Eleven candidates have nominated for the Griffith by-election to be held on February 8.
This is the same number of candidates who contested the seat at the 2013 federal election. Kevin Rudd won the seat for the ALP last year but resigned from Parliament on November 22.
The candidates, in the order they will appear on the ballot paper, are:
- Timothy Lawrence – Stable Population Party
- Geoff Ebbs – The Greens
- Christopher David Williams – Family First Party
- Karel Boele – Independent
- Anthony Ackroyd – Bullet Train for Australia
- Anne Reid – Secular Party of Australia
- Terri Butler – Australian Labor Party
- Melanie Rose Thomas – Pirate Party Australia
- Travis James Windsor – Independent
- Ray Sawyer – Katterâs Australian Party
- Bill Glasson – Liberal National Party of Queensland
Ebbs, Reid and Glasson all contested the seat last year. Sawyer contested Fairfax.
To the extent that a donkey vote exists, the order of names on the ballot paper favours the ALP.
The LNP candidate, former AMA President Bill Glasson, needs a swing of 3.01% to take the seat from the ALP. The ALP has won the seat at every federal election since 1977, except for 1996. Kevin Rudd held it at every federal election from 1998.
History suggests the ALP will retain the seat. Since 1901, a government has only taken a seat from the opposition in a by-election on one occasion.
Under 
Howard says he has heard what the voters have to say, but he maintained that the result was more akin to the by-elections in Adelaide and Port Adelaide in 1988, and Oxley in 1989. In these elections, the Hawke government suffered large swings, up to 14%, losing the previously safe Adelaide electorate.
