Division of Bowman

The Division of Bowman is an Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. The division was created in 1949 and is named for David Bowman, an early leader of the Australian Labor Party, in Queensland. The seat is located in the eastern suburbs of Brisbane, and currently includes the suburbs of Capalaba, Cleveland, Redland Bay, Birkdale, Thorneside, Alexandra Hills, Thornlands, Mount Cotton, Cornubia, Ormiston, Wellington Point and Victoria Point. The division also incorporates various islands of Moreton Bay including Coochiemudlo the inhabited southern Bay Islands (Russell, Karragarra, Macleay and Lamb) as well as the big tourist destination of North Stradbroke.

It is generally a residential electorate with some crops, poultry, various light industries and tourism.

Bowman has traditionally been a highly marginal seat, regularly changing hands between the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party. Notably, the electorate has been won by the party with the largest national two party preferred vote at every election from 1954 to 2001 (except 1990). However, in the 2004 Federal Election, an energetic campaign by Dr Andrew Laming, and an electoral redistribution (due to the creation of the new Division of Bonner), saw Bowman returned to the Liberal Party by a significant margin (59.12% two party preferred) and the division was then considered by pollsters such as Antony Green to be a fairly safe Liberal seat.

In the 2007 Federal Election the electorate experienced a strong swing of 8.86% towards the Australian Labor Party. Incumbent Liberal MP Andrew Laming held the seat by 0.04%, or 64 votes. Following the 2007 election, it was second only to McEwen as the most marginal seat in the country, although the 2009 electoral redistribution in Queensland saw the margin notionally reduced even further to effectively 0.005%, making Bowman the most marginal seat in the country.