The Liberal National Party currently holds eighteen wards on Brisbane City Council, Labor holds seven and an ex-LNP independent holds one.
If the LNP loses six seats, they will lose their majority and Labor will hold half of the wards.
The first six wards on the pendulum are in two clusters.
In the inner north-west of Brisbane, the LNP holds the wards of Central, Enoggera and Paddington.
There have been huge cumulative swings to the LNP in two of these wards over the last two elections: 24.7% in Enoggera and 17% in Central. Enoggera overlaps with Campbell Newman’s former seat of Ashgrove, which saw a big swing to the LNP in 2012 (shortly before the council election), and a big swing back in 2015. The LNP also gained Brisbane Central at the 2012 state election and lost it in 2015. Enoggera was won by the Liberal Party in 2008, and the LNP then won Central in 2012.
Paddington covers an area that has traditionally been the Liberal ward of Toowong, but was redrawn in 2008 in a way that would have made the ward more Labor-friendly in past years.
All three of these inner north-west wards require large swings to change hands, but we have seen swings of that magnitude at the last two elections.
The other three key wards are in the south-east, including Coorparoo, Holland Park and Doboy.
Doboy is the only LNP ward on a genuinely slim margin, with the LNP defending a 1.8% margin. Doboy has swung a lot less than other Brisbane wards, but could still easily flip back to Labor.
Coorparoo is a new ward, taking in large parts of Holland Park. If the swings of 2008 and 2012 were reversed, the LNP’s 13.6% margin could be overturned.
Holland Park has shifted south, taking large parts of Wishart. Holland Park’s 10% margin compares to swings of 8% to the LNP in both 2008 and 2012.