Guide for Brisbane City launched

1. I expect Schrinner to win again. He strikes me as a classic “centre right” liberal with twitches of green and not the more typical right wing liberals that have been running for high office of late. Labor always seem to put up the same candidate or style of candidate who is bland and doesn’t grab your attention.

   I think the real interest will be in the wards. I think the Greens have latched onto a red hot issue (housing affordability and rental crisis) that the other two major parties have either ignored or paid lip service to thus far. It may be either a hidden or real issue come March next year. But I think the demographics (i.e. greater proportion of younger voters) are on their side if they choose to use their power wisely.

   While I lean left, I think I will be voting against my local Councillor this time (Steve Griffiths – Moorooka Ward). He seems have made a few crazy calls of late and it is time for a change. I will be interested to see who else runs. I hope we get some quality candidates.

2. I largely concur with Neil Flanagan.

   Schrinner to retain the Mayoralty barring something very weird happening, with most of the interesting contests at the ward level. I think the Greens will be trying to win 5 or 6 wards.

   It will be interesting to see how much effort Labor puts in, and particularly who they stand as their Mayoral candidate. There’ve been persistent rumours that they’ll draft Kate Jones.

   The thing about Brisbane City and the other large SEQ councils is that being a Councillor is a full time job on its own, let alone being Mayor, so given the single member wards it’s quite necessary that the Mayor be separately elected. However, you can’t run for Mayor and Councillor at the same election. This means that no Labor Councillor has run for Mayor in the last two decades, rather, Labor has had various attempts at drafting various outsiders with a bit of profile (but no notable prior political history).

   (If the purpose of a system is what it does then the purpose of Qld Labor is to maintain control of the State government, with federal and local government a comparative sideshow.)

3. Central, Coorparoo, Walter-Taylor and Paddington are wards to watch imo, to see if the Greens can capitalise on the Greensland Effect, particularly Paddington with its 1.4% margin. I’m also interested to see if the Greens hold the Gabba ward now that Jonno Sriganathan is gone.

4. Depending on how well the Greens have done to expand their influence in their federal seats, I think the mayor is a genuine 3 cornered contest. LNP easily retain if OPV, GRN gain if CPV.

   The wards also depend on the voting system. I think Greens pick up Paddington, Central and Coorparoo no matter what, and many more if CPV. Walter Taylor is also a chance in OPV.

   Labor also do better under CPV noting Greens exhaust less.

   State Labor needs to decide whether they want the chance at controlling BCC in coalition with Greens, at the risk of a much stronger Green presence in BCC and beyond (assuming undivided councils go STV) and potential carry over campaigns in ALP held state seats, or if they want to shore it up for Schrinner. Being able to dethrone the largest remaining LNP government might tempt Labor away from their anger at Greens

5. There’s a school of thought that voters could get voting Green “out of their system” with a strong BCC result and then for the more important state election Labor could convince voters to keep the faith in McConnel, Cooper, Greenslopes and Miller (and LNP held Clayfield, Moggill and Chatsworth)

   But compared to other states (most strongly seen in NSW Shoalhaven vs South Coast) QLD Greens seem to be able to convince voters to go Green across multiple tiers. So Labor probably don’t want to see Greens win the overlapping council wards (especially in Green federal areas)

6. i personally am interested in the Central Ward, it makes sense that the LNP wins the around Teneriffe, New Farm but the CBD should be weak for them and more left-leaning.

7. The liberal leaning areas in central ward around new farm and tenerife had some massive swings to the greens in the federal election. coupled with presumed swings near the cbd i wouldn’t be surprised if this turns into a relatively safe greens ward.

8. I don’t think the Greens will get all that close to winning the Mayoralty. Yes they won three federal seats, but those three seats are only about half the wards in the council area and it’s not like they got that much more than a third of the three-party-preferred vote even in the seats they won. Cracking 20% on primaries will represent an almost 5% swing on its own.

   And more critically, Council voting is OPV still, so leading on primaries gets the LNP a long way.

   Take Paddington as an example — LNP 45, Greens 38, Labor 16, LNP win by a smidgen as Greens only gained a net 0.35 votes/vote from Labor. Or Northgate — LNP 47, Labor 36, Greens 17, and Labor gain at a net 0.4 votes/vote from the Greens.

   Whereas in e.g. Brisbane last year, Bates scored a net 0.64 votes/vote on Jarrett’s exclusion.

9. A major factor will just be how seriously Labor takes the election, it hasn’t felt like they’ve seriously tried to win a BCC election in ages. Reports have been that their preparations for the campaign are still very disorganised though, so the main story of the election could just be how many wards the Greens can manage to win.

   They should be able to pick up Walter-Taylor and Paddington without too much trouble, and then Central and Coorparoo should also be in reach but seem far less certain (I’d be far more confident with compulsory preferences). Anything else seems like quite a stretch, though I have seen Morningside named as a potential target since the Greens did decently there at the federal election and Kara Cook retired earlier this year. Is there any analysis of what sort of impact incumbents being replaced without a by-election in BCC tends to have on the swing?

   Kate Jones and 2020 The Gap ward candidate Arch Bevis have been named as potential mayoral candidates for Labor, and there has been a lot of speculation that Sriranganathan will run for mayor for the Greens, but I kinda doubt that will happen. I don’t think they’ll be seriously competitive for mayor anyway, the swing required would be gigantic and OPV is a major hindrance.

10. Agree with AlexJ that it depends a lot on OPV.

    The most interesting aspect for Greens is how many wards have at least some overlap with Greens held territory. Would be interested in seeing the full list of both total and partial overlaps from someone with better tools than my looking at maps. But it seems like a lot at a glance, and it all of them have strong campaigns in addition to a high profile and high quality mayoral candidate, then there might be enough crossover to get well into the 20s on the mayoral campaign and maybe even overtake Labor.

    This is also true for state electorates and Greens have be able to make use of small overlaps with Everton and Chatsworth to expand their list of LNP held target seats (though I expect they’ll target Clayfield and Moggill at most).

    Greens have been able to do well in areas where they actually seem like contenders and have proven that they make for reasonable state and federal MPs. On the ground their successful federal campaigns were based on taking a kernel of strong Greens territory to build a base from which to mount campaigns in fairly standard suburban seats.

    What I’m less sure about is whether those parts of Green seats are now themselves strong Green territory or if the new Greens MPs are still focusing on their bases. The biggest gain would be stronger networks to find high quality candidate – that’s how I think Bates and Watson-Brown were found while meanwhile the Gold Coast Greens are yet to preselect for the Fadden byelection.

11. I really don’t think this is going to be an easy contest to predict. I really think a lot of comments are underrating just how much Brisbane’s political landscape has changed in a relatively small time. The LNP brand is despised now in Brisbane almost as much as it is in Melbourne. The LNP itself knows this, and new LNP ward candidates don’t even mention which party their belong to in their campaign material, instead emphasising their connection to Adrian Schrinner personally. Everyone knows that the Greens have been building power over the last decade but again I don’t think you all realise by how much. The generic Greens vote in Queensland according to recent polls – that’s *Queensland*, not just Brisbane itself – sits around 17%. So their STATEWIDE vote roughly matches what they were polling in Brisbane alone four years ago- and let me tell you, that average increase didn’t happen because Townsville or Rockhampton suddenly became left wing.

    For that reason I think the base assumption should be that almost all the LNP’s 19 wards are in reasonable danger, to varying degrees. The Greens have already (at least soft) launched the campaigns of three candidates in Central, Paddington and Walter Taylor. I expect them to win all three of these very, very easily, and probably same for Coorparoo ward. Labor will win Northgate and Calamvale without even trying (which is important, because it’s not clear they’ll try at all) and Marchant and Doboy are reasonable shots too. Wards like Enoggera, The Gap and Holland Park range from fairly to very vulnerable and it’s more a question of whether they fall Labor or Green. In fact I’d only really call their 4 ‘safest’ wards as absolutely safe for them, and maybe even that’s being too generous given the relatively high Chinese population in MacGregor.

    HOWEVER- Yes voters were probably uniquely averse to change in 2020, but council elections are famously non-party political in Queensland, and Brisbane is just about the only major jurisdiction where party politics exists at all. What’s more how badly do the opposition actually want to win BCC? In Labor’s case, at least for its own sake, the answer is almost not at all. The Greens definitely more so, but the Queensland Greens are much more focused on issues like public housing than public transport, pedestrianisation and general ‘urbanism’, which is obviously much more the purview of city rather than state politics. And would a Labor/Greens coalition even be possible, even at the council level? Relations between the two parties have never been worse, frankly, I’m not really sure how the typical Labor councillor differs from the LNP at an ideological level (more footpaths? I guess?) and both parties could see it in their interests to hamstring a working majority purely for state/federal partisan reasons.

    If I had to guess what Labor’s general strategy will be, it will be at least this: do the absolute bare minimum, save money for the real fight at the state election in October, where they’ll be almost laser focused, at least in Brisbane, on stopping the march of the Greens, and where the LNP are already basically a side show. If Qld Labor had the slightest bit of imagination beyond endless triangulation, they could come up with a great urbanism platform, emphasising their partnership with the state government, and at the very least emulating the strides that cities like Melbourne and even (until recently) Liberal controlled Sydney, fixing Brisbane’s horrific car-centric infrastructure. I wouldn’t bet on that happening though.

    Will the Greens take up Labor’s political slack, go for gold and really pour resources into an inspiring, radical platform to transform Brisbane as we know it, or will they largely copy Labor’s likely strategy, saving their strength for the state and/or federal elections? I don’t know. Honestly, gun to my head, more the latter probably.

    The LNP’s strategy will be doing everything in their power to de-emphasise party politics and hope to God that OPV and the relative weakness of the Labor and Greens campaigns saves them. They don’t really have any other play here.

    Finally, as to the mayoralty race specifically: I think Schrinner is absolutely in danger of losing as well. Yes he definitely has a better personal brand than the LNP generally, but he only won by 6 points last time, at the height of COVID politics. If he wins, it’ll probably be OPV that saves him.

12. Furtive, if the LNP do fall short of a majority (due to gains from the Greens), the remaining 5 or so Labor councilors could easily side with them to form a Labor/LNP coalition. This sort of arrangement exists in Inner West Council for Sydney, with Labor forming a coalition agreement with a handful of Liberal and conservative independents against the Greens.

13. I would say all wards outside the inner suburbs (beyond Holland Park for the South/East side and north of Chermside) are generally safe for the LNP. Maybe Northgate is in play due to its tight margin (only 1-2%) but other wards like Marchant, McDowall and Bracken Ridge (north side) as well as Runcorn/Macgregor (south side) should be retained by the LNP. Even though these areas are Labor held at the state level, I see these suburbs and wards behaving like many councils covering the middle ring parts of Sydney (examples include Ryde, Parramatta and Georges River) which are highly competitive and often feature conservative majorities.

14. I should have said Runcorn rather than MacGregor. My southside geography is iffy.

    Yes I can absolutely see a similar situation happening vis a vis council alliances. Qld Labor is even less interested in council politics and even more antagonistic to the Greens than NSW Labor. You can easily imagine then that both the major parties will at best be treating the council election as a proxy war- LNP essentially fighting for the last remaining crown jewel, such as it is (at least before the Oct state election), Labor potentially fighting for the same, but also putting the brakes on what they view, rightly, as an existential threat to their actual parliamentary power. Unlike the other states where labor is going from strength to strength, at least for now, Qld Labor is in real danger of losing their majority at the next state election, if you believe the polls (they’ve been wrong before, tbf). If Labor is to hold on in Oct then they need to maintain their domination in Brisbane, especially since I can’t see them playing well with a Greens crossbench.

15. I think the LNP in Queensland have a chance to gain a significant number of seats (at least 5-10) at the next state election. I think some key targets will firstly be the regional seats (Bundaberg, Burnett and Caloundra) followed by other marginals like Redlands, Aspley, Mansfield and Mt Ommaney in the Brisbane area. Other longer shot targets would be seats like Kurwongbah and Pine Rivers.

    These seats (the ones in the Brisbane metropolitan region) are similar to districts such as Ryde, Parramatta, Winston Hills, Riverstone, Oatley and East Hills in Sydney which were all Liberal held just prior to the recent NSW election. Essentially Queensland is the reverse of NSW where there could be an ‘it’s time’ factor against Labor due to their long period in office (10+ consecutive years) coupled with the fact that the party in power nationally (also Labor) generally suffers in down ballot races once the honeymoon period is over.

16. Yoh An, You mean Nicklin or Hervey Bay, Burnett is already held by the LNP safely.

    I don’t agree that Labor will lose Mt Ommaney. I think others seats are more at risk than that.

    At the moment I see the LNP targeting Redcliffe, Thuringowah, Mundingburra, Townsville, Cairns, Barron River, Mulgrave (If Pitt retires), Nicklin, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Springwood, Gaven, Aspley, Keppel, Redlands, Caloundra and Mackay.

    That is more than enough for an LNP majority. They don’t need the seats on bigger margins. Although Youth crime may put some seats at risk that shouldn’t usually be at risk such as my seat of Bancroft (this is where the tragic murder of Emma Lovell occurred) youth crime is a big issue in this area and the LNP could win this seat if things get worse or they offer solutions.

    I’ll be long gone to Victoria when the next election is held even the city council elections, I personally am getting fed-up with the rise in youth crime around here and the lack of justice. So I am forced to move away.

    The party who is best equipped to deal with this crisis and punish these sick individuals deserves to win the next QLD state election. If not now, when?

17. Yes, that is what I meant (Nicklin). I think you are right that Labor is at risk of losing most of its regional seats plus a handful/several in the Brisbane area. The best outcome for the LNP is that they end up with 50-55 seats, enough for a small majority similar to what the NSW Coalition had under Mike Baird (2015-19).

18. @ Furtive Lawngnome

    Good analysis. I am not a seat analyst, but I think you have hit the politics of this election spot on.

    Personally I think you may be a bit bullish on the Greens winning big in the wards and Schrinner losing, but you make some strong and interesting points.

19. As far as I can tell Jonno Sriranganathan of all people got on reasonably well with the ALP councillors, much more so than state politicians. When the stakes are low, Labor and Greens get on reasonably well. There are NSW councils where Labor and Greens work well together like Randwick and Shoalhaven (the latter Greens led with Labor the junior partner).

    If Schrinner retains the mayorality but leading a left wing majority council with ALP in balance of power, there will be bills where Greens get rolled but I wouldn’t call that a grand coalition.

    The LNP could well win the state election and there will be a lot of federal hype around it – both testing whether Dutton is even cutting through on his home turf, or whether Albo’s honeymoon is over. The US presidential election will be competing for the same media space but with so many seats “in play” it will be a flurry of activity.

    I think Daniel T identified the correct target seats and there’s no reason the LNP shouldn’t be able to win back Labor’s 2017 and 2020 gains.

    On the ground it’s very easy to imagine Labor letting more marginal Brisbane area seats slip (Aspley in particular) fighting off Greens, and they’ll relish being able to blame Greens for their own misallocation of resources (especially if they lose). Greens have cause to target areas they’ve never really targeted before like Ferny Grove, Stafford and Bulimba, as well as the usual suspects.

    There’s also the seats where the federal overlap looks too far gone for the ALP in North QLD (especially Townsville area and Mackay). Mind you I was very surprised Labor held on to them last time and perhaps I am just setting myself up to be surprised all over again.

    It also seems like Labor came close in a bunch of Gold Coast seats as well last time – if that’s a signal of something bigger and not just the COVID vote that won them Nicklin and Hervey Bay, then Labor should be able to hold a majority.

    There’s also potential 3 corner contests in Clayfield and Moggill (and possibly Everton and Chatsworth, which have some federal Green overlap despite being off the Greens radar). In those seats the Greens going strong is unambiguously a help to Labor. Greens have already preselected for Pullenvale. Not running dead in Hamilton Ward, McDowall Ward and Chandler Ward would be a sign of a truce.

20. Probably easier to get along when neither are in power (as in BCC) whereas Labor is in government at state and federal.

    I don’t think the analogy to Inner West makes sense. Labor and Greens are the major parties there, with the Liberals a minor party. That’s not going to happen in Brisbane, if the LNP loses their majority they’ll still be one of the bigger parties, with Labor and Greens only having a small majority between them.

    Yes, Labor would be concerned about not letting the Greens making further inroads at a state and federal level which might want them to not want to give the Greens wins on council by working together, but forming an alliance with the LNP would probably improve the prospects for the Greens at a state or federal level.

    The other complication is that forming an alliance won’t give them “government” in BCC since executive power is held by the lord mayor, so I’m not sure if it’s as attractive as it would be under a more parliamentary system.

21. Ben, I was thinking in Brisbane the reverse case would apply where Liberals and Greens are the major parties, with Labor being a minor party that could side with either LNP or Greens.

22. This might be getting a bit off topic but I don’t see the LNP maintaining any real political strength within BCC at any level of government. I don’t even see them regaining Aspley- the federal election had an even greater swing against them than the 2020 state election in corresponding booths. In fact I can see a very near future where they lose Moggill, Everton, Chatsworth and Clayfield. Similarly I think Labor’s increasing competitiveness on the Gold Coast and even Redlands is “real”, for similar demographic reasons as Brisbane, and because the Greens aren’t nearly as well organised there as they are in the capital. The LNP will probably do better in Moreton. So with a couple exceptions I agree with Daniel’s list of target seats (absolutely not with his policy analysis though).

    I’m gotten a lot more pessimistic about how easy going the Greens will have it at the state and federal elections. The secular decline in the LNP vote in the inner city is going to mean that they’ll start running third in at least some, if not most, of the Greens’ state target seats, and the chances of them gifting Greens preferences is much, much lower next time round.

    The federal election may be even worse. Ryan’s probably safe, Brisbane I can see arguments either way, but Griffith will be a tough reelection. There’s a very good chance LNP runs third, there’s zero chance Dutton recommends preferences to the Greens, and Labor will throw everything and the kitchen sink at regaining the seat- partly because the basic preference math works in Labor’s favour, partly because they see Max Chandler-Mather himself as a rising star and personal threat to Labor’s progressive legitimacy. On top of that there’ll be a redistribution in Griffith which may or may not be in the Greens favour- I think they’ll lose a lot of their very friendly neighbourhoods in Stones Corner and Dutton Park. The flipside is if that nightmare scenario happens, then they’ll be redistributed into Moreton, and if the Greens are doing very well besides then Moreton could get precarious for Labor, forcing them to redivert resources.

23. Here’s a bit of an overview of how the wards overlap with the federal seats, plus some assessments of Greens prospects based on that.

    Ryan
    -Walter-Taylor
    -most of The Gap
    -most of Pullenvale
    -about half of Enogerra
    -about a third of Paddington

    Griffith
    -The Gabba – the other Greens heartland around West End/Wooloongabba, very close to the state seat of South Brisbane
    -Coorparoo
    -Morningside
    -about half of Holland Park
    -a small part of Doboy

    Brisbane
    -Central
    -most of the actual residential area of Hamilton
    -about two-thirds of Paddington
    -about half of Enogerra
    -about a third of Marchant
    -a small part of The Gap
    -a tiny bit of McDowall

    The Gabba – the Greens heartland around West End/Wooloongabba, very close to the state seat of South Brisbane.
    Walter-Taylor – the other Greens heartland around UQ, very close to the state seat of Maiwar, previous LNP member has retired, should be an easy gain.
    Paddington – overlaps with very strong sections of Ryan & Brisbane, Greens only just lost last time so it should be an easy gain.

    Central – a mostly strong areas of Central (New Farm/Teneriffe are worse than the rest but not bad), if they repeat their federal performance here they should win
    Coorparoo – a pretty good area of Griffith, should be very much within reach but since the Greens haven’t announced a candidate yet it’s clearly a little bit less of a priority

    Enogerra – covers somewhat weaker areas of Brisbane and Ryan, at the federal election all three parties were fairly close. The Greens have also had a significantly lower primary in 2020 than they achieved federally as they have not really put resources here before. The LNP only have a small margin here so this seems like a true three-cornered race.
    Holland Park – decent territory federally for both Labor and the Greens, and the LNP margin isn’t that big, it could be a three-cornered contest depending on the resources both of them put into it
    Morningside – a decent part of Griffith for the Greens, though not as strong as The Gabba/Coorparoo. A major difference is that this is a Labor-held ward which the Greens have not put resources into before at the council level, and so would require a gigantic swing on paper to win, which is only slightly mitigated by the previous Labor member having retired. Putting resources into winning one of the few Labor-held wards is probably not the most productive idea right now but I wouldn’t totally rule this out.

    The Gap – weaker areas of Brisbane and Ryan for the Greens, they were in third at a lot of the federal booths. I don’t think they have much of a chance here, though it could probably turn into a true three-cornered contest without OPV.
    Pullenvale – this is mostly the rural, conservative end of Ryan, along with a small LNP-leaning part of Blair. I don’t think the Greens have any real chance here.
    Hamilton – even at the federal election this was overwhelmingly LNP territory. the Greens have no chance here.
    Marchant – there’s probably room for the Greens to grow here but there’s not any real prospect of a win this election. Maybe Labor could win this if they put in some effort.

    The recent polls with the Greens vote in Queensland at 17% are almost certainly incorrect – those results are from Resolve, which had some similar figures in state breakdowns prior to the federal election which very much did not pan out. Their state breakdowns seem to be much more volatile and less reliable in general.

    I don’t know if the LNP brand is quite as toxic at the council level in Brisbane as it is now federally and has long been at the state level. I’d expect a swing against them for sure, but if Labor still isn’t really trying then it might not be that big. I don’t think the Greens have the resources to really fully pick up Labor’s slack and become the proper opposition either in that case. The BCC LNP are good at presenting themselves as moderate, not bothering with culture war nonsense, and know how to play to the electorate in general, so I think they’re capable of avoiding the worst of the backlash to the party brand.

24. Thank you Babalumba. I thought there was a Griffith/Chandler Ward overlap but evidently not. Would be keen to see the same analysis for state seats though you’d probably end up repeating yourself. The thing I wondering is whether now those areas have Green MPs that there will be a big upswing in the Green vote there (thinking of Michael Berkman picking up a 13.5% primary vote swing in Maiwar in particular)

    @Furtive – I think Griffith is safe if MCM can get a primary vote surge similar to other Greens MPs – he’ll be too far ahead on primaries for any combination of preferences to matter. Labor will throw the kitchen sink at the seat and it’s in the LNP’s interest to keep that dream alive, but it won’t matter. I don’t see Labor doing very well in Brisbane and Ryan unless there is some wide scale shift of small-l Liberals (that still voted Liberal in 2022) to the ALP.

    Chatsworth and Everton makes more sense as ALP targets than Greens but for Labor to win you’d want the Greens to take a bite out of Minnikin’s and Mander’s primaries that goes back to Labor on preferences. So I could still seem them being Greens “targets” (in addition to Clayfield and Moggill) as generally Greens try to balance LNP and ALP held target seats. But if any state party would be ok with being seen as exclusively targeting Labor seats, it’s QLD.

25. Here’s some state analysis though that’s getting a bit off-topic.

    Griffith
    -most of South Brisbane
    -most of Greenslopes
    -most of Bulimba
    -a little bit of Chatsworth

    Ryan
    -Maiwar
    -Moggill
    -half of Cooper
    -half of Ferny Grove
    -tiny bit of Everton

    Brisbane
    -McConnel
    -two-thirds of Clayfield
    -half of Stafford
    -half of Cooper
    -tiny bit of Everton
    -tiny bit of Ferny Grove

    McConnel and Cooper are 3CP marginals that should be easy gains for the Greens.

    Greenslopes is winnable if they replicate the federal election result, though it requires a big swing.

    Miller does not overlap with any federal Greens seats but is the next best prospect (it’s the northern end of Moreton, the next best federal Greens target in Queensland) due to a decent primary both state & federally before serious resources have been allocated.

    Moggill and Clayfield are the best LNP-held prospects but don’t seem particularly likely any time soon, especially not next election when a Labor to LNP swing seems very likely. The Greens could get into second if they tried, but it seems difficult to offset just how conservative large sections of these seats are. Moggill seems more possible than Clayfield but I don’t think there’s any real chance next election.

    Bulimba, Ferny Grove and Stafford are all reasonable future prospects but are certainly not going to happen next election given the low existing Greens primary vote in those seats.

26. Bringing it back to BCC: I might be a bit overconfident calling Walter Taylor a sure hit for the Greens. The difference between the ward and mayoral vote is one of the largest and there’s a good reason for it- the sitting councillor is an absolute bozo, a real weirdo. If he’s not running next year then that makes it harder for the Greens, not easier. OPV is another complication that Maiwar, for example, doesn’t have (it’s a relatively marginal seat). Greens will probably win WT anyway but it’s something to consider.

27. I mixed them up actually – it’s Paddington where the sitting LNP councillor has retired. I don’t think OPV will have much of an effect on the Greens’ chances in Walter-Taylor – Labor are not strong in the area at all and the Greens only need a ~4% swing which seems very feasible for them. If they can’t get that, something’s gone seriously wrong with their campaign. It’s the seats where Labor and the Greens are both fairly even that they hurt the most under OPV, but that very much isn’t Walter-Taylor.

28. Alex J has identified a major problem with the direct election of Mayor in that the most suitable candidates from ALP are choosing not to run and ALP is picking personality candidates for the Lord Mayor Race. WHen eventually the ALP win LIbs will face the same problem. Experienced Councilors are opting not to stand.

    I suggest that a LORd Mayoral Candidate can stand for Lord Mayor and Council seat at the same time but that that this be done in a team candidature two Councilor Candidates in the team for Council Seat and that in the event of the Candidate #1 being elected Lord Mayor the Candidate #2 take the COuncil seat. This would avoid the by-election and still have experienced candidates running for Lord Mayor. Success as a footballer does not mean someone will make a good Lord Mayor.
    IN Brisbane with political party participation this would work seamlessly. IN country and provincial areas where every candidate is an independent it would cause problems. What it would do is make the political party candidates that already informally exist become formal.

    I personally would prefer that the elected Councilors elect the Lord Mayor and can sack the Lord Mayor in the same way as PM holds and loses office.

    I would like compulsory preferential voting and have told my local COUncilloer ion MORetomn bay taht I will view dimly any cabnsdidate who does not recommend a preferencve order toi excghaustion.

    Last time most voters preferenced to exhaustion but just about every candidate had Vote 1 only on their How To Votes.

29. Andrew, that model works well if you have a PR system but I don’t see how that can work with single-member wards.

30. Wanted to point out as a Morningside voter that the Greens were running dead here prior to Chandler-Mather’s tilt at Griffith.

    Assuming that MCM’s popularity hasn’t gone backwards since the election, and with Kara Cook’s departure, I would expect the Green’s PV to double if not triple in 2024 if they give it a proper go with a proper candidate. I’m don’t think they’re ready to win it just yet, but would definitely be competitive going forward.

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