GRN 2.6% vs LNP
Incumbent MP
Elizabeth Watson-Brown, since 2022.
Geography
Ryan covers the western suburbs of Brisbane. The seat covers the north side of the Brisbane river from Auchenflower through Toowong, Indooroopilly, Chapel Hill and Kenmore. It also covers suburbs further north including The Gap and Ferny Grove.
History
Ryan was first created in 1949. The seat was first won by Nigel Drury in 1949 for the Liberal Party. Drury held the seat until 1975, mainly serving as a backbencher. He was succeeded by John Moore in 1975. Moore served as a minister in Malcolm Fraser’s final term and served in the shadow cabinet during the Hawke/Keating governments.
Moore served as Minister for Industry, Science and Tourism in John Howard’s first government and become Minister for Defence after the 1998 election. He lost the portfolio in a reshuffle in December 2000 and proceeded to resign from Parliament early in 2001.
A swing of 9.7% gave the normally safe Liberal seat to Labor candidate Leonie Short by 255 votes. Liberal candidate Michael Johnson won back the seat at the 2001 general election. Johnson was reelected in 2004 and 2007. A 6.6% swing to the ALP in 2007 made the seat marginal, and the ensuing redistribution cut the margin further.
Michael Johnson was expelled from the Liberal National Party in May 2010 due to controversies surrounding his role as Chair of the Australia-China Business Forum.
The LNP preselected Brisbane city councillor Jane Prentice in 2010. Prentice won the seat comfortably. Michael Johnson ran as an independent, and came fourth with 8.5% of the vote. Prentice won two more terms in 2013 and 2016.
Prentice lost LNP preselection in 2019 to Brisbane City councillor Julian Simmonds, and he went on to win the seat with relative ease.
Simmonds lost his seat in 2022 to Greens candidate Elizabeth Watson-Brown. The LNP and Labor primary votes both dropped, with the Greens primary vote increasing to push Watson-Brown into second place on primary votes, and Labor preferences gave her a majority of votes after preferences.
Assessment
This seat is a complex race to watch. For Watson-Brown to win re-election, she not only needs to win the preferential count but she also needs to stay ahead of Labor.
Lower house Greens MPs usually increase their support with the benefit of incumbency, and that would be particularly helpful in seeing off the Labor threat.
The LNP’s chances of regaining the seat partly depend on the Coalition’s ability to rebuild its support amongst inner-city voters. They do not appear to have made much progress on that front yet, which should help Watson-Brown.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Julian Simmonds | Liberal National | 38,239 | 38.5 | -10.1 |
| Elizabeth Watson-Brown | Greens | 30,003 | 30.2 | +9.9 |
| Peter Cossar | Labor | 22,146 | 22.3 | -2.1 |
| Damian Coory | Liberal Democrats | 2,582 | 2.6 | +2.6 |
| Joel Love | One Nation | 2,237 | 2.3 | +0.1 |
| Kathryn Pollard | United Australia | 2,062 | 2.1 | +0.6 |
| Jina Lipman | Animal Justice | 1,088 | 1.1 | -0.8 |
| Janine Rees | Labor | 606 | 0.6 | +0.6 |
| Axel Dancoisne | Federation Party | 353 | 0.4 | +0.4 |
| Informal | 3,140 | 3.1 | +0.7 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % |
| Elizabeth Watson-Brown | Greens | 52,286 | 52.6 |
| Julian Simmonds | Liberal National | 47,030 | 47.4 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Peter Cossar | Labor | 52,062 | 52.4 | +8.5 |
| Julian Simmonds | Liberal National | 47,254 | 47.6 | -8.5 |
Booths have been divided into four areas. Most of the population lies at the eastern end of the electorate, and these areas have been split into three areas. From north to south, these are Enoggera, The Gap and Indooroopilly. The remainder of the booths, most of which lie near the Brisbane River, have been grouped as “West”.
There are two different thresholds that decide who wins Ryan: 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 three out of four areas, ranging from 56% in Enoggera to 57.2% in the Gap. The LNP won 52.9% in the west. The Greens also won 52.3% of the pre-poll votes and the LNP won 51.7% of the other vote.
On a primary vote basis, the Greens outpolled Labor in three out of four areas, with the Greens primary vote peaking at 36% in Indooroopilly. Labor polled 28% in Enoggera, outpolling the Greens in that area.
Generally the Labor vote was highest at the northern end of the seat, the Greens vote highest in the eastern end of the seat, and the LNP vote highest in the south.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | GRN 2CP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Indooroopilly | 36.3 | 19.5 | 56.2 | 18,433 | 18.6 |
| The Gap | 34.1 | 22.9 | 57.2 | 11,435 | 11.5 |
| Enoggera | 26.9 | 28.4 | 56.0 | 8,569 | 8.6 |
| West | 28.6 | 18.1 | 47.1 | 5,271 | 5.3 |
| Pre-poll | 29.5 | 23.0 | 52.3 | 30,812 | 31.0 |
| Other votes | 26.3 | 22.0 | 48.3 | 24,796 | 25.0 |
Election results in Ryan at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs LNP), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, the Greens and Labor.
Joeldipops
Climate200 is not an environmental movement as such. It is a political vehicle for the renewable energy industry. Some of its big donors are big investors in renewable energy projects – they are not investing out of altruism they are investing to make money. They are not fundamentally a business lobby group no different to the Business Counil, Mining Council or Gina Rinehardt except they are more disengenuous about the whole thing. They are big end of town but would like everybody to think they are not.
I would love to know if there was a deal made for there to be no Teals running in Brisbane. Ryan is a natural Teal seat possibly even Brisbane. Same with Higgins or Macnamara in 2022. Who made the decision not to run and why?
@Clarinet of Communists – I was on prepoll today too, from midday until 3pm! Most fun I’ve ever had on prepoll!
Cool! What booth were you on?
@redistributed I support renewables but do agree about the teals. I suspect they decided the greens support most of their main issues, so there’s not much point challenging them.
Easy answer Redistributed. Ryan, Higgins, Brisbane and MacNamara are marginals that are not Coalition seats, yet could be won by the Coalition, so why would the Teals run against their allies and cost them the seats.
The Teals depend on tactical voting from Labor/Greens so why would a Labor voter voted teal in Macnamara when they already had a Labor MP. In Brisbane, there is a recent history of it being Labor held so Labor voters did not need to tactically vote Teal to oust Libs.
@Clarinet of Communists – Indro booth! I handing out for labor near the entrance. What about yourself?
Bellbowrie, I sort of wandered around, we were sort of overloaded on people lmao!