LNP 4.9%
Incumbent MP
Trevor Evans, since 2016.
Geography
Central Brisbane. Brisbane covers the Brisbane CBD and inner suburbs north of the Brisbane River including Fortitude Valley, Paddington, Ashgrove, Kelvin Grove, Newmarket, Clayfield and Hendra.
History
Brisbane is an original federation electorate. It had been held by the ALP for most of its history interrupted by short periods of conservative MPs, up until the last decade.
The seat was first won by Thomas Macdonald-Paterson, who joined the Protectionists when Parliament first sat. Macdonald-Paterson was not endorsed by the local Protectionists for the 1903 election, and the split in the protectionist vote gave the seat to the ALP’s Millice Culpin.
Culpin was himself defeated after one term by Justin Foxton of the Anti-Socialist Party (formerly the Free Traders). Foxton served as a minister from 1909 until his defeat at the 1910 election by the ALP’s William Finlayson.
Finlayson held the seat until 1919, when he was defeated by Donald Charles Cameron of the Nationalist Party. Cameron held the seat until 1931, when he lost the seat against the tide of conservative gains against the Scullin Government. Cameron returned to serve one term in the neighbouring seat of Lilley from 1934 to 1937.
The ALP held the seat continuously for the next fourty-four years, with only two MPs holding the seat from 1931 until 1975. George Lawson won the seat in 1931 and held it until 1961. He served as Minister for Transport from 1941 until the 1943 election. The seat was then held by Manfred Cross until his defeat by Liberal Peter Johnson in 1975. Johnson defeated Cross again in 1977 before Cross won the seat back in 1980.
Cross held the seat until his retirement in 1990, when the ALP chose Arch Bevis, who held the seat for the next twenty years. While Brisbane has never been held by a large margin, it came closest to being lost to the Liberals in 1996, when Bevis’ margin was cut to 0.36%.
In 2010, the Liberal National Party ran former MP Teresa Gambaro. Gambaro had served as member for the marginal seat of Petrie from 1996 until she was defeated in 2007.
Gambaro won the seat in 2010 with a 5.7% swing, and was re-elected with a further 3.2% swing in 2013.
Gambaro retired in 2016, and the LNP’s Trevor Evans won. Evans was re-elected in 2019.
- Tiana Kennedy (Animal Justice)
- Justin Knudson (United Australia)
- Stephen Bates (Greens)
- Madonna Jarrett (Labor)
- Trevor Evans (Liberal National)
- Trevor Hold (One Nation)
- Anthony Bull (Liberal Democrats)
Assessment
Brisbane had been held by Labor for decades, and consistently leaned substantially to the left relative to the rest of Queensland, but the seat has swung to the right since 2007. Despite this trend, the seat remains marginal and could fall to Labor or the Greens. There is a gap of just 2.1% on primary votes (1.6% at the key point of elimination) between Labor and the Greens, so either party could be the main opposition to the LNP.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Trevor Evans | Liberal National | 48,777 | 47.8 | -2.1 |
| Paul Newbury | Labor | 24,970 | 24.5 | -1.4 |
| Andrew Bartlett | Greens | 22,807 | 22.4 | +2.9 |
| Anne Perry | One Nation | 2,537 | 2.5 | +2.5 |
| Aaron Whittaker | United Australia Party | 1,420 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Rod Jeanneret | Conservative National Party | 732 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Kamala Emanuel | Socialist Alliance | 714 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Informal | 2,631 | 2.5 | +0.1 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Trevor Evans | Liberal National | 55,995 | 54.9 | -1.1 |
| Paul Newbury | Labor | 45,962 | 45.1 | +1.1 |
Booths have been divided into three areas:
- Central – Brisbane, Fortitude Valley, New Farm, Spring Hill, Windsor.
- North East – Ascot, Clayfield, Hendra, Stafford
- West – Alderley, Ashgrove, Ithaca, Kelvin Grove, Newmarket, Paddington, Red Hill
The LNP won a large 59.2% majority in the north-east, while Labor won much slimmer majorities in the other parts of the seat. The LNP also won a 55.9% majority on the pre-poll.
The Greens vote was over 25% in the west and centre, and just 18.8% in the north-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | LNP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| West | 25.8 | 49.8 | 22,689 | 22.3 |
| North East | 18.8 | 59.2 | 21,174 | 20.8 |
| Central | 28.4 | 49.4 | 12,704 | 12.5 |
| Pre-poll | 20.7 | 55.9 | 25,598 | 25.1 |
| Other votes | 20.5 | 58.4 | 19,792 | 19.4 |
Election results in Brisbane at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens.
The Labor candidate here and in Ryan have been dropping Robo calls, posting on social media, and even have physical placards with “the only way to change the government is to vote for Labor” messaging.
Reminiscent of Maiwar 2017 where a year long Greens campaigns did all the work making the seat marginal and Labor comes in late and tries to spoil it by confusing left wing voters into voting Labor instead of for the Greens.
Animal Justice are still smarting over The Greens supporting roo culling, including when Greens Shane Rattenbury voted as such in the ACT. So this is a kind of multi-election protest against The Greens. Ironically, I don’t think that the modern Greens would any longer make this sort of pragmatic, evidence-based policy.
The Greens having 75% of their seats in Parliament being from Queensland alone which was the most conservative state at this election is completely astonishing. And the fact Labor is only 2 seats better than the Greens in Queensland and Labor has it’s lowest seat count in Queensland since 1996 surely is going to send shockwaves.
The Greens will do everything to sandbag these seats at the next election and will probably focus on defending these rather than trying to pick up seats in Melbourne next time. I don’t know if a Leader Dutton will help the LNP too much in these parts but time will tell.
@Daniel
This seat hasn’t been won from the Greens far from it.
Postals tend go against Labor on a Labor vs Liberal match up. But tend to go for Labor on a Labor vs Greens match up. Labor should be able to chase down the Greens in the seat of Brisbane if the trend continues on postals. Apparently Labor has gained on the Greens by roughly 400 votes on postals so far. The Greens are now only ahead now by 158 votes.
There has been almost 4000 postals counted of the around 18000 that have to be counted. If that trend continues Labor should finish ahead of the Greens secound on the primaries and take the seat.
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionPage-27966-156.htm
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/brisbane2022/comment-page-3#comment-770636
This isn`t a Queensland colonial/state election between 1992 and 1942 with bulk elimination. This is a Commonwealth election with progressive elimination, so the ALP versus Greens contest is the 3 candidate preferred (3CP) count, not the primaries. Historically the ALP don`t do well in 3CP preference flows, however the Animal justice party are preferencing the ALP at this election (however the level of AJP voter`s knowledge of/observance to this advice may well be low).
The Greens also tends to do well on absents, which are yet to be counted.
Basically agree Tom
If it were just the postals still to come i would give this seat to the ALP, but the absentee vote is clearly going to be very large.
One reason for this is that the Prepolls were very badly placed – not convenient at all for many Brisbane residents. The city prepoll is OK for workers but lesspeople there as people work from home, the Spring Hill prepoll is impossible to park and very, very inaccessible, Chermside is too far out for most while the west End prepoll in not even in the electorate and requires crossing the river – not easy at all and not really part of people’s normal routes.
Prepolls would have been in Ryan or Lilley. I expect that these will favout Greens.
In that case the out-of-electorate prepolls will be “declaration pre-polls” right?
The AEC have suppressed the count at this stage and are doing a manual check of all preferences at this stage. The margin currently between ALP and GRN is only 34. Not only will preferences play a critical role here but, if it remains this tight, expect whoever finishes 3rd to demand a recount for this seat.
Ryan
Yes i assume so. I do know that one Ryan prepoll had far more requests for Brisbane prepolls than expected
If Animal Justice Party voters follow the HTV Labor will win.
Hard to say what will happen with AJP voters, because reports I’ve heard on social media suggest many of them aren’t following the HTV, including the Brisbane candidate herself!
Does anyone think that recent floods had something to do with the swing to the Greens and away from the LNP (especially in Brisbane and Ryan)?
Not really. A little perhaps but much of Ryan is not affected.
Brisbane is going to be very very very close. ALP ahead now and will hain a lot more from the rest of the postals. However there are 6-7,000 absentees to count and these will narrow the gap.
If i have to guess it will go to ALP but it will be very tight.
The Swing to the Greens in Ryan, Griffith and Brisbane is in part the frustration with the new Brisbane Runway and unsustainable aircraft noise. The BAC was misleading with their EIS sold to the people of Brisbane and the Greens are showing the most support to enforce noise abatement measures.
Late postals are favouring the ALP less and absents + preference flows from minors should do the rest of the work in allowing Greens to overtake on 3CP. I think this is all but over except the counting will take a long time.