Moreton – Australia 2022

Re: the above comments about ministerial designation in our Parliaments. There’s 2 streams of thought.
You could trial a lot of this at a state level before implementing at a Federal.
I think having a popularly elected Premier, in the same way you have popularly elected Mayors could be a good way to start. The Premier also needn’t have to worry about a Lower House seat but could have a place in Parliament for things like QT and other specific addresses. It would also alleviate a lot of the issues surrounding leadership spills, as it would be a lot harder to dislodge a state-wide elected Premier.
The 2nd aspect, I agree with Nicholas that MPs/Senators who become ministers can’t really effectively do their jobs properly if they have split priorities. This is probably more stark for Lower House members, who have to juggle the micro issues of constituency enquiries, as well as Committee work in Parliament with then administering entire departments. Foolishly some PMs give marginal seat members portfolios in the hope of raising their profile, however this can have the opposite impact as they often spend less time in their electorate.
Again I think you could not disrupt the entire system but maybe have a hybrid where some of the more higher profile portfolios like Treasury, Foreign Affairs and A-G can be bestowed on people not currently in Parliament, who can then dedicate their entire focus to the Ministerial matters.
At the very least, I think Governments could put more Ministers in the Senate and Upper Houses. As far as public perception goes, most Senators don’t do much and are in the job for 6 years. As they are not accountable to a particular area or region (they share responsibility for an entire state with 11 other people), the major parties could afford to put more specialised and prominent Australians in these spots with the premise of them becoming Ministers.
The Senate is drastically under utilised. It is no longer the states’ house due to the evolution of party politics, so its role and the people in it should evolve as well.

Not that this is the particular right forum to discuss but the Australian Republic model has to be a popularly elected model in the form of the US and France, otherwise I don’t think it has any chance of getting up again. Perhaps then a lot of the amendments discussed could be implemented.

Back to Moreton though, I think Huang can pull off an upset based on momentum from Local Government profile. Time will tell though

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-s-secret-weapon-for-qld-comes-from-taiwan-via-brisbane-council-20220406-p5ab9n.html

Seems like the Liberals have some degree of confidence on gaining this seat, more so than Lilley or Blair.

I think Perrett is a solid local member (quite popular). If there is a swing to labor of a respectable size in QLD, then he will not lose this.

Agree with the assessment that this might be LNPs best chance of a GAIN in Queensland (if any). I have noted elsewhere in the guide, the rising affluence of the Chinese Australians (I have included Taiwanese and Hongkongers in this grouping for convenience sake), especially within this community. As they have become more affluent, they generally have been more interested in the policies of the LNP, both from an economic perspective and a social perspective. Also notable is the prominent church attendance of the Chinese Australian community across both Moreton and Bonner.

Huang is part of that generation of the Chinese Australian community which is becoming more involved with the LNP.

Some punters would argue that ethnic communities are not a monolith and it is difficult to make assessments on their beliefs because there is a diversity of opinions out there. I fully agree with this – I even think this is true for Chinese Australian’s perspectives on the Government’s escalating to rhetoric regarding China. While some in the Chinese Australian community would see this akin to dog-whistling. Others in the same community, who’s families might have left China due to grievances with their government, might be more sympathetic to criticism of the CCP and Jinping than is often given credit for. Older Australians of Chinese diaspora in particular, have come from mostly Taiwan and Hong Kong, like Huang. Only more recent waves of immigration, such as uni students, have came from predominantly the Chinese Mainland instead of Taiwan or Hong Kong. This established cohort of Taiwanese and Hongkonger Australians generally would not share the same attachment to China that would make them sensitive to the Government’s comments on China or the CCP.

Specific to Moreton, there is a politically active cohort of Chinese Australian punters in Sunnybank that regularly demonstrate at Market Square and hand out anti-Communism flyers and Epoch Times – I do concede that this a very niche group of outliers and wouldn’t even be able to tell you who they are.

Some observers from other states might scratch their heads at the Coalition’s anti-China sentiment, but what some might not realise is that in Brisbane, there has been an an authentic grassroots campaign of pro-Taiwan/anti-China and anti-CCP activism ongoing. The LNP have found it politically opportunistic to tap into this groundswell. It has been active at University of Queensland and largely led by Drew Pavlou – who is be running for the Queensland senate as an aside.

Anyways take my assessment with the Chinese Australian community in Moreton with a grain of salt. I do not know and Mandarin or Cantonese so I definitely cannot speak for them. Wish I could go onto WeChat and get a good litmus test into what they really feel coming up to this election.

I think the article is more a puff piece. The article does say the Liberals think this seat could go against the tide. Whether their confident is another matter. Liberals are tracking at $9.00 in this seat on Sportsbet. I can’t see this seat falling to them.

I agree. I hate articles like these where the reporter just uncritically regurgitates the candidates’ talking points. It mentions Huang’s vote in MacGregor Ward but doesn’t acknowledge that it had a small swing to Labor last election, nor does it mention that other wards that fall within Moreton, like Marooka for example, are very safe ALP and had even more significant swings to Labor in 2020, nor that the LNP candidate in Tennyson, for example, can barely muster a primary vote higher than either Labor or the Greens separately, let alone both, let alone the fact that that independent candidate outpolled the LNP almost 3:1 on 2CP. Nor does it mention that the state election was even more favourable to Labor than the 2020 council election.

Also, ‘[a]t the past four federal elections, Labor has finished second to the LNP in Moreton and won the seat on Greens preferences. The LNP plan is to neutralise the impact of Greens preferences.’ – How on Earth do they plan on doing that? With charging stations? The article leaves you to wonder for yourself.

Nonetheless it’s good that the reporter included Perrett personally volunteering his perceived disconnect from his own electorate. You also get a good sense of just how viscerally negative and unlikable he is. The guy is such a dud.

Quick correction: Huang had a small swing towards him in 2020. But it was *very* small – 0.3%.

I’m not that familiar with Brisbane, but the demographics here look a lot more inner metropolitan and multicultural rather than outer suburban and Anglo. Not the type of seat I’d expect Morrison to have special appeal in. The Libs will always be competitive here, but I don’t see them quite making it over the line any time soon.

Wreathy I have moved to Brisbane last year and I can tell Moreton is pretty much a hybrid of the Sydney districts of bennelong and Reid.

Steven Huang will probably dominate the Runcorn and calamvale areas which make up his council ward base, these suburbs being like Eastwood and carlingford with high Asian population

Huang will probably struggle in the northern end of the district, being weak in suburbs like yeronga which are more like ashfield and the inner west of Sydney. He may also not do well in the industrial areas of Moorooka and Rocklea which are analogous to ermington and silverwater

I’m genuinely nervous about this seat now for Labor. People so focused on what seats Labor can win, there’s actually a few they need to make sure they hold onto. This is one, Hunter another.

I actually thought Huang should have contested this at earlier elections when the LNP vote was stronger or the state seat of Mansfield to claim it back after Walker lost. It might be the wrong election, but he is a super strong candidate.

Maybe Steven Huang is preparing to take this seat in 2025. This election could be just to get voters to know who he is and build a personal vote outside of Sunnybank and Runcorn where his council seat is.

I live in the part of Moreton that overlaps with the state seat of South Brisbane. Saw some Green and Labor corflutes have now gone up in about equal measure. The Labor ones are all for Graham Perrett while about half of the Green ones are spuriking Penny Allman-Payne’s Senate candidacy, while the other half are for the seat candidate Claire Garton. Didn’t see any for the LNP candidate.

I grew up in Runcorn-ish side of the electorate and at least the people I know who live and are registered in the area do like Perrett down there.

Part of the difficulty in Brisbane (and to a lesser extent QLD overall) is how dramatically different the party brands are at different levels and the perception of voters. At council Level people in Brisbane seem very happy with the Liberals as a kind of centrist blend of community and business interests. They mostly avoid culture war issues even when they come up (such as in Library protests against Drag time storytelling), and present themselves as spending money of parks and community facilities. At the state level many Brisbane residents still don’t trust LNP for the Newman era cuts and the localist rhetoric from country nationals probably damages them. At The Federal level people divide along more progressive vs conservative, class based, and culture based lines so there are no progressive LNP MP’s (Trevor Evans can be labelled as progressive but he never puts his neck out to join Zimmerman etc) or maverick Labor MP’s (which occasionally exist at state level).

That’s really why I don’t think strong candidates switching from council to State or federal doesn’t really work. The way politicians are perceived at different levels is so different here, it’s not like Sydney or Melbourne where representation is similar at all levels.

The analysis by AJ is soundly based. In my opinion I expect that Labor will win this seat with an increased margin.

I wonder if the Coalition’s calculus of their rhetoric regarding trans people in women’s sport has considered this seat.

Greens candidate Garton is trans.

Is the LNP hoping to escalate this issue in voters minds in the hopes that it would invoke transphobic voting attitudes at the ballot box? Doubt this will deliver any potentially peeled off Greens preferences to LNP en masse, they will likely just go to Labor. But maybe the strategy isn’t to peel off Greens first preferences, LNP might be trying to scare just enough boomers away from preferencing Labor over LNP given the prospect that their might be a prospect of a “hung parliament” – one which might include a Labor minor coalition with the Greens. You can see this “Labor Greens coalition” scare campaign escalating in the Courier Mail for seats like Griffith, Brisbane and Ryan. This sentiment does seem to be cutting through based on my crappy anecdata of being out in the inner city Bris electorates.

Back on the trans topic, I don’t expect this issue to play out as much in QLD as it does in NSW. I suspect the Coalition’s calculus on this issue identifies the traditionally Labor, aspirational multicultural & religious communities throughout Sydney that voted “No”, are a potential pickup along escalated culture war issues like these and that it will easily offset the loss to independents in the progressive and affluent Eastern suburbs.

In the context of south east Queensland it is worth noting that Moreton, Oxley, Rankin and parts of Blair match this similar profile of multicultural based on ABS data and more conservative on cultural war issues, in comparison to the inner-city Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane considering 2017 “No” votes. But significant less when compared to Western Sydney.

SEQObservors analysis of Ethnic Chinese is reasonably accurate. When I stood for as DLP candidate for Moreton in 1972 I had significant help from Captive Nations Council. The Chinese Consulate ( Free Chinese till Whitlam took office) had strong links to local ethnic Chinese. The Friends of Free China was in effect a part of the Captive Nations Council and both organisations held joint meetings with each other. They had strong links to DLP but also to the local Member for Moreton Defence Minister Jim Killen. I don’t recall Sunnybank being in the electorate at that time and in any case the ethnic Chinese community had not built up its own ghetto.
There were a few Chinese in Brisbane that hung around the East Wind Communist Party ( Marxist-Leninist) bookshop in Elisabeth Street but the great majority of ethnic Chinese supported Free China as for that matter did the government until the Communist sympathising Whitlam Government opted to switch recognition to the CHICOM regime.

Toss-up

Ben you are clearly trolling. The coalition isn’t going to win this election with an increased majority. You are either q party hack because I’d love to know the reasoning for your assessments rather than just say the liberals are gaining ground.

The polls disagree with you mate 110% and yes the polls can be wrong but they are worse for your party than last time, Morrison is very unpopular up here in QLD.

Coalition isn’t gaining seats. They won’t easily win Gilmore. They aren’t gaining seats in WA. This is pure trolling. If you’re going to make predictions for your side of politics at least do it in a honest and explanatory way like Anton and BJA does.

I’ll add this seat gets hyped up every election for the Liberals but they fail every time, why would this time be different with an unpopular prime minister and 3 term government? 3% swing to Labor here due to the statewide average swing. Will probably be bigger in these areas than regional QLD.

Prediction: ALP retain, 5-6% margin. Daniel, it’s far too early to rule anything out just yet, much could change in the final weeks, although at the moment I think it will be a hung parliament. Liberals probably won’t win seats in WA but Gilmore could be closer, as Ann Sudmalis was an unpopular incumbent and preselection in 2019 was botched.

Daniel. Il see you after May 21

@Daniel if Labor and albo are so popular how come scomo is still preferred pm and Labor couldn’t win the first debate

Ben, you cannot read preferred PM. People usually say they prefer the incumbent. Explain why Gillard beat Abbott on preferred PM despite trailing massively in the polls.

People don’t vote for prime minister they vote for local MP. And I agree it will be a hung parliament but the coalition is not winning a majority. Morrison is unpopular so I will see you on May 21. Looking forward to it.

Abbott won a landslide in 2013 but wasn’t a very popular leader. People vote out governments not vote them in.

A hung parliament will be most unlikely. You’ve only got 3 seats with a 3% margin. In the event of a hung parliament libs will have the upper hand. You won’t get Katter and Wilkie will sit on the fence as he got burned by Labor big time last time. You’ll obviously get Bandt and the green agenda as you need them in the senate OT you can’t pass legislation. And the independents if you can call them that if they side with Labor they may as well retire because look what happened to Oakshot and Windsor

Also your effectively saying Labor won’t win enough seats yo govern in its own right not being too optimistic

@Ben, I suggest that the “teal independents” are unlikely to cop the same scrutiny for siding with Labor that Oakeshott and Windsor did. Both Oakeshott and Windsor represented Nationals heartlands and this obviously stirred them up. I doubt the electors in Sydney and Melbourne are going to be similarly fussed with Independents holding the balance of power in a Labor government.

I anticipate they are more so going to be stoked that they got rid of the unpopular Scott Morrison who seems to be a tremendous bugbear in affluent communities of Sydney and Melbourne. This is evidenced by the unwillingness to put Morrison on the ground in some of these contests between Liberals and teal-independents.

Still agree with you Ben that Moreton is still potentially in play for the LNP. I still rate Blair as a slightly more likely pick-up by the LNP than Moreton at this stage however. While I concede that the most likely outcome is ALP retain in both Moreton and Blair, I disclose that I have LNP tipped in Moreton and Blair on my betting slip for those juicy outside odds.

That depends albo could be worse

If they were that desperate they’d vote for Labor

@Ben Indeed I am a Liberal supporter, so my view is a bit more optimistic for the Liberals than polls suggest

@ i am too but I don’t think it’s lost. Everyone wrote off scomo in 2019 but he won and increased the majority. Even took back Wentworth from an independent. I’m willing to concede bass boothby Chisholm maybe and possibly Swan but I think they can sandbag some seats and pickup some. If there was an I hate Morrison vote we would have seen it at the debate which noone won. Labor have the benefit of being to say all these wonderful fantastic things they want to do but people realise when it comes to voting day that this costs money

Polls are showing at minimum a 6-7% swing away from the LNP since 2019 on PV and ~3-4% 2PP. Sure you can say the polls are wrong but they’ve been right at the state level. It’s hard to see on those numbers how the LNP pick up enough seats off Labor to offset losses since the swing has to come from somewhere.

Most regulars don’t really care about ‘being optimistic’, they care more about reality. it’s very obvious when new accounts barge in parroting party propaganda and wishful thinking instead of actual psephological knowledge or even just reasonable anecdotal evidence. spamming a bunch of obvious hype isn’t going to do anything other than annoy people, whether they’re Liberal supporters or not. You’re better off doing some actual campaign work

I’m predicting a 2PP of ALP 52.5% although recent polls from different pollsters have produced dramatically different 2PP results by state and the 2PP range is a bit wide.

Moreton being an inner to middle suburbia seat with a relatively high Greens vote doesn’t look like the type of seat to me that realistically looks like it can be won by the LNP this election if we assume current polling is accurate and it lasts to election day (I see no reason to overly doubt it). I think mining and rural seats like Hunter, Gilmore, Blair and Dobell are much more likely to fall to the LNP, even if a Labor government is elected.

if the polls were right hillary clinton would be president britain would be part of the EU and Shorten would be Prime Minister. i dont believe in giving up until it has been called

a) Polls for Clinton/Trump weren’t actually that far off, it was just the undecided vote that broke late for Trump, combined with an electoral college system that gave Trump the win despite Hillary actually winning the vote.

b) The polls in 2019 were off by about 2-3% when you take into account them narrowing in the final week, so they were only off by around the margin of error. Currently Labor lead by more than the margin or error, and pollsters have since improved their methods (and been very close in state elections).

Nobody is calling this election done & dusted yet, the nature of an election campaign is that things change. But on a psephological website the discussion is around electoral trends and probabilities based on the data (polling and otherwise) that we have, rather than just cheerleading a favoured party and repeating misleading campaign slogans. And while anything can happen, there is really no evidence at this time that points to an outcome favouring the Liberals.

That’s not to say with 4 weeks left of the campaign things won’t change, but uncertainty is a given. You’re better to try to contribute some meaningful analysis as to why you think certain seats will fall particular ways, rather than just “My side has to win, because they did last time and polls are always wrong”.

the australian system works in the same way you dont have to win the overall popular vote you only need to have a majority of seats

I think we all know that. That’s why this site is dedicated to specific seat analyses.

Ben fair enough, in any event there is still 3 weeks to go so nothing is set in stone, we’ll all wait for the actual results and speculate in the meantime.

A small note that the party that wins more votes nationally (2PP) doesn’t necessarily win the election in Australia either. Kim Beazley won the popular vote in 1998.

I think the most egregious example is Labor winning the 2014 SA election despite losing the 2PP 53/47.

I don’t think that will happen this time, but Labor could recover a lot of lost ground in QLD and not have any new seats to show for it.

As for Moreton, I think Labor hangs on. I don’t see Labor doing worse in Brisbane than in 2019.

John, I don’t think anyone here even ever suggested that winning the popular vote wins the election. We’re all (well most of us) psephology enthusiasts so understand it well.

Ben just misunderstood my comment.

Trent, an additional point I will add to your earlier comment re opinion polls being wrong/off – I believe the 2020 US presidential election opinion polls recorded a similar level for the overall popular vote for Biden vs Clinton, and yet the outcome was different simply because the votes mattered in the handful of swing states which this time broke in favour of Biden/Democrats instead of Trump/Republicans.

I have a general comment on all opinion polls regarding the allocation of undecideds. I think that the method of allocating them according to the percentage of those that nominate a chose is a major weakness and i always think it is wise to assume that they will break 75/25 towards one of the majors. Problem is to decide which. When I read a poll, if they report undecudeds I make a judgement assuming they will go one way or the other. However often this decision will take place only in the last few days.

im just saying watch for the shy morrison vote

Yea, people are fed up with the same stuff from all the majors, that never really represent the people anyway. Time for a change, so after checking all the parties and independents from the list representing the Brisbane South Seat of MORETON, including: Australian Federation Party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Australian Labor Party, Queensland Greens, Liberal National Party of Queensland and the United Australia Party.

There was really only ONE name from that list, that didn’t scare the absolute bajeezers out of me and that was the ‘Australian Federation Party’. So I spent quite a bit of time researching online as much as I could about the party and its people; all looks fine on paper and from some videos I saw on its past up til now. I also like the approach of better representation and not giving these other parties anymore oxygen. It’s definitely time for a change and from it, maybe something better, voting for these Independents and Representative Parties.

Peter Power is our Australian Federation Party candidate for the Brisbane South Seat of MORETON. After multiple wins at re-elections, the current member has been for a LOOONG time, a rather quiet bloke that doesn’t really get a lot done, at least around our suburbs anyway. No harm in giving someone new a try.

it wasnt the undecided vote that broke for trump or morrison or brexit it was incorrect because people told a polster one thing and then voted differently when it came to the voting booth and remember you dont have to win the popular vote on a national scale to win the majority of seats

ATTENTION: BEN RAUE (ADMIN) – CANDIDATE UPDATE
(please do not post this comment)

MORETON:
Peter Power (Federation) – https://ausfedparty.com.au/candidate/peter-power/

Robbie, Ben mentioned in another thread/post that it is now too late to add any more links. He said something on the lines of ‘Candidates have had plenty of time to organise their sites, it is now too late to add any more’