Boothby – Australia 2025

As you mentioned – overall, the Labor brand in Brisbane is not that well known in general. Not that it means they are ‘dodgy’ by any means. Instead, I would put it down to simple demographics because Brisbane doesn’t really have the strong Labor voting type suburbs that are present in Sydney, Melbourne and even Adelaide apart from a small ‘enclave’ in the south based around the industrial based suburbs of Inala and Moorooka.

@ Tommo9
Yes Spence is Labor heartland and is in fact one the most economically deprived electorates in the in the country. However, there will be some idiot on Sky After Dark who will suggest that the Libs should target Spence instead of Boothby which they will argue turned Woke.

With Griffith, it is Blue/Green seat and these are more challenging as Labor cannot rely on Liberal preferences. It does have some very wealthy areas around Bulimba. These seats are harder to hold on to longer term. It is the same with Macnamara/Richmond and even Higgins. All seats why Greens may eventually outpoll Labor and knock them out of the 2CP. Sometimes it maybe not really because Terri Butler lost the same voters election on election but that there were different voters. For example a lifelong Labor voter who lived in West End at a time when it was working class died who was a lifelong labor voter and there was new young renter (Gen Z) moved out of the family home in the suburbs and moved to Wollongabba into a new apartment with his girlfriend and who both votes Greens. As this process is repeated over time Labor get squeezed out.

@Yoh An and @Nimalan Thank you for your insights. Judging by your contributions it seems the suburbs in Griffith are either becoming much bluer (in the teal way) or much greener depending on which part you’re referring to. It has some of the most expensive housing in Brisbane particularly by the riverside, whilst also having one of the most progressive voters with 75% of people voting for SSM back in 2017. Labor appears to have been squeezed from both sides on this, even with Terri Butler who’s pretty popular from what I heard and is of the left faction. Seems even that couldn’t save her even if Labor won in 2022, although I think Labor probably never thought the Greens would win it from them in that year and took it for granted.

With seats in Adelaide like Boothby and Sturt which are both generally blue-tealish but also contains a chunk of working place people (the middle of Boothby is Labor heartland of the Western suburbs, the north of Sturt being a migrant-heavy old working class) it’s much easier for Labor to capture that as it balances out the wealthy southern suburbs within.

@Tommo9 with Griffith, areas like West End and Woolloongabba have been greens heartland for a while. Like Newtown or Brunswick. Greenslopes, Coorparoo and Seven Hills have experienced big jumps in housing prices and are shifting towards The Greens, being leafy inner city areas with families and renters. Bulimba and Hawthorne are very affluent with small-l liberals. So demographically is a Liberal vs Green contest.

Since Adelaide isn’t dense like most other capital cities are, electorates are somewhat large. This means that electorates can cover a mix of demographics.

Historically Adelaide, similar to Melbourne, was a blue collar city with a large unionised workforce working in manufacturing. This explains the relatively high Labor vote compared to Brisbane. Many traditional working class suburbs exist in Boothby such as those in the middle along Marion Road.

These suburbs share the same electorate as affluent teal suburbs in the east like Netherby and Springfield as well as Green/teal suburbs in the foothills and near Flinders Uni in the south. There’s also Glenelg with a large retiree population and is staunchly Liberal.

@Votante I agree that Adelaide is politically more mixed. If you look at the booth results of the last federal election the southern and eastern parts of Hindmarsh as well as the eastern and western thirds of Boothby all voted Liberal. Hindmarsh is a fairly safe Labor seat.

@Yoh An another thing Brisbane doesn’t have much of is ethnic enclaves in general. Yes there are some suburbs with high concentrations of certain ethnic groups but it’s not like in Sydney where some suburbs are 40% Asian or 40% Arab.

The southern parts of Brisbane (including all of Logan City and the southern suburbs of Brisbane City) have most of the multicultural communities, which overlap with both LNP and Labor seats. Something interesting about Queensland is I think it’s the only state where the most multicultural suburb is not in the capital city. Southport on the Gold Coast is considered Queensland’s most multicultural suburb with large Asian, European and South American communities there.

@Nether Portal Sunnybank is the only “ethnic enclave” in Brisbane I could think of. Big Chinese population, 35% Chinese ancestry, has all the Chinese shops and restaraunts. Definitely not on the level of Sydney with Harris Park, Cabramatta, Fairfield, Burwood etc.

To a lesser extent, there’s Inala (Vietnamese cultural hub) and Moorooka (African cultural hub)

Bulimba and Morningside are nothing like Mosman! I’m a bit sick of people down south trying to “understand” Queensland by forcing analogies to Melbourne and Sydney. Brisbane is different! Griffith has generally low median household wealth (not income), more on par with Blair or Calwell than North Sydney or Warringah, which are both in the national top 15. This is because of a big contingent of renters, obviously in ultra-progressive West End but also more moderate and suburban Bulimba/Hawthorne (which is probably most similar to Balmain, if anything?). Still, no part of Griffith is anywhere near on par with the sometimes staggering wealth you see in parts of Teal electorates, or Sydney more generally. Max Chandler-Mather and the Greens clearly recognised the untapped potential of an inner-city, progressive electorate with a lot of renters and rolled with it. He didn’t run on a small-L liberal, pro-women, pro-transparency platform like the Teals did. A Teal couldn’t win anywhere in QLD if they tried.

Boothby-wise, I don’t think it’s vulnerable to a Teal either. You might point to Curtin as an example of a Teal member outside of Sydney/Melbourne, but there’s nowhere like Peppermint Grove (one of the most advantaged suburbs in the nation) or Cottesloe in Adelaide, let alone Boothby. Save for a major political screw-up, I expect Labor to hold on here.

I live in Brisbane and I reckon Bulimba, Hawthorne and Morningside are very affluent. Especially the parts along the river. That part of Griffith is demographically on par with ‘teal’ electorates in NSW. So is the Hamilton/Ascot part of Brisbane. The state seats of Bulimba and Clayfield could be teal targets with the right conditions.

@ Tommo9
It is for the same reason i dont think Brisbane is promising for Labor i reckon the gap between Greens and Labor will widen over time with new younger voters moving into new apartments and older Labor voters dying out. With respect to Boothby slow population growth in Adelaide means gentrification will be much slower and the Working class suburbs along Marion/South Road will remain working class for the foreseeable future and will not be vulnerable to a Teal.

@Nimalan I think Brisbane is perhaps still salvageable for Labor if they get a high profile, popular candidate for the area, given that Labor has to make ground in Queensland and rural Queensland are too far out of reach bar Leichhardt. They need to make inroads in the city/suburban areas and Brisbane is the only hope left for Labor (Griffith and Ryan are both Greens vs LNP). If they shoehorn Terri Butler to contest Brisbane they could come in with a chance as long as they can push LNP to third place and then win on their preferences. Stephen Bates came first last time despite being 3rd on primary votes because the minor preferences slightly favoured the Greens. Had it gone the other way then Labor would’ve easily won.

Boothby used to be much more conservative with more of the Southern foothills and Glenelg involved, but since they’ve received some of the outer-suburban areas like Marino, Seacliff (which used to be in Kingston) and Western suburbs which is Labor heartland, Labor has been favoured to win some time but had been suppressed by the fact that Labor didn’t even think it was in reach until recently and underperformed.

Terri Butler has said she is not running again.

@ Tommo9
For Brisbane, i will look at the state seat of Prahran as example. Just like Brisbane, it was the AJP that helped the Greens leapfrog Labor on the 2CP. Labor had one more chance in 2018 and they came close but by 2022 they lost interest as they had other seats. IMHO i very much doubt LNP will fall to 3rd place is Brisbane/Ryan they have a stubborn vote in the old money areas. There is a much greater chance that the LNP can fall to 3rd place in Griffith as the Liberal vote in Bulimba, Morningside is no where near as strong as Ascot or Fig Tree Pocket. I do agree that Leichardt is the only real chance of a pick up in QLD in 2025 and certainly not Flynn, Capricornia, Herbert, Dawson etc. However, longer term they should really look at Bonner, Forde and Petrie. I heard in 2022 that Labor volunteers at the last moment decided not to campaign in Bonner and moved to save Griffith.

This seat has swung Labor on the TPP 8/9 of the last 9 elections with 2013 being the only time it swung to the Liberals. Wonder if there are any other seats that has consistently swung this much to one party.

@drake sounds to me like they just voted against the incumbent government every time except 2010.

Flint just opened up her electorate office, two store down from the State Member for Gibson who achieved a double point swing in an unexpected win. It’s in North Brighton, a good spot as makes her prominent to seacliff, Brighton voters who took a bet on Labor last election. I say if she doesn’t win Boothby she’ll run for Gibson.

Adelaide has changed its nature
Booths used to be a safe lib seat.. now no more.
There is an alp chance in.Sturt.
The other Adelaide seats will not change.
Mayo stays Sharkie
The country seats cannot be won by labor

Boothby

Following the Black by-election result, can we rule out Nicolle Flint’s chances?
The southern part of Boothby is in Black. Flint was heavily vested in the by-election campaign.

@ Votante
i mentioned this before i feel of all the gains the Labor made in 2022 (Boothby, Reid and Swan) are the least likely to be won back. The seats that Liberals are expected to get the biggest swings are in Outer Suburban mortgage belt and White working class seats such as Blair/Peterson etc. Boothby is none of this and is more of a small l liberal seat. It is Tealish in parts. No personal criticism of Nicole Flint but i dont think she suits the seat from a demographic perspective. She maybe a great member for Barker, the Senate. The only adelaide seat she maybe possibly ok is Makin as it contains some bible belt suburbs of Adelaide and is more middle class and working class. However, it is not a seat that will be easy to gain.

state issues are alot different to federal issues and again the local member had a personal vote and then got caught dealing drugs. thats what caused it.

I don’t think the by-election really changes the assessment of this seat, which boils down to more or less what Nimalan said: the Liberals are having a harder time in seats like this one. I think the pendulum underestimates the difficulty and outside of a 2013-style landslide I don’t think this is in reach, particularly considering the new Labor member should build up a personal vote. As a candidate, I don’t think Nicolle Flint is the best fit but it didn’t stop her winning in 2019 so it’s probably not of critical importance. The difficulties for the Liberals lie elsewhere.

I don’t think the by-election really changes the assessment of this seat, which boils down to more or less what Nimalan said: the Liberals are having a harder time in seats like this one. I think the pendulum underestimates the difficulty and outside of a 2013-style landslide I don’t think this is in reach, particularly considering the new Labor member should build up a personal vote. As a candidate, I don’t think Nicolle Flint is the best fit but it didn’t stop her winning in 2019 so it’s probably not of critical importance. The difficulties for the Liberals lie elsewhere.

Labor is running a Cash Splash campaign to sandbag it’s more Proletarian Seats from both Liberals and The Greens
Which might be successful.
Less likely to be in seats such as Boothby, Bennelong, Gilmore, Aston, Sturt, Reid, Chisholm, in my opinion.

I think you’re all right in some way:

@Votante I never thought she’d win. She is too hard-right.

@Nimalan I agree with everything but the Makin part. If a moderate was leader they would be able to regain this easily. Actually, even Scomo would’ve been able too (Scomo even said he thinks the Liberals should still focus on winning back the teal and small-l-liberal seats). However she wouldn’t win Makin since Tony Zappia is too popular plus she’s too unpopular.

@John I do agree and I think that was part of the reason the Liberals lost Black, but in saying that a moderate party leadership would’ve held on. Even if he never dealt any drugs and didn’t resign he still would’ve probably lost it in 2026 at this rate because he was too out of touch.

@Adda I agree, unless Labor is facing a landslide loss like in 2013 then a Dutton-led Coalition won’t gain seats in South Australia except maybe Mayo if Rebekha Sharkie retires.

I would love if Hilltop Hoods contested this seat for the Liberals, they’re a good rap group and would be popular among people as they aren’t from a political background, but from what I’ve heard one of their members leans left. There is someone else from Adelaide I think should contest as a Liberal in the future but I won’t say her name for personal reasons even though she is well-known because I don’t want any rumours to be spread. Met her before, she’s quite nice and would be a good candidate when she’s a bit older and stops what she’s doing (over 35).

@ Nether Portal
My point about Makin was more about demographics. I agree Tony Zappia is very popular. However, maybe in the perfect world if Zappia did not run and Labor was on the nose in SA hypothetically Libs could win it. Makin is more socially conservative than Boothby. It is less affluent but has been held by the Libs during the Howard years.
The point i am trying to also make it is that it is not just the leader but parties should be wiser on which seats are best represented by which party. It would be stupid for Labor to run someone like Ged Kearney in Blair, Hunter, Paterson etc. She is a great mp for Cooper which is a progressive left seat but will be terrible for the other seats. I also feel Peter Khalil will be a great MP if he was the MP for the neighboring seat of Maribriyong but Wills is not the right seat for him. If Tony Abbott was the MP for Cook he may still be the MP as it is not a Tealish seat nor is it winnable for Labor. However, the Northern Beaches are no longer suitable for Conservative warriors like Bronwyn Bishop or Tony Abbott. The National Right faction is not going away but it would be wise if they negotiate with the Moderates in good faith on which seats each faction should be allocated.

The National Right faction is not going away but it would be wise if they negotiate with the Moderates in good faith on which seats each faction should be allocated.
The leading Moderates in the last Parliament were Jason Falinski, Trent Zimmerman and Dave Sharma.
All lost their seats to Teals.
Katie Allen was another Moderate lost her seat.
Whatever label is on them, they lost because they stood for nothing, not because they weren’t moderate enough.

@ Gympie,
A counter argument to your point. is that all the moderates that you have pointed out did much better than Tony Abbott in 2019 or Katherine Deves in 2022. If you look at the Warringah thread, Nether Portal compared the same booths at both a state and Federal level there was a huge difference. I actually believe the moderates do stand for something. They stand for economic liberalism and fiscal conservatism. The Liberal party is not the DLP which is an economically Left and Socially Right party.

@Gympie I have to agree with @Nimalan here. I think it also matters where the party as a whole is going. The state Liberals despite having a more socially conservative but still somewhat moderate or middle-ground leader in Dominic Perrottet (though combined with a very moderate Treasurer in Matt Kean) retained almost all of their Northern Beaches and North Shore seats (Terrigal on the Central Coast is similar, but Terrigal would’ve voted No to the Voice but so did I and I think most moderate voters did, see Boothby and Sturt for example) was because the state party was moderate and had no baggage really. Despite the fact that they lost government by losing key seats and there were some big swings in the Western Suburbs polling shows the government and opposition were popular so it wasn’t “Who sucks the least?”, it was actually “Who’s the better candidate?”, plus retirements and the it’s time factor, plus the COL crisis wasn’t as bad then so federal government wasn’t too unpopular in the cities.

No disrespect to Tony Abbott, he was charismatic but he had his flaws. He wasn’t the right fit for Warringah, but he could’ve been a good MP for a seat like Cook or Mitchell. Even though they are both affluent they’re more socially conservative, or should I say more focused on bread and butter issues. That’s a key point too, Boothby and Makin might be around the same amount of socially conservative or liberal but people in Makin are more focused on bread and butter issues since it’s less affluent and the demographics are completely different despite both being in Adelaide, which is one of the smaller capital cities (especially when Sydney and Melbourne both have over five million people, with the entire Greater Sydney and Greater Newcastle/Lower Hunter combined megametropolitan area having nearly six million people depending on how you measure it).

As for my comparison, that was actually one of the first I did. After me and Nimalan are done with Queensland I could calculate the teal seats on state results using the new boundaries if you like. All of them would be Liberal though, but the difference is what’s interesting which is why I intend on doing seats like Maranoa so I can tell the difference and then see the general trend.

Regarding Boothby, there are some sound arguments above as to why Flint is unlikely to win back Boothby. I’m normally careful with extrapolating state by-election results to predict federal results, but I thought the Black by-election was pretty insane as the swing to Labor was off the charts. It’s hard to see her getting the 3.3% swing necessary at the federal election.

There’s a possibility that the teal candidate in Boothby last time, and any other teals, would abstain next time. This means less vote splitting here and teal and moderate liberal voters would be ‘forced’ to choose between Liberal, Labor and Greens.

I sense that in current teal seats, there was an affinity for moderate Liberals e.g. Dave Sharma, Josh Frydenberg, Jason Falinski etc. To varying degrees, there was a cohort in their seats who liked them but not their parties. Tony Abbott was deeply unpopular in Warringah towards the end, partly because of his role in knifing Turnbull, and his past climate skepticism. It’s worth pointing that in 2019, the teal vs Liberal margin in Warringah was far greater than the teal vs Liberal margins in 2022 in Wentworth, Kooyong, Mackeller etc. This may also have to do with Zali Steggall’s high profile as an ex-Olympian and a very concerted campaign where resources were pooled into this one seat.

@Votante I agree, you could hear on the news that there were lots of people who liked the MPs but not the direction of the party on the federal level.

While Zali Steggall’s profile as an ex-Olympian would’ve certainly helped, all of the teals campaigned hard in their target seats and won most of them. However, she also ran against a candidate who was even more conservative and more unpopular than Tony Abbott: Katherine Deves. She is a climate sceptic, just remember.

It was clear that their intention was just to get Liberal voters to vote out Scomo, since teals vote with Labor and the Greens most of the time, not with the Liberals and not even 50-50. That worked federally but it hasn’t worked on the state level.

I some times wonder if a moderate Lib should have run in Warringah in 2022, not to win but to get some votes especially get a notional TPP swing to the Libs from Labor. Someone like Gladys or Giselle Kapterian while in the environment of 2022 the libs were playing defensive on the Teal seats. It may have just proved Credlin and Sky After Dark wrong when they say to abandon such demographics and that Teal is just a stepping stone until Labor eventually wins it. There was a commentator who suggested that Katherine Deves should move to Cronulla and have contested the Cook by election. I think Deves should faced more competition for preselection for Cook but it shows who different the seats are in terms of social conservatism.

https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/aus2022/cook2022/comment-page-2

* would have faced more competition for Cook

@Nimalan:
It may have just proved Credlin and Sky After Dark wrong when they say to abandon such demographics …
Not sure how much notice Peter Dutton would take of Sky News presenters opinions on the future direction of the Liberal Party, but i’d say disregarding it is his safest bet.
Despite what Sky presenters say, the Brittany Higgins scandal destroyed Morrison, Nicolle Flint did well to sit that Election out and we’re back to 2019 conditions in Boothby and Australia generally, plus a COL crisis.

@Nimalan if Gladys ran she would’ve won. Simple as that. She’s never recorded a net negative approval rating and her net approval rating reached a peak of +58% in November 2020 according to an Essential poll. But I’m unsure if she’s in the North Sydney or Warringah part of Willoughby.

Gladys would not necessarily win Warringah
She would only contest if she thought she was very likely to win and wanted to stand… a very unlikely event
Boothby has changed like the old Higgins… they don’t weigh liberal party votes any more. These areas have changed demographics from safe liberal to.Marginal

Deeves was almost a joke candidate but 10 years ago the endorsed candidate for Warringah would have won.. again demographics

Early bets on Boothby specifically, how we feeling?

I’d say 50/50 federal issues like CoL and the govt performance will come into play

@AKD – Labor retain. I don’t have personal criticism for Nicolle Flint, but she will be a lemon in an electorate with progressive values. She would be a great candidate for Barker or Grey, but Boothby definitely has a tealish disposition, definitely a small-L Liberal seat.

Adding on, Miller-Frost is active, progressive, and quite popular here. Combine that with a mega-popular state government and Premier, a pretty duddish opposition in the SA Liberals, Dutton probably to be seen negatively here, and Flint possessing out-of-touch views, I predict Labor to hold, with a swing to them, especially in the east (Belair, Blackwood). Flint will not be liked there.

@ James
I think you have hit the nail on the head. Some candidates are better suited for different demographics. I was not attacking Flint in anyway just like Tony Abbott may be very popular if had been an MP from the Shire but the Northern Beaches are more socially progressive,

@ Gympie
I dont know to be honest whether the current Liberal leadership takes advice from Sky After Dark but that is a viewpoint that they have argued that such seats are a lost cause.

I am not sure I agree NP. I think a lot of those north shore/northern beaches seats have ‘good governance’ as a key part of their political calculus (in the abstract of course). Even the no findings would have been no help to Gladys here.

@Mick Quinlivan @MLV did I not mention her approval ratings were massively high?

@James I agree, Labor will retain this if Dutton is Liberal leader unless it’s a Coalition landslide. COL might have some effect though given that this is a middle-class seat.

People who keep saying Nicole Flint won’t win and stuff like that are basing that on nothing Labor win the seat at a high tide election with no incumbent member standing. The margin then is still relatively small much like Robertson, Goldstein and Higgins who’s incumbent member did stand so one could argue Flint may have done better especially when you take into account personal votes and could even argue she would of retained it. Anything bar what actually happened is pure speculation. I think given 2022 was a high point for labor Flint and Allen will do better in 2025

@Darth Vader what personal vote? She was unfit for this seat because of its demographics. You have to take into account demographics, etc.

As for Robertson it’ll go with whoever forms government. It’s been won by the party that provided the Prime Minister since 1983.

Predicting the future is by definition speculation. But the stronger pieces of evidence to me are:
1. The known growing difficulty of the Liberals for seats with teal-ish profiles
2. The history of the seat, in which it was long a Liberal-leaning marginal that was retained during the Ruddslide but has slipped since to now end up on the Labor end of the national 2PP (above 52.1).
3. The new Labor member having a new personal vote. Andrew Southcott had previously retained the seat in 2007 thanks to this so the seat has a history of incumbents growing one.
4. The state Labor brand doing well and the overlapping seats all having swung heavily towards Labor.
5. Flint as a second term incumbent did not have an impressive performance in 2019, with a swing against her despite nationwide swing towards the Coalition suggesting no strong appeal (although not necessarily showing her being particularly poor either, considering the general growing difficulty for the Liberals in the aforementioned points).

So I find it very hard to buy into an argument that this is on the table for the Liberals. Even in a 50-50 2PP as current polls show, it seems very likely to buck the trend and swing towards Labor.