ALP 11.1%
Incumbent MP
Grace Grace, since 2017. Previously Member for Brisbane Central 2007-2012 and 2015-2017.
Geography
Central Brisbane. The seat covers the Brisbane CBD and the suburbs of Fortitude Valley, New Farm, Newstead, Spring Hill, Herston, Bowen Hills, Windsor and parts of Kelvin Grove, Wilston and Newmarket.
History
The seat of McConnel was created in 2017, but is simply a new name for Brisbane Central, which had existed since 1977. This seat has been won by Labor at all but one election.
The seat was first won in 1977 by Brian Davis. He had previously held the seat of Brisbane from 1969 to 1974, when he lost to the Liberal Party. He held Brisbane Central from 1977 to 1989.
In 1989 Davis was succeeded by Peter Beattie, the former State Secretary of the Queensland ALP. Beattie was appointed as Minister for Health in the Goss government in 1995. In 1996, the Goss government lost power and the National-Liberal coalition took power without an election. Following this change Beattie was elected as leader of the ALP.
Peter Beattie led the ALP into the 1998 election and became Premier at the head of a Labor minority government, which quickly gained a majority following a by-election. He won landslide victories in 2001, 2004 and 2006 before retiring in 2007.
At the following by-election, the seat was won by Labor candidate Grace Grace, former general secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions. Without a Liberal candidate, Grace’s main opposition came from Greens candidate Anne Boccabella, but retained the seat comfortably with a 7.9% margin.
Grace was re-elected in 2009, but Beattie’s 2006 margin of 14.4% collapsed to only 6%.
In 2012, Grace was defeated by LNP candidate Robert Cavallucci, but she won back the seat in 2015. Brisbane Central was renamed ‘McConnel’ at the 2017 election, and Grace has won two further terms in the renamed seat.
- Gavin Jones (One Nation)
- Christien Duffey (Liberal National)
- Grace Grace (Labor)
- Kirsty Sands (Family First)
- Holstein Wong (Greens)
Assessment
McConnel looks safe on a Labor vs LNP basis, but the Greens are not far away from making the top two. If the Greens overtake the LNP, LNP preferences could decide the result. It’s also not implausible, if there is a swing away from Labor and to the LNP, that the race could turn into a Greens vs LNP race, in which case the Greens would likely win easily on Labor preferences.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 11,616 | 35.3 | +1.6 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 10,192 | 31.0 | -5.6 |
| Kirsten Lovejoy | Greens | 9,263 | 28.1 | +1.0 |
| Paul Swan | Legalise Cannabis | 721 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Anne Perry | One Nation | 474 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Miranda Bertram | Independent | 236 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Malcolm Wood | United Australia | 164 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| Alan Hamilton | Informed Medical Options | 152 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| John Fair Dobinson | Independent | 93 | 0.3 | -0.8 |
| Informal | 885 | 2.6 |
2020 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 20,096 | 61.1 | +3.2 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 12,815 | 38.9 | -3.2 |
Booths in McConnel have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 59% in the east to 66.5% in the centre.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote of 31.8% in the centre and east, and 36% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 31.8 | 59.0 | 3,739 | 11.4 |
| West | 36.0 | 65.1 | 2,428 | 7.4 |
| Central | 31.8 | 66.5 | 2,221 | 6.7 |
| Pre-poll | 27.4 | 61.9 | 12,494 | 38.0 |
| Other votes | 25.5 | 59.0 | 12,029 | 36.6 |
Election results in McConnel at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal National Party and the Greens.
Greens candidate talking Climate Crisis and billionaires might not be the right fit for a seat like this, 28% Greens the high water mark in 2020, Duffey looks a more realistic pick than either Wong or Grace.
@Mark
I don’t know for sure, but traditionally the City Hall in Brisbane is a statewide prepoll booth and popular with people who work in the city and vote from seats across the greater Brisbane area. Maybe that 19,000 number is the total votes at the prepoll of that booth and it is not specific to the electorate.
I’ve got $28 @$10 saying lnp win
@Gympie – Agreed. I do believe there will be some level of swing to the LNP. The LNP candidate being openly gay will help in a seat which is very socially progressive and has a large proportion of LGBTQ+ people.
But Grace Grace also has a strong support among gay rights organisations and the LGBTQ+ population within McConnel. She has very strong polling in New Farm and Fortitude Valley, the centre of the community.
@ Nether Portal
can you look at what this seat would be on BCC results and Federal?
@Nimalan sure, I’ll have a look and see what it is.
@James
The thing is Duffey isn’t running as the Gay candidate, he’s running against Grace as a do nothing Member.
The Gay Rights battles were won years ago, the issues in Spring Hill/Bowen Hills/New Farm/Valley are property crime and retail collapse, both of which successive Labor regimes either caused or contributed to and haven’t done much to rectify.
On federal results this seat would have voted 60.2% for the Greens against the LNP on TCP, including the Brisbane and Brisbane Central PPVCs but excluding postal votes as there is no way to tell where they come from.
CORRECTION: it was 60.0% Greens vs LNP on federal results. I accidentally forgot to add the Merthyr booth results.
As for the results on the council level it looks like every booth in Central Ward is also in McConnel and vice versa so the same results there:
Primaries:
* Vicki Howard (LNP): 46.7% (–1.7%)
* Wendy Aghdam (Greens): 35.6% (+8.1%)
* Ash Murray (Labor): 17.8% (–6.3%)
TCP:
* Vicki Howard (LNP): 53.0% (–4.8%)
* Wendy Aghdam (Greens): 47.0% (+4.8%)
The LNP did A LOT better on postals and prepolls in Central so I would assume it would be the same in Brisbane and McConnel. On TCP the Greens won every election day booth in Central except New Farm South (which is a Greens booth federally) but the LNP got 68.4% of the TCP on postal declaration votes and 55.4% at the Brisbane City Hall EVC and thus won the seat.
@LNPinsider “The figures are an estimate of the number of electors marked off the electoral roll in each electorate (including ordinary votes* and absent votes^ issued for other electorates).”
So that’s probably what’s happening, contrary to how it was previously done with absentee votes added to the correct electorates. Which means that the early voting data is simply how busy each booth is and you don’t have the granularity of being able to split the multiple booths within the same electorate.
I think this will be a very tough one, all three candidates are quite good with Grace Grace, a moderate/progressive LNP candidate and a more reasonable Greens candidate (mining engineer).
This seat depends on whether or not the greens gain enough votes to take second place in first preferences, which I think is likely to happen due to a swing against labor and the Federal Division of Brisbane results. If that happens the loser whether it is LNP or Labor, will likely preference the Greens heavily over the other.
If the greens come third I find it difficult to see Labor not winning, due to the preference flows.
I’ve got $28 on the lnp
I reckon it will be lnp vs grn
Any chance that the abortion issue would drag down the LNP vote?
@Votante David Crisafulli just announced he is pro-choice (though opposes late-term abortions, which is why most of the LNP MPs opposed the bill to legalise it in 2018). The LNP aren’t gonna change the abortion legislation.
Greens gain, but the LNP will definitely be second. There’s no way this would be red vs green, it would be green vs blue. It also won’t be red vs blue like last time. Otherwise the Greens can write off holding onto Brisbane and Ryan and they won’t gain any more BCC wards (personally I think the LNP will improve in the inner-city on the council level because they can now target the Greens directly).
I might be biased but I still reckon it’s a Labor retain, Grace Grace is popular and Steven Miles’ popularity among young people (with 50c fares and his social media profile) will keep this in Labor’s hands.
Yes, the late swing towards Labor I think will be disproportionately within inner urban Brisbane so particularly a seat like this. I don’t think it’s a coincidence either that there was a drop for the Greens in Newspoll.
The Greens have a track record of hyping their prospects on social media in their target seats. Sometimes it works out like last Federal election but there’s also a track record of them running into a wall when faced with incumbent Labor MPs. Besides Jackie Trad I actually don’t think I can remember off the top of my head a time when they beat an incumbent Labor MP. Notably, they failed to do that in Northcote last Victorian election and won Richmond after the previous member’s retirement. With a popular local MP here I feel that Labor should hold on and maybe more easily than people expect.
I should amend my last comment – of course there’s also Griffith 2022 as an example of beating an incumbent Labor MP.
Just voted in New Farm at Holy Spirit. It was relatively quiet, with a fairly even number of volunteers for each of the three major Parties. My quick scan suggested an advantage to the blue team in the booth, with a lot of Green and Red HTVs in the bin at the entrance and plenty of people on using the LNP card. This was a booth where the LNP did well at the Council elections. I think the LNP will top the primary vote in this seat and Grace will outpoll the Greens and hang on thanks to their preferences.
@Adda in 2011 the sitting Labor member for Balmain Verity Firth lost to the Greens’ Jamie Parker. So it has happened before.
@Elisa A if you’re interested, I calculated the federal and BCC results here. On BCC figures this would be an LNP seat with the Greens finishing second thanks to good performances in the Brisbane CBD and New Farm (they lost Fortitude Valley to the Greens). Though the BCC LNP is quite moderate so they win all of the small-l-liberal areas. On federal results this would be a safe Greens seat with the LNP finishing second.
I think Grace Grace has more of a personal vote than Terri Butler had in Griffith. Also, I don’t believe Butler ever topped the primary vote. There is a path for Grace to hold on but it’s quite narrow.
@Votante Labor hasn’t topped the primary vote in Griffith since 2010 when Kevin Rudd was the MP.
Kevin Rudd only lost the first time he contested (in 1996) but then after that he topped the primary vote in every other election except 2013. Terri Butler was the MP since the 2014 by-election and the LNP has topped the primary vote at every election since then until 2022 when the Greens topped it.
Thanks @Nether Portal – that is interesting. The structural shifts in this area are definitely making McConnel harder for Labor.
I’m hoping the lnp get up.
@elisa I don’t see how grace makes 2pp if libs come first.
Seats where the Greens beat an incumbent Labor MP:
-Balmain
-Griffith
-Melbourne (state)
-South Brisbane
Seats where they beat an incumbent LNP member:
-Ballina
-Brisbane
-Ryan
-Maiwar
-Prahran
Seats with no contesting incumbent:
-Brunswick
-Hobart
-Newtown
-Richmond
Not particularly compelling either way.
@Ben Raue – Would Melbourne (federal) fall into the third category as well? Lindsay Tanner (Labor MP) retired in 2010, and the Greens’ Adam Bandt picked the seat up.
oh yes of course.
Four wins against incumbent Labor MPs is not exactly a big number of successes. Particularly if we consider that the vast majority of major attempts at winning seats have been in runs against incumbent Labor MPs. Many of which had very high expectations going in. There’s too many to count up but to list some examples, Albo and Plibersek’s seats at the tail end of the Rudd-Gillard era, Batman (now Cooper) at various elections, Melbourne Ports (Macnamara) during Danby’s time and then after with Josh Burns, Northcote 2018 and 2022, Richmond (Vic) 2018, Richmond (Fed) 2022.
I’m probably missing a lot of easy examples but the general trend is that winning off an incumbent, particularly a Labor incumbent, is a challenge. This may be particularly so given the Greens and Labor occupy the left wing ideological space and thus candidate quality and incumbency become much more clear distinctions in campaigning.
This election marks another two strikes in here and Cooper for failures when pre-election expectations were high.