Lord Mayor – Brisbane 2024

@Ben. Just listened to your podcast episode with Professor Matthew Shugart. Would love to know what you think about BCC’s voting system regarding the SPM and effective number of parties and their meaning for BCC politics

Interesting question! Well having single-member wards really shrinks the seat product model, but so does having a small assembly size, and Brisbane has both.

Brisbane, ACT, NT and Tasmania all have assembly size of 25. But Brisbane and NT have an M of 1, while the others have an M of 5.

So that’s a seat product of 25, which is an expected ENPP of 1.7, compared to a seat product of 125 which produces a party system of 2.25. So both produce a system with two main parties, but in the ACT and Tasmania you’re more likely to have two parties of relatively even size and maybe with a third, while in Brisbane and the NT you tend to have one dominant party and one smaller party. And that’s exactly what happens.

I expect if the M or the S was increased you’d see a more diverse party system.

Oops Brisbane has a seat product of 26. Still that only increases the expected effective number of parliamentary parties from 1.71 to 1.72.

Thanks for responding, I found that very interesting!

I did my own calculations and found that if the Greens optimistically gain their 3 most-competitive council seats for a total of 4 and Labor stay relatively the same, the ENPP increases to be above 2.

Its been reported in the Courier Mail northside lawyer and sewing shop owner Tracey Price is set to be the Labor Lord Mayor candidate. It had been reported the party had given up on popular former state Labor MP Kate Jones being the candidate some months ago. Very hard to see Labor winning against Adrian Schrinner. And it could we be more cold winters ahead for Labor in Brisbane City council as the party priortises for the Queensland state election held later in the year.

Tracey Price has indeed been confirmed as the candidate. I agree with Political Nightwatchman that Labor will have a hard time winning, because building a political profile is critical to succeeding in a contest like this, and Price doesn’t seem to have much of one yet. But perhaps I’m wrong and she’ll grab a lot of headlines with her agenda.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-05/labor-brisbane-mayoral-candidate-lawyer-tracey-price/102693176

Former Gabba councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan is the Greens candidate for LM.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-16/jonathan-sriranganathan-runs-for-lord-mayor/102732476

Given Sriranganathan’s high profile as councillor, he might be able to make the final 2CP count instead of Labor although I think it would be tough given the current 15% primary vote gap.

Nevertheless, a close finish for 2nd and 3rd place is expected (similar to the race in Brisbane federal district) and certainly this contest will be tighter compared to previous mayoral elections.

I agree Yoh An. It is a large gap, but the size of the Greens swings at the last federal election means that it is certainly possible.

I wonder whether the electorate will be more against the LNP from their long control of BCC, or against Labor due to association with the state government which is declining in the polls. If the voters punish the LNP, it may become a genuine three-way contest. If they punish Labor, it becomes a LNP-Greens contest. The LNP remain the favourites in either scenario though.

Question: why is the guide called Queensland councils if it only covers the BCC election? Shouldn’t it also cover other Queensland councils too (e.g Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Redlands, Townsville, Cairns, Toowoomba, etc)?

It’s not called “Queensland councils”. It’s called “Brisbane City Council election, 2024”. I’m not covering the other councils because they don’t have partisan elections.

Ben, I think Nether Portal is referring to the title for the hyperlink on the right-hand side of the homepage under ‘Electoral calendar’ which still says “Queensland councils”. Other sections including the drop-down menu for election guides have the correct title “Brisbane City council”.

Yes I’m aware. That’s a calendar, the Queensland council elections are all on that day. I could remove the link if it’s too confusing.

General discussion for BCC seems to be happening all over the shop so I’m just going to use this thread. I’ve already massively reined in my expectations for greens gains this election because their campaign has so far been incredibly lacklustre. they’ve announced an ambitious policy for redevelopment of the eagle farm racetrack but otherwise not much else. I would have expected something very significant on either active transport infrastructure, a big expansion in bus services or both by now. Jono Sriranganathan is running for mayor obviously, which I guess is overall a good pick, but they’ve yet to preselect candidates in very important wards like coorparoo (and yet curiously, they’ve had a candidate picked in northgate for weeks). The Labor campaign is practically nonexistent as far as I can tell. ATM it looks like LNP will retain council comfortably. Greens will probably get a few wards but nothing like the 8-10 like they’ve been talking up. I’m not even sure Labor will win a single one.

@Furtive Lawngnome I suspect that Labor will win a few like Forest Lake, but might lose some. If voters punish Palaszczuk like the polls are saying they are set to do at the 2024 state election, then they may even lose Deagon to the LNP.

Nether Portal, I think Furtive was referring to Labor not being able to net (gain) any from the LNP. I think Labor should retain all of their existing 5 wards although Morningside is probably the one most likely to fall if there is a huge swing against Labor.

Oh, I see. Yeah I don’t think Labor will gain any wards.

The Greens have announced what is seemingly a new list of target wards. They all seem to be LNP wards with the exception of Morningside, which is within the territory of the federal seat of Griffith they won last year.

Still no candidate announced for Coorparoo, but they have announced candidates for Enoggera, Northgate and Holland Park. Coming from a significant way back on the first two, though a 5% swing from each major party would win them Holland Park.

Source for the above comment: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/qld-politics/brisbane-city-council-election-2024-greens-to-target-key-lnp-labor-wards/news-story/b23f421614d295647c939be050500896

Anthony Green has released his election preview.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/bcc/2024/guide/preview?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

I would have expected some polling by now but it doesn’t really surprise me all that much. The campaign has been really boring. Since the eagle farm plan the only major announcement the greens have made is a $500m upgrade of bike and footpaths. Better than what the other parties are offering I suppose, but it’s still only about 10% of the city budget and won’t be anywhere near enough to significantly transform much of the city outside of the inner suburbs. I don’t know if that figure includes funds to restore progress on the green bridge Adrian Schrinner cancelled but I wouldn’t be surprised. And of course the LNP are rolling out the road culture warrior playbook anyway, trying to pit drivers against cyclists and pedestrians and losing their minds at the ‘radical’, ‘anarchist’ greens agenda. Labor’s campaign is nonexistent. I have no idea what their platform is and they’re not even recommending preferences to the Greens this election. I’m convinced they literally do not care even the slightest bit about the outcome beyond protecting their sitting councillors’ jobs and boomer virtue signalling for the upcoming state election.

My prediction atm is pretty much the same as I made in September. I’d say an absolute maximum of four wards will change hands, those being Central, Paddington, Walter Taylor and maaaaayyybe Morningside. The lord mayoral race might be close but I doubt it.

Furtive, the Greens also put out a policy to create more bus routes, upgrade the frequency of existing ones and create more bus lanes on major roads.

Do you think Coorparoo will remain with the LNP, despite the Greens making the 2CP last time and the swings seen in Griffith 2022?

@Furtive Lawngnome because it is only local council elections, it will not command as an extended media cycle as the State or Federal election. The media coverage and polling will likely only last the duration of the “formal election campaign”. The media coverage will largely be conducted as an uninterested “practice run” for the upcoming state election for most publications.

Furthermore, the media, polling agencies and candidates are all waiting for the Summer holiday period to complete. Right now, many punters will just not be tuned in or receptive.

The exception has been the Greens in BCC who have been running an “always on” campaign, sensing that they have some strong prospects to pick up wards by campaigning on local issues.

Now that we’re about two weeks away from New Years, expect to see some slight movement from the incumbents. Most activity though is not expected to start until after the Australia Day long weekend.

So far, I’ve noticed that the “LNP affiliated” Gold Coast council members have started to get organised a bit, but negligibly. Things like getting the old campaign wrapped vehicle out of the garage. No formal campaigning though as of yet. Not much movement in the Brisbane council or Logan council areas yet either.

I’m not sure but I believe the new bus routes are part of that $500m spend. Either way the number of high frequency routes would be ‘doubled’, which I guess is impressive if you don’t take into account that there’s only 21 such routes throughout the whole city. I guess I’m annoyed that the Greens have chosen this play-it-safe strategy that bores voters when they were never going to get any credit from the establishment for it anyway.

I don’t think the greens will win Coorparoo.

SEQ: fair enough but BCC is the largest LGA in Australia by far. I would say that polling and media coverage just isn’t commensurate, but for the fact that nothing’s really going on.

You’re incorrect, $500 million is just for the cycling and walking plan, the bus plan is separate. I’m confused as to how this is a “play-it-safe strategy”, especially when factoring in their housing policy that aims to implement a rent freeze by levying huge rates increases on landlords if they raise their rents. I think that was definitely a risky policy and it didn’t get a great reception in the media.

I like Jono’s housing policy, I’ll give you that. But IMO their infrastructure plans just aren’t nearly as impressive. You’re right about the bus plan, it’s $169m. But altogether that’s less than $700m on fixing Brisbane’s infrastructure. A million times better than the LNP’s plans, and I assume Labor’s, but it’s still a fraction of the budget and more importantly, not enough to be transformative for the city. The media and major parties will cry about the Greens no matter what they say, so they might as well reach for the stars. Or just the strides that cities like Berlin and Paris and Bergen are making. Sydney City even.

Is there any news on if fourth parties or independents are getting into the race? I saw Animal justice ran a candidate last election, however I doubt one nation or Clive Palmer will run a candidate. Any more candidates joining the race would likely help the LNP given OPV, which already hurts whoever gets to the final count between Labour and the Greens.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what the mood is on the ground either for Lord Mayor race or more generally for BCC? Any insider info from any of the campaigns about how things are going? It’s really hard to know from a distance what’s going to happen. Personally I think the margin and the power of incumbency will be too difficult for ALP or Green to overcome for Lord Mayor, though I think the Greens will finish second on primaries. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of media interest in BCC, as you’d expect I guess – perhaps that means things are flying under the radar, or maybe it means status quo is expected.

GPPS, I don’t know about the public mood, but it is noteworthy that a few major Greens figures like Stephen Bates and Mehreen Faruqi seem to be publicly campaigning in Enoggera ward. Perhaps it’s a seat the Greens think they can win, though I wouldn’t have thought it was an obvious target.

Why do the Libs do so much better here than in the overlapping state seats?

Dan, I believe the Liberals/LNP at the council level are seen to be more moderate in nature compared to their statewide counterparts. Also, it could be that the LNP are more focused on a service delivery-based strategy similar to the NSW Coalition 2011-2023 rather than using a culture war rhetoric which also helps to bolster their credibility and support amongst locals.

I’ve been doomposting a lot recently but I agree that second place on primaries is a reasonable prospect. Regardless of everything else I’ve said about the campaign it’s definitely by far the biggest one they’ve run for council elections ever, and with Labor having deserted the field you can reasonably expect they’ll at the very least hoover up a decent share of their votes. wrt Enoggera, I dunno what to think about their candidate – she literally works for an insurance company – but I’ve never met her and maybe things are happening on the ground that I’m not aware of. I assume it falls under Cooper branch’s jurisdiction, which has definitely been one of the most active branches in the last few elections. It’s not *that* unusual for someone like Mehreen Faruqi to be here for BCC but it is notable that she’s doing it for Enoggera, rather than Central or Paddington or whathaveyou. They got well over 30% of the vote in a lot of booths throughout Enoggera ward in 2022 but I think they’ll see an awful lot of OPV attrition in this ward in particular.

I think the Greens will replace Labor as the Council opposition.

@Nether Portal while I expect the Greens to do well, I think they are looking competitive in around six additional wards (on top of Gabba ward). Labor currently hold five wards, I think they look competitive in about three additional LNP vs ALP contests – Calamvale, Northgate maybe something else. If they have a surprisingly good night, Labor might also put a division like Runcorn in play. So if Labor land on something like 8 wards, Greens are still unlikely to eclipse them to be the lead party in opposition. If Greens also win all their prospect wards, Labor and Greens might have a leading “coalition” of wards. Although in this scenario, LNP still win the most wards (~10) and Schrinner theoretically retains mayoralty. I think Schrinner is going to benefit from incumbency advantage.

I also want to temper my comment by mentioning that Greens winning all of their prospect wards is a HUGE “IF”. Only entertaining the scenario with some basic napkin math. My personal expectations are that they will more likely pick up one, two, maybe three additional seats. Greater than three will be an remarkable feat.

there wont be a coalition. labor have ruled out forming one and won’t even recommend preferences. it’d be minority lnp control and in practice, i think theyll get support from labor for most of what they want

@Dan M:
Labor have not put serious resources into the BCC election in ages – I don’t fully understand why but I have to assume it’s to do with all the ambition and talent in the party going to state parliament where they’ve been dominant for decades. The LNP have also been fairly managerial, providing basic service delivery while avoiding major controversy, which is enough to keep the incumbency advantage given the general lack of media attention and scrutiny towards the council (despite its size & importance).

@Wilson:
Enoggera is a sensible enough Greens target beyond the most obvious ones – it’s entirely within the federal seats of Ryan and Brisbane and the federal booths there were reasonably good for the Greens (though not the strongest areas). Them putting resources into it does suggest the party feels fairly confident with the obvious targets. Obviously a large primary swing to the Greens is needed, but that’s more possible than it might usually seem given they achieved those sorts of swings federally and Labor is generally not seen to be running the strongest campaign.

I think there are about eight wards where the Greens have a real chance of winning (not including the Gabba which is an easy retain), and they’d be disappointed not to win at least four of those.

@Babaluma
I agree, The Greens are extremely well positioned to win Paddington, Walter Taylor, central and Cooparoo wards. I would say they have solid chances for “upset” wins in holland park, enoggera, morningside and moorooka. Jonno Sri has said the Greens want to target anyhting above a 15% Greens primary vote at the 2020 election, which was the Greens vote in the Gabba ward at the election Prior to Sri first getting elected. I think that’s a bit too ambitious but I think they can definitely win 6 wards and replace Labour as the council opposition

I think The Gap is far more winnable for them than Moorooka despite the lower primary vote, due to a stronger federal result for them and there being an LNP incumbent. It’s also one they’ve explicitly named as a target, unlike Moorooka – they haven’t even named a candidate yet for Moorooka. The north end of Moorooka is very strong for them though.

@babaluma good points I think moorooka stood out more to me because of the Greens primary vote. They also have no state of federal representative there so no extra support like the gap would have which is mostly all in Ryan

Today the Labor campaign have released a policy to eliminate funding to inner city transport projects and redirect it all to the suburbs. Sounds like they’re basically giving up on winning South Brisbane or Central. I’m not sure whether this will help them in any specific ward though, because the media reporting doesn’t suggest the redirected funding will be targeted to any area in particular.

Firm agree that the Greens would do better to go after The Gap than Moorooka as far as wards go. They need to consolidate their three federal gains, not chase a fourth in territory that gets worse and worse for their 3PP margin. An interstate comparison for Moorooka is something like Footscray. Very left wing area – but a leftism that’s very Labor.

@Wilson, interesting about the Greens campaigning in Enoggera. The 2PP margin is only 1.8% so you’d have to think that would have a very good chance of falling to Labor or the Greens. And given reports that Labor isn’t taking BCC seriously, the Greens would have a very good chance of picking up the seat, as Labor’s vote will probably plummet without a strong Labor campaign to retain that vote – it’ll probably largely shift to the Greens.

@Furtive – wow, surprised Labor aren’t even committing to directing preferences to the Greens. I don’t see how a just vote 1 campaign helps Labor because it makes it harder for them to get the Green preferences they’ll need. Any theories why Labor is (so far) refusing to direct preferences?

Like I said it’s boomer virtue signalling. They don’t give a shit about the outcome of this election.

@Furtive completely agree and I think it speaks to how unprogressive QLD Labour is. The Brisbane LNP I think are perceived as more moderate but I don’t think labour would not recommend preferences to the Greens anywhere else in Australia, nsw labour certainly doesn’t even in seats and areas where the Greens have a better chance then Labour. Brisbane Labour are effectively saying they would prefer the LNP to win without actually saying it.

Also full disclosure I’m on team green so this is coming from that perspective and frustration that labour won’t recommend preferences but yeah that’s my thoughts

Qld Labor are not happy about the idea of Greens winning more council seats because they understand that winning council seats gives the Greens more resources and visibility which can be used to help win state & federal seats. This seems to be the main reason the state government reneged on a plan to implement compulsory preferential voting for BCC before the 2020 election. While compulsory preferential voting would also benefit Brisbane Labor just as much, they evidently don’t really care about winning BCC.

That’s very likely true too. And it’s risky as well. If the Greens end up doing well regardless – if they end up with more council seats than Labor, or maybe even if they just beat them in 3PP – then it makes the ALP look increasingly irrelevant.

If that is indeed Labor’s strategy, it’s an odd one. If the Greens are truly a threat to the state and federal seats Labor hold in Brisbane (or are targeting for gains), and council wards are potentially the springboard for them to get there, then Labor really should care about the council elections and run a serious campaign to either win the wards themselves, or at least draw enough votes away to prevent the Greens winning them. But they’re not. Keeping OPV and running a bare bones campaign is a half measure, and it won’t seriously damage the Greens’ chances of winning Paddington ward and putting pressure on Jonty Bush in Cooper, for example.

This only makes strategic sense if Queensland Labor don’t have enough money to run the level of state campaign they want and also run a serious campaign in a select few wards. That seems unlikely given their ability to solicit donations from unions.