GRN 10.5% vs LNP
Incumbent MP
Max Chandler-Mather, since 2022.
Geography
Southern Brisbane. Griffith covers the suburbs of Brisbane on the south side of the Brisbane river across the river from the Brisbane CBD, including South Brisbane itself, as well as Greenslopes, Holland Park, Kangaroo Point, East Brisbane, Coorparoo, Carina, Seven Hills, Morningside, Balmoral and Bulimba.
History
Griffith was created for the 1934 election, replacing the original seat of Oxley which was abolished at that election. Both Oxley and Griffith have been marginal seats, with Griffith swinging back and forth regularly between the Liberal Party and the ALP since 1949, although this has not usually coincided with national changes. The seat had become relatively safe for the ALP since it was won by Kevin Rudd in 1998, but has since become more marginal, with Labor finally losing the seat in 2022.
The seat was first won in 1934 by Labor MP Francis Baker, who had previously won the seat of Oxley off the United Australia Party, ironically at an election when the UAP swept away the federal Labor government.
Baker was re-elected in 1937, but was killed in a car accident in 1939 at the age of 36. Ironically his father was elected to federal parliament in Maranoa in 1940, after his son’s term in Parliament.
The 1939 Griffith by-election was won by Labor candidate William Conelan. Conelan held the seat until he lost Griffith to Liberal candidate Douglas Berry in 1949.
Berry was re-elected in 1951 but lost to the ALP’s Wilfred Coutts. Coutts held on in 1955 but failed to win re-election in 1958, losing to the Liberal Party’s Arthur Chresby, and winning it back in 1961.
Coutts lost the seat once again in 1966, when the seat was won by Liberal candidate Donald Cameron. Cameron held the seat for eleven years, moving to the new seat of Fadden in 1977. He held Fadden until his defeat in 1983, and returned to Parliament at the 1983 Moreton by-election, which he held until his retirement in 1990.
The ALP regained Griffith in 1977, with Ben Humphreys winning the seat. Humphreys served as a minister in the Hawke/Keating government from 1987 until 1993, and retired at the 1996 election.
The ALP preselected Kevin Rudd, but he lost to Graeme McDougall (LIB). McDougall only held on for one term, losing to Rudd in 1998. Rudd joined the ALP shadow ministry in 2001 as Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, a role he held for five years.
Rudd’s profile rose as Shadow Foreign Minister, and he was considered a contender for the ALP leadership when Simon Crean resigned in 2003 and when Mark Latham resigned in 2005, but he waited until late 2006 when he challenged Kim Beazley, and was elected leader, and then proceeded to win the 2007 federal election, becoming Prime Minister.
Kevin Rudd was removed as Labor leader and Prime Minister in June 2010, and was re-elected in Griffith as a Labor backbencher. He returned to the ministry as Foreign Minister following the election. He returned to the backbench as part of a failed challenge to Julia Gillard’s leadership in February 2012. Kevin Rudd again challenged for the Labor leadership in June 2013, and returned to the Prime Ministership.
Rudd led Labor to defeat at the 2013 election – he was re-elected in Griffith with a 3% margin, but resigned shortly after. The seat was won at an early 2014 by-election by Labor’s Terri Butler, in the face of a 1.25% swing to the Liberal National Party. Butler was re-elected in 2016 and 2019.
Butler lost to Greens candidate Max Chandler-Mather in 2022, with Butler falling into third place.
- Max Chandler-Mather (Greens)
- Lindsay Bell (One Nation)
- Renee Coffey (Labor)
- Dion Hunt (People First)
- Andrea Campbell (Family First)
- Anthony Bishop (Liberal National)
- Aaron Hayes (Trumpet of Patriots)
Assessment
This seat is a complex race to watch, but the Greens are in a stronger position here then in their other two inner Brisbane electorates. The progressive two-candidate-majority majority is quite substantial, and the Greens have quite a large lead over Labor in the three-candidate-preferred count. Chandler-Mather has a good shot at winning a second term.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Max Chandler-Mather | Greens | 36,771 | 34.6 | +10.9 |
| Olivia Roberts | Liberal National | 32,685 | 30.7 | -10.2 |
| Terri Butler | Labor | 30,769 | 28.9 | -2.0 |
| Shari Ware | One Nation | 3,504 | 3.3 | +1.2 |
| Robert Gordon McMullan | United Australia | 2,581 | 2.4 | +1.0 |
| Informal | 2,169 | 2.0 | -0.3 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % |
| Max Chandler-Mather | Greens | 64,271 | 60.5 |
| Olivia Roberts | Liberal National | 42,039 | 39.5 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Terri Butler | Labor | 64,923 | 61.1 | +8.2 |
| Olivia Roberts | Liberal National | 41,387 | 38.9 | -8.2 |
Booths have been divided into four areas: Bulimba in the north, Greenslopes in the south, South Brisbane in the west and a series of booths along the eastern boundary.
There are two different thresholds that decide who wins Griffith: firstly, who is leading in the race between Labor and the Greens? And then, after preferences, does the LNP have a majority against the main progressive opponent?
On a two-candidate-preferred basis, the Greens won a majority in all four areas, ranging from 58% in Bulimba to 69.7% in South Brisbane. The Greens also polled over 60% of the pre-poll vote.
On a primary vote basis, the Greens outpolled Labor in all four areas, with the Greens primary vote peaking at 44.5% in South Brisbane. Labor’s vote peaked at 30% in the east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | GRN 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Bulimba | 32.6 | 28.2 | 58.1 | 15,493 | 14.6 |
| South Brisbane | 44.5 | 27.2 | 69.7 | 12,008 | 11.3 |
| Greenslopes | 37.5 | 29.6 | 64.9 | 11,098 | 10.4 |
| East | 32.4 | 30.0 | 59.5 | 6,823 | 6.4 |
| Pre-poll | 35.0 | 28.4 | 60.7 | 35,773 | 33.6 |
| Other votes | 29.8 | 30.4 | 55.5 | 25,115 | 23.6 |
Election results in Griffith at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs LNP), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Greens, the Liberal National Party and Labor.
As much as the 3-way contests are fun for the stats, they are pretty stupid from an electoral fairness perspective. We really shouldn’t have a situation where Liberal supporters would be better off first pref-ing Labor to avoid the Greens winning, it does create an almost FPTP-like situation, albeit significantly less common. Does anyone know of any talk about solving this or is it too niche for anyone to really care?
The solution is to not use single member electorates, and yeah I talk about it pretty much constantly.
I wrote a paper about this problem for the 2023 APSA conference.
Labor is pretty much the Condorcet winner in all these 3 way contests. Same as Macnamara, Brisbane and to a lesser extent the old Higgins.
What about having increased but smaller electorates? There are more but smaller state seats in QLD. The 2CP in South Brisbane is Labor vs Greens whereas in Bulimba, it is Labor vs LNP, after preferences. An LNP voter won’t ‘accidentally’ vote in a Green. Expanding federal parliament is a different kettle of fish.
@Angus, you make a good point. If you’re an LNP voter and you want to see the back of MCM, you’d hope that Labor doesn’t get pushed to third spot in the 3CP like in Brisbane in 2022.
The greens have their uses. Because it forces labor to out green the greens therefore pushing some seats towards the liberals. The alp would be smart to follow Dutton who instead of trying g to out teal the teals is targeting outer suburban labor voters who have been left behind by labor as they try to secure wealthier elite inner city votes
Expanding the parliament wouldn’t solve the problem of three-cornered contests producing weird results. It might mean it doesn’t happen here, but it would happen in different places instead. The problem is that the vote is fragmented in such a way that means that there are few seats where the winner has a majority of the vote, or even close to a majority, so preferences become more important and sometimes produces weird situations. A proportional system would mean more MPs would win based on the primary vote and be less dependent on preferences.
Chandler-Mather on ABC local this morning reckons the LNP finally have a candidate here. Reckons someone named Anthony Bishop, but can’t find the news anywhere else yet.
Nominations close April 10 so they’ll need to have it sorted before then.
@Darth Vader whenever Labor has tried to follow the LNP and lean to the right for “outer suburban” votes, they’ve failed miserably. Just have a look at the NT election. Labor tried to be tough on crime, and supported gas projects, to try and win over outer-suburban voters. This failed miserably, and they bled votes on the left and right. The fact is that you can’t “out-Liberal” the Liberals. If people want centre-right politics, they’ll vote LNP. So I think it’s better for Labor to go down a progressive route, to differentiate itself from the L/NP.
Progressive policies also appeal to outer suburban voters, because they help with the cost of living – just look at QLD Labor. 50c fares might’ve been seen as trying to “out green the greens”. Sure they helped Labor a lot in the inner-city, but Labor also held up well in middle and outer suburbs where they were expected to lose badly. 50c fares really helped folk in the outer suburbs, who had to commute via public transport to work.
Similarly, Federal Labor’s announcement on medicare (making most GP visits bulk billed) is quite progressive, and might be seen as chasing Greens votes. But people in the outer suburbs will benefit too. Meanwhile, what’s Dutton offering?
Agree AA, that would also be somewhat true on the conservative side. Malcolm Turnbull being a moderate and a somewhat small ‘l’ Liberal didn’t really have much success in the swing type outer suburban districts, merely consolidating support in the affluent inner suburban areas. In contrast, Morrison embraced more of a ‘battler’ image which helped win back some of the outer suburban, swing type seats like Lindsay and Longman.
@AA as Labor have demonstrated in WA, SA and to an extent NSW when labor governs from the right of the Labor they are hard to beat. SA labor will win in 2026 because of this. WA is a different story pretty hard to ask for a 4th term. especially if a federal labor minortiy ovt comes in and brings in laws that start to harm WAs economic prosperity. such as Nature First laws, cancelling gas projecs as the greens and teals want to, god forbid they bring in another carbon and minig tax. Nsw i think might be a one term government as despite winning 55-45 on the 2pp couldnt even manage majority govt. and with the polls having tightened since the lection i cant see them holding most of the marginals/ regional seats
The difference with WA and SA is that their Liberal oppositions are utterly incompetent. So Labor isn’t really following the LNP to the right, because the LNP aren’t a threat and are more focused on fighting themselves. I’m saying that it never works when Labor tries to follow the LNP to the right, usually because they’re under threat from the LNP.
agreed on SA but WA it was just a case of Labor having everything going for them and nearly driving the libs out of the parliament. i think 2029 will be a contest. so far i can the libs falling just short but that will also depend on the redistribution
I don’t think that is correct AA. The sweet spot has always been somewhat social democratic on economic policy, somewhat liberal on personal freedoms, somewhat conservative on crime, borders, nationhood. Labor Right, particularly the NSW Labor Right, is probably as close to this ideal as any other grouping in Australia.
The problem is that progressive policies are generally not that popular outside of economics, and even then if they stuff them up the backlash to the failure is worse than the positives from the success. The 50c PT fares policy is agood example, would only affect a relatively small number of outer suburban commuters (the big win I suspect was families coming in to town for the football) but will reduce fare income for the system and eventually see it with a reduced service in a rundown state.
Oh, and on Medicare Dutton copied the Labor plan within 30 minutes.
Also, you can’t implement progressive policies then when they fail go running back to the centre ground and hoping you get plaudits for it.
@Mostly Labor Voter I get what you mean, and I agree that there is a sweet spot. NSW and SA Labor Right are particularly close to this.
I was responding to @Darth Vader, who said that instead of ‘out greening the greens’, Labor “would be smart to follow Dutton”.
I’m trying to argue that Labor hurts itself when it tries to follow the LNP, dragging it to the right. This occurs the Labor party is on the nose and the LNP is fairly popular. So the Labor party heads to the right in response. If the Labor party is under pressure from the LNP, I believe does best when it differentiates itself, often through progressive economic policy. The Labor party in NSW, SA and WA did not continually shift to the right because the Labor party was unpopular and vice versa. They have a more centrist view because of party leadership and MPs.
I agree with the notion that progressive policies are best when they’re economic. But I suspect you don’t understand SEQ much. The 50c fares policy is extremely popular with outer suburban voters, even those who don’t use public transport, as they usually know people (often children or elderly relatives) who do. With Brisbane’s urban sprawl, there’s a lot of people who commute by train into the city, both white and blue collar. The 50c fares policy was so popular, as cost of living relief, that the LNP have kept it, and now take credit for it.
https://online.lnp.org.au/anthonybishop
Hi, I’m Anthony Bishop, your LNP candidate for Griffith.
I grew up in Brisbane and studied Medical Laboratory Science at QUT. Over the years, I’ve also lived in Melbourne, Singapore, and Malaysia, building a career in pharmaceutical R&D. I’ve had the privilege of leading global development programs that bring life-saving Australian innovations to the world.
I’ve called Murarrie home for the past 12 years. I’m married to Jane, and we have two adult children. Music has always been a big part of my life, and I’m proud to be an accomplished musician.
Hi Anthony good to see some candidates on here. Good luck at the election. Il be rooting for you from Liverpool (UK) as im over seas this election
The LNP finally have a candidate for Griffith. Some bloke called Anthony Bishop.
https://www.facebook.com/AnthonyBishopLNP