to retire from state politics – it was the third of December last year.
“I was in the kitchen and barefoot at the time, and at first I misheard the report and thought Lawrence had died – I stubbed my toe rushing to get to the radio.
“Dad suggested then to me, ‘why not think about running?’.
“I nominated and through a process of talking to (party members) and getting to know them I turned them around.
“I may not be a born and bred local, but you don’t necessarily need 15 generations here to understand people’s problems and issues.
“My priority is to get out and meet as many more people in the electorate as I can – I fully understand that I need build the trust of the people in this electorate, to whom I am very grateful for giving me the opportunity to be their representative.”
Again for the record – of the local LNP members who participated in the LNP internal pre-selection ballot, 171 voted for James Lister, 36 for Southern Downs councillor Cameron Gow, 12 for Deputy Mayor Jo McNally, while 40 exercised their ‘no candidate’ option.
James Lister will take over the Warwick and Stanthorpe offices recently vacated by Lawrence Springborg and will retain Springborg’s staff – “if they are happy to stay on” – including Stanthorpe staff Ian Jackson, who went to work for Springborg when he first took office in 1989, and is believed to be Queensland’s longest-serving electorate officer.
And he and wife Belinda plan to build a house in the Stanthorpe area – once he is officially “employed” as an MP.
“It’s a bit hard to get a home loan when you’re unemployed, which I have been since the start of the campaign when I left the RAAF,” he laughed.
“I have a six-year-old son with high-functioning autism at Severnlea State School, where he’s doing better than he has done anywhere else – we’ll be looking to build somewhere in that area.”
James Lister paid tribute to his wife for her support throughout the campaign and to both their sets of parents, who helped with child-minding and logistics in general.
Belinda Lister, for her part, says she is “excited” at the prospect of supporting her husband as state MP, and appears likely to be more in the public eye than Linda Springborg, who preferred to stay out of the media spotlight.
She chairs the Stanthorpe Hospital Community Consultative Committee and, an accomplished violinist and viola player, is involved in musical activities in Stanthorpe and in a range of other community groups.
And the couple are not fazed by the long periods they’ll spend apart, saying they were used to doing just that when serving in the RAAF.
“I see it as a partnership,” Belinda told the Free Times.
“If James is away in Brisbane on parliamentary duties, I will be more than happy to go to meetings to represent him if he can’t make it.”
(SIDEBAR)
Had the LNP been successful in winning government, James Lister had committed funding to various local groups and projects – he now says he will attempt to seek grant and other funding options for them.
Local projects he had committed to on the basis of an LNP win included –
* $30,000 for upgrades at the Yangan School of Arts
* $25,000 for disabled toilets at the Freestone Memorial Hall
* $25,000 for asbestos removal at the Warwick Senior Citizens rooms
(SIDEBAR)
About James Lister …
* Aged 41, he is married to Belinda, with whom he has two sons, Jeremy, 6, and William 3 … he and Belinda first locked eyes on each other in the officers’ mess at RAAF Amberley. Before the RAAF Belinda was in the army.
* Has been involved with conservative politics since joining the Young Nationals at the age of 16.
* Previous occupations include RAAF officer (last 17 years), including stints as Aide-de-camp (ADC) to Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce and former Governor-General Michael Jeffery, along with a 12-month stint prior to the RAAF working for a labour hire company drafting workplace agreements for small businesses.
