Brisbane – Australia 2025

Closer to Brisbane’s CBD is a mix of inner-city neighbourhoods, including the entertainment hospots of Fortitude Valley and Teneriffe. This correlates with the high Greens vote. The northern and western parts are more suburban, wealthier and strongly Liberal voting. Unlike Ryan, Brisbane was not a safe blue-ribbon Liberal seat before 2022.

Labor was quite close in 2022. It seemed that Labor would win with preferences from ON/UAP/LDP going to Labor before the Greens, and then Labor overtaking the LNP with Green preferences. On election night, it was clear that the LNP had lost this. I was a bit surprised that the Greens won this following the full distribution of preferences.

I rate this seat as the most likely Greens seat to flip in 2025. The gap between Labor and the Greens wasn’t big in 2022. Labor could be competitive if Labor wins over ex-LNP voters and/or the LNP vote drops to third. At the 2023 NSW election, Labor was in contention for Balmain because of a retiring Greens member and a ‘rising tide lifting all boats’ scenario. The difference in 2025 is that federal Labor will be on the defensive rather than offensive nationwide.

@Votante

My understanding about PHON and UAP preferences is that those who preference Labor over Greens would also put the Libs over Labor hence would not help Labor at the 3pp stage. Meanwhile some voters preference greens over both majors just because anti-establishment. Hence at 3pp stage, Labor does worse than the Liberals and the Greens on PHON and UAP preferences at the 3pp stage (probably different story in a head on 2pp like Cooper Wills Melbourne)

And overall they are really undisciplined in preferencing anyway

I suspect Labor maybe on the defensive in QLD with increasing unpopularity of state Labor doing brand damage to the Federal level (remember 2010 with Anna Bligh’s unpopularity). If that is the case Blair maybe at risk so Labor may need to shift resources to defend that seat and will let this seat pass as the Greens are not going to back Libs in a minority parliament anyway.
@ Votante, see my comments in the Ryan thread, usually when the Greens/Labor are a close second/third the gap grows over time especially with favourable demographic trends in these seats and the Greens MP building a personal vote examples include Maiwar, Ballina and Prahran.

brisbane wont fall to labor. in a governtm year. they cant dislodge any other greens members and the greens usually pickup votes from labor except when labor is coming from opposition. this seat will be redistributed in 2025 and it will lose its labor voting areas in the south to Ryan making it safer for the lnp if they are able to recapture it. ryan however will become safer for the left vote and the greens may hang on there

@Nimalan I’d say Blair would be the only seat at risk with Dutton not likely to be the most attractive to voters in Ryan and Brisbane, neither would formerly marginal seats like Moreton and Griffith.

The LNP may just give up on Brisbane, Ryan and Grififth and orient their focus to sandbagging their own Queensland seats, if not having a crack at Blair. This means the LNP vote will retreat. The LNP will most likely come first on primaries (because of vote splitting between Labor/Greens). Labor has little chance of winning unless their vote surges and/or the LNP falls to third place. The Greens losing a seat won at a general election still hasn’t happened yet, but the closest I’ve seen is Balmain.

I’d say Labor has a reason to shift resources to Queensland to bolster their share of seats (perhaps by winning Longman or Bonner) and improve their margins in existing seats.

@Nimalan, the bad result in Queensland for Labor in 2010 was due to the knifing of Kevin Rudd and so Labor lost normally LNP seats that they gained in 2007. I think Anna Bligh and Queensland Labor were unpopular (until the Brisbane floods the following summer) and this might’ve weighed on federal Labor. Add to that, Brisbane was redistributed eastward and its margin was shaved after taking in affluent suburbs e.g. Ascot, Hamilton.

@ Dan M, agree Blair is the only seat in QLD that Labor needs to be concerned about. I dont think any of the Greens held seats are at risk from Dutton neither is Moreton or even Lilley which came close in 2019.
@ Votante, yes the knifing of Kevin Rudd played a role in 2010 but so did Anna Bligh as she had privatized Assets without a mandate. Federal Labor criticized the LNP for running a proxy state election that year. The Bad results in Sydney that year was due to NSW Labor woes doing brand damage. Yes the 2010 redistribution was critical to the result in Brisbane as it took elite suburbs east of Breakfast Creek, That is partly the reason why Teresa Gambaro chose to run in Brisbane rather than her old seat of Petrie. On the 1996 boundaries Brisbane included West End etc and was very left-leaning and one of two seats that Labor retained in QLD. Personally, i feel Labor should shift resources firstly to sandbag Blair and then if they want to go hunting first Leichardt and then Bonner before any other seats. I feel Longman, Petrie maybe harder in Moreton Bay Region Dutton maybe seen as the hometown Boy in a Parochial state. Forde is also a seat worth watching if it is a good night for Labor.

Brisbane’s maybe the best prospect for Labor on paper, but MCM is the one Labor has pinned to their dartboards. LNP won’t win any of the inner Brisbane seats again, at least not in the foreseeable future.

The redistribution in 2025 will see Brisbane lose it’s labor voting booths in the south and gain lnp voting areas in the north. Given the lnp are coming from opposition it may be possible to recover Brisbane however Ryan will become more left taking in labor voting booths from Dickson and Brisbane

why would brisbane gain voters in the north? that makes no sense.

@fugitive because its going to shed voters from the south?

Furtive, I think John implies moving Ryan eastwards to absorb more of the inner suburbs (like Paddington and Milton) given that it is under quota. That way, Brisbane follows Lilley and Dickson as both move north to absorb the surplus enrolment in Longman and Petrie.

However, I think a better move is to have Ryan move westwards, absorbing the remainder of BCC and then Brisbane follows moving closer to Ferny Grove.

okay i get it. if lilley and/or dickson also move further out then it works.

@yph an based on where I believe the new division will be I reckon they will n/ne. I am not counting the lnp out in Brisbane and Ryan because there will be a honeymoon period for the likely newly elected lnp state govt and that will help them federally

@Votante
No way LNP is giving up on regaining Ryan. Not a chance. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Brisbane… Labor vote will probably fall, LNP vs Greens contest, Greens can probably hold on.

@Furtive, dream on.

Unlike Griffith, Ryan and brisbane were lost by an unpopular govt. Lnp v green has never been tested with the greens being the incumbent and those two members are virtual nobodys

“Lnp v green has never been tested with the greens being the incumbent”

Except for Maiwar, Prahran, Ballina…

That’s 1/3 of all state Greens seats.

@ben raue sorry I meant to say at a federal level I’m talking about in QLD. And to be fair ballina is greens vs nat. And the others were green vs liberal

Well sure if you say “oh that doesn’t count” for almost all examples then yes, there won’t be any examples.

i was talking lnp v greens in meaning in qld obviously the liberals and nationals have tried to vs them at a state level in vic and in ballina. as ive previously mentioned in the ballina and by extension richmond threads the liberals should be contesting those seats as well as the nationals in richmond and instead in ballina as i believe they would fare better as the nationals clearly cannot win those seats back. the same case for hunter.

Following on from recent council election results, I believe Brisbane may well be in play if the LNP can select a decent, moderate type of candidate to challenge Steven Bates. The same would also be true of Ryan.

I wonder if any of the current BCC councillors may be willing to make the jump and seek the nomination for either seat (for Brisbane, Enoggera councillor Andrew Wines could be a good fit since he represents most of the western part and has held on to a marginal ward despite strong challenges from Labor and the Greens). Alternatively, Trevor Evans could also seek a rematch as he doesn’t appear to have too much baggage unlike other MP’s who lost their seats.

@ Yoh An
Agree generally it is certainly not lost for the LNP permenently. However, i dont think Dutton will play well here, a seat that is socially progressive and highly educated that is passionate about climate change. The BCC Libs are more moderate and will appeal better than the Federal counterparts. Interestingly, the NE of this seat is the only area where Labor outpolled the Greens on ordinary votes but in the BCC election in Hamilton Ward the Greens outpolled Labor for the first time.

It will think alongside Higgins and Warringah, Libs will still be competitive but would gradually be less favorable to the Libs in TPP in comparison to the federal TPP (unless most of the LNP become moderate)

It was reported in the Australian, Tracey Price the Labor party’s unsuccessful candidate for the Brisbane lord mayoralty in election in March, and candidate from 2022, Deloitte Australia director Madonna Jarrett are rumored potential nominees for Labor preselection for the federal seat of Brisbane.

Three-candidate-preferred vote in Brisbane in 2022:

LNP: 41.48%
Greens: 30.09%
Labor: 28.43%

Labor only needs a swing of +1.67% to be 0.01% ahead of the Greens and that would result in Labor winning the seat.

I think this is the most vulnerable of the Greens seats. One reason is the raw numbers, as a 3CP swing of only 0.84% would deliver the seat to Labor. Moreover, looking at Bates’ Facebook page, it doesn’t really appear that he is particularly visible in the community by way of going to community events, compared with EWB in Ryan, MCM in Griffith or overlapping LNP councillor Vicki Howard. Perhaps Bates just doesn’t post many pictures of being at community events etc and obviously social media often doesn’t paint an accurate picture of on-the-ground support, but if the former is the case, it will be hard for Bates to build a personal vote. Albo has already made the point this is a seat that Labor will target (not Griffith or Ryan), so Labor’s vote won’t just fall away to nothing. All that said, Sam Hibbins in the Vic state seat of Prahran has always seemed like a fairly low profile MP to me but he’s been re-elected twice so maybe I’m just underestimating the power of incumbency and Bates will be fine.

What is working in Bates’ favour is that former ALP state minister Kate Jones has ruled out a run for the seat in 2025, and the LNP haven’t preselected a candidate so presumably aren’t taking the seat very seriously (unlike Ryan). If Jones were running, I’d have favoured her to win the seat. However, she isn’t, so my current prediction is “Toss up” between Greens and ALP. I don’t see the LNP in contention at this stage.

@GPPS Labor kinda needs a high profile (VERY HIGH PROFILE I argue) candidate to have success in harvesting exhausted votes from the LNP and swing Green voters. It’s not easy but it’s possible unlike Griffith and Ryan. If they were able to get Kate Jones (or field someone like Grace Grace or Jonty Bush if either one loses or retires at the election), or even Terri Butler they could have a shot. They could run someone like Madonna Jarratt again with a strong campaign.

Otherwise Labor will continue to be a basket case in QLD against the LNP and the Greens.

Its been announced Madonna Jarrett will recontest the seat again as the canidate for Labor in the seat of Brisbane.

Labor will only gain Griffith and Brisbane if Labor is in the top 2.

@Daniel T I agree.

What are your thoughts on the LNP being able to regain Ryan? The Greens are woke and very left-wing and woke people don’t switch from Greens to Liberal.

@ NP
I think the same issues in the Teal seats such as Climate and support for LGBT rights will present in Brisbane and Ryan as well.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and put Greens voters into four categories:

* Ecosocialists: Brisbane, Canberra, Cooper, Griffith, Melbourne, Wills
* Semi-teals: Clark, Franklin, Ryan
* Hippies: Richmond
* Other: No seat example but a booth example would be somewhere like Elands in NSW which is a bit hippie but only voted 54% Yes in the Voice referendum (the last time the Nationals won that booth though was when they got 52% at the 2011 state election in Elands), but in saying that it is oddly Green when it’s surrounded by some of the most conservative towns in Australia (look at booth results for Byabarra, Comboyne, Long Flat and Lorne) and in one of the most conservative electorates in Australia (Lyne).

Perth? @Nether Portal?

@CG most likely the first one.

On the Wright thread, SEQ Observer referred to a group of Green voters that are conservative but environmentalist. I imagine this group is quite small but evidently their presence does show up in some polling place results.

@Nether Portal How would Brisbane be “ecosocialist” considering it had a Liberal MP only 3 years ago? Surely Sydney or Grayndler would fit that mould better?

Nether Portal, what about some booths in Fisher and Fairfax? Like Maleny, They seem to vote Green, are they hippies in your view?

I get the sense there’s growing contingent of Greens voters who are not particularly ideological but who simply see voting for the Greens as aligning with their self-interest. I am in large part referring to the politics of the housing market.

Agree Nicholas, and that’s new for Greens to centre material issues in their campaigning.

In addition to renters, makes me wonder if there’s a “young people who want to move out but can’t afford to” vote in established suburban seats.

I agree with Scart, Brisbane has strong Liberal voting areas so cannot be called Eco-Socialist maybe parts of the seat around the CBD area.
Also i feel Higgins and Macnamara are semi-teals while Girffith is a mix so South Brisbane is Eco-Socialist while Bulimba is semi-teal.

I would say some areas of Brisbane are semi-teal and some are eco-socialist. Griffith is the same.

As for Fairfax and Fisher, I would say some of those suburbs are hippie but they may fit with the fourth category I mentioned (i.e de-hippieising hippie towns surrounded by what have always been conservative towns, Elands is a good example since Long Flat and Lorne vote 80% Nationals while Elands voted 65% Labor last time due to Greens preferences).

Maleny in particular however had a Greens vote of 26.34% (+0.72%) in 2022 with the LNP at 24.44% (–14.22%), Labor at 19.10% (–5.12%), One Nation at 13.55% (+8.26%), the UAP at 12.06% (+10.10%) and the AJP at 4.48%. Overall on TPP that resulted in 54.86% for Labor and 45.14% for the LNP, a swing to Labor of +4.78%.

Let’s look at Maleny with my new, alternate system that would coincide with TPP. The combined left primary vote was 49.94% (Labor + Greens + AJP) and the combined right primary vote was 49.85% (LNP + One Nation + UAP), so that booth’s leftness is 0.09%, meaning that Maleny only just leant left in 2022.

Also an interesting map I can do if anyone would like: what if the 2022 Australian federal election was in the US, using their parties with their policies?

Interestingly Maleny actually voted 50.3% No in the referendum. So it looks like the big swing against the LNP there was because of A. the rise in the right-wing minor parties and B. a protest vote against a three-term incumbent government of nine years which went to Labor and the Greens.

The Greens in Brisbane are probably more like “Tree Tories” or Teals in NSW/VIC rather than The Greens in other states. It probably a bit like Germany Green Party (Alliance 90/The Greens) which have non-climate polices closer to the centre.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head regarding Greens voter categories – although I would say that parts of Brisbane (Hamilton, Grange, Ashgrove and parts of Bardon) are semi-teals. So they would usually vote Liberal but voted Green due to disdain for Morrison on climate and social issues. There are also parts of Ryan (St Lucia and Taringa) that have a lot of eco-socialists, as well as parts of Griffith (Bulimba and Seven Hills) that have semi-teals.

As for Maleny, it’s an interesting town. There are definitely some hippie aspects of it, but there’s also a strong LNP vote, especially in surrounding rural areas. I suspect the vaccine mandates was a reason that the LNP vote dropped and the UAP/ONP vote rose.

@AA as for Maleny being surrounded by conservative towns it’s the same in Elands in Lyne. If you look at Long Flat it voted 82.8% Nationals in 2022 and it’s just an hour away. Comboyne is just 42 minutes away from Elands and it voted 78.8% Nationals in 2022. In the referendum they had some of the highest No votes in the country. Same as Lorne (near Comboyne) which voted 68.2% Nationals last time but for some reason the swing against the Nationals there was –12.2% while in Comboyne it was just –2.88% and in Long Flat it was actually +4.12%. In Elands though there was a +5.32% swing to the Nationals.

No LNP candidate here nor in Ryan or Grififith yet, unless I’ve missed it.

@Marh, “The Greens in Brisbane are probably more like “Tree Tories” or Teals in NSW/VIC rather than The Greens in other states.”.
I think it may be because it lacks a major sandstone, politically activist university like the the other seats named after capital cities. It also doesn’t have a spewover from alternative lifestyle, hipster, yuppie suburbs like West End or South Brisbane. Also, unlike Sydney and Melbourne, it didn’t really have much of a traditional blue-collar base that then deindustrialised and gentrified to become more desirable and expensive to live in e.g. Inner West in Sydney and Port Melbourne and South Melbourne.

There is a cohort in Brisbane’s CBD, Paddington and Milton that is quite young, renting and studying or has just started working. They probably weren’t conservatives to begin with.

@Votante – the LNP preselected barrister Maggie Forrest for Ryan a few months ago. She has already begun campaigning.

Source: https://x.com/PeterDutton_MP/status/1773117519047307756

Np they’d only need a swing of 0.83% from the greens to be ahead of them by a solitary vote but if they couldn’t win this seat in opposition they won’t win it in government. Should be well within the possibility for lnp to regain this seat but will need at least a 5% increase in their primary. Labor won’t win any qld seats at the federal election with exception of maybe Leichhardt. Though I’d he weren’t opposition leader Peter Dutton might have been concerned but that won’t happen with his increased profile.

In paper looks like a 3 cornered contest but with Labor in government and flagging in the polls it will be a lnp v green contest again could go either way