IPSWICH has proven to be Labor heartland once again with all four seats of the region awash with red as Wendy Bourne captured Ipswich West in Saturday’s State Election in her second tilt at the seat.
At the by-election in March, Ipswich West slipped from Labor’s grasp for only the fourth time in the electorate’s 64-year history, with Ipswich Show Society president Darren Zanow claiming the win for the Liberal National Party.
That win for Zanow was by a 2.9% margin off the back of a significant 18% swing against Queensland Labor.
But with a strong campaign that Wendy Bourne told Local Ipswich News saw her contact 95% of her constituents, she won the seat with close to a 7% margin.
“I think we’ve worked incredibly hard,” Ms Bourne said.
“I think it comes down to hard work.
“I’ll work extremely hard every single day to make sure that we have appropriate services and infrastructure in Ipswich.”
She said she would be her constituents’ champion.
“It would be quite contradictory of the LNP if they suggest that we’ve neglected Ipswich and then they would go on to do the same thing,” she said.
“The people of Ipswich deserve the same as those people that are in LNP seats and we will fight every single day to make sure that we get our fair share of funding up in Ipswich and those commitments we have made, they’re locked in as well and they don’t back away from them.”
Jennifer Howard, first elected in 2015, said she never took the people of Ipswich for granted and that would not be changing.
“I don’t take my responsibility lightly and will always fight for this great city’s fair share. I’m already straight back to work, putting Ipswich first,” she said.
“I was proud to secure election commitments during this campaign, one of which was matched by the LNP. I’ll be making sure that commitment is followed through, which is a $780k upgrade to Ipswich Tennis Association’s courts.
“The election commitment that wasn’t matched was for $5 million to build a synthetic track at UniSQ, one of the important projects I’ll keep fighting for here in Ipswich.”
Member for Bundamba Lance McCallum told media on Sunday that despite the 5.8% swing from ALP in his seat, he would be guaranteeing to hold a Crisafulli-led government to account.
“It’s been a huge result for Labor in Ipswich,” he said.
“We will work together as a strong and united team for Ipswich.
“I will expect that Bundamba, and we will expect that Ipswich, gets a fair go.”
Ms Howard agreed that all four local Labor MPs, which also includes Charis Mullen in Jordan, would work with the new government for the future of Ipswich.
