Queensland 2024

It’s a lot harder for the Greens to win seats from a popular incumbent in an OPV system, than it is for then to win seats from an unpopular incumbent in a CPV system. There’s no doubt the Greens would have been disappointed with the outcome of the council election, but the circumstances are different for the state election.

The Greens won federal seats with a strong NIMBY campaign mainly centred on aircraft noise. They did lots of door knocking. The devastating floods of 2021 and 2022 maybe helped their campaign though it was not front and centre. It did highlight various Morrison government controversies and helped drive the anti-Morrison vote.

“Flopped at the local elections” is a subjective term. If the Greens had hopes, poured lots of money in (not to the extent of Clive Palmer) and expected up to 10 wards, then the answer is yes. They did get their best ever result at the LM and ward levels and came within 4% in 4 LNP wards.

@Votante exactly. They said they were gonna win 10 wards and come second in the lord mayoral contest but they didn’t do either of those things. They won two wards and came third, despite a record vote share with record spending.

Votante, do you live in Brisbane? I do, and the experience I had of their campaign was very different. I heard little of aircraft noise and a greater messaging on expanding Medicare and taking more action on climate change.

More news outlets are covering this, and when democracy is on the ballot, democracy wins.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/compulsory-preferential-voting-to-be-scrapped-if-lnp-takes-power-20240824-p5k50q.html

@Caleb we already know the LNP is scrapping FPV and implementing OPV. It’s not really news anymore.

Might as well re-introduce FPTP if you abolish CPV considering ”just vote 1” is basically FPTP only difference is you right a number and not a tick.

FPTP is not democracy if you only win with 25% of the vote as 75% voted against a candidate. we are lucky here in Australia we have ranked choice voting compared to UK and Canada which their undemocratic system allows a candidate to win with a quarter of the vote, which doesn’t represent the 75% of people in those seats who voted against the winning candidate.

This is simply political by the LNP, voting system should be determined via referendum as this tug-of-war is ridiculous.

But it could backfire on the LNP in future elections, (not this one of course) but if it’s a close election like 2015, Campbell Newman’s ”Just vote 1” backfired on him big time.

I agree Daniel T, OPV is trying to create FPTP by stealth.

@Daniel T @Wilson NSW has OPV. It was actually introduced by Labor because the DLP kept taking Labor seats on preferences but now helps the Coalition in some seats since the DLP is gone (the old DLP is long gone, in fact the new DLP doesn’t exist in NSW either).

In NSW, left-wing voters (Greens and teals) usually don’t exhaust their preferences (i.e they preference other candidates) whilst others (Labor, the Coalition and the right-wing minor parties) exhaust their preferences (i.e they only number one box with a 1).

@ NP
The DLP has only ever won two lower house state seats Richmond (VIC) and South Brisbane (QLD) ironically they are now super left wing and socially progresisve now and held by Greens. It was rare for the DLP to win lower house seats but during their heyday they denied seats such as Maribyrnong to Labor as they preferenced the Coalition. It was not until 1990 at a federal level that the Labor party became a beneficiary of the preferential system when Democrats and Green preferences saved Labor and Graham Richardson was behind this strategy. Nowadays at most levels preferences benefit Labor as there primary vote is quite low and the left vote is more fragmented. In much of Regional QLD where ONP outpolls the Greens CPV actually hurts Labor in places like Mackay.

@Nimalan
We shouldn’t spend too long on this, but they also won Gordon in NSW in 1973 due to the incumbent Liberal doing a deadline debacle. (Usually the safest Liberal seat back then)

“Might as well re-introduce FPTP if you abolish CPV considering ”just vote 1” is basically FPTP only difference is you right a number and not a tick.”

This is nonsense. Yes, preferences flow less under OPV but the difference is that people have the ability to mark preferences, and primary vote leads are overturned. There’s also plenty of evidence that preference flows change depending on the political climate, which suggests that it’s not a fact of life that people just won’t mark preferences. Check out my analysis of the gap between CPV and OPV outcomes for the last Brisbane election. It mattered less than it would have in 2020 because Labor-Greens preference flows strengthened notably.

@ Nimalan South Brisbane was won by the Queensland Labor party along with a number of other seats. The only one of their members to stick around long enough to then run and win under the DLP was Les Diplock in Aubigny.

@ Leon
Interesting point about Gordon and it was a unique situation as you correctly mentioned, demographically it would be a weak seat for the DLP even in the 1970s being very WASP and affluent.
@ Laine, good point about other Queensland Labor seats. I mentioned it because it was Vince Gair seat and the QLP later merged into the DLP. Today both Richmond and South Brisbane are quite opposite of what the DLP used to be being very secular and socially progressive.

The DLP now is essentially a right-wing, socially conservative version of Labor. Both support trade unions and labourism. And the party is backed by members of the Catholic Church.

@ NP
I do agree with what you said but i dont think these days it has official church backing. The issue is that many Catholics are only nominally religious these days and many are much more affluent. A socially conservative more affluent Catholic like Dominic Perrottet will just support the Libs. These is less of a Catholic/Protestant divide these days so it is easy for Catholics to support Liberals and after Menzies started funding Catholics social mobility amongst Catholics has dramatically increased henced the DLP are no longer what it used to be.

Isnt the DLP formed because of many religious anti-communist alarmed at communism in the ALP during the 1950’s but at the same time couldn’t vote Liberals at the same time due to trade unions?

@NP, the current DLP isn’t technically a continuation with the 1950’s original DLP but rather a just a new party by the original members after the original DLP dissolved in late 1970’s but vote has remained small only able to get the Upper House

@ Marh
You are correct although many Catholics are more affluent than they were in the 1950s, Australia also had a sectarian divide between Anglo Protestants and Irish Catholics. See article below. That divide no longer exists.

https://insidestory.org.au/australias-great-political-shift/

The LNP currently has candidates in 81 of the 93 state seats in Queensland. This is more than any party so far. Labor isn’t too far behind, with candidates in 76 of the 93 seats.

* Seats without LNP candidates: Algester, Bulimba, Bundamba, Cooper, Gladstone, Ipswich, Jordan, Lytton, Mulgrave, South Brisbane, Stretton, Woodridge
* Seats without Labor candidates: Buderim, Burnett, Callide, Condamine, Glass House, Gregory, Hinchinbrook, Kawana, Lockyer, Mirani, Mulgrave (Curtis Pitt is retiring), Nanango, Southern Downs, Toowoomba North, Traeger, Warrego, Whitsunday

The minor parties are struggling to find candidates in many seats. I’ll analyse that in a separate comment.

The Greens have 38 candidates, while One Nation has 40 (it used to be 41 but Matthew Millar (the party’s original candidate for Thuringowa) has had his candidacy suspended) and KAP has just eight candidates (though Rhys Bosley, an independent candidate running in Algester, is apparently a KAP member according to Wikipedia).

It’s 1 September now, and the election is on 26 October, which is 55 days away. Given that all three of those parties have less than 47 candidates as of now (47 seats is the minimum required for a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly), something’s telling me the Greens might not run in every seat and may prefer to put their money into specific seats after somewhat successful seat-focused campaigns in the Northern Territory (where they have never ran in every seat) with lots of money poured into those specific target seats.

One Nation is saying they’re running in all 93 seats but that’ll be quite hard given that they only have 40 candidates as of today. KAP never run in every seat or even in a majority of seats, they usually only run in North Queensland seats, so they should be able to endorse a couple more candidates in North Queensland to get back to normal.

@Joseph Taken from the actual figures and the Shaping SEQ mapping, “ShapingSEQ 2023 is the South East Queensland Regional Plan and encompasses the 12 local government areas of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Logan, Moreton Bay, Noosa, Redland, Scenic Rim, Somerset, Sunshine Coast, and Toowoomba (urban extent).” Greater Brisbane is a subset of that – Shaping SEQ should really be called Greater Greater Brisbane, which is the commuter belt (excluding NSW).

Also your numbers are out of date. The estimated resident population of Queensland as at 31 December 2023 was 5,528,292 persons. Brisbane’s 2024 population is estimated at 2,536,449, and the estimated population of the area covered under Shaping SEQ was 3.8m and the 2046 projection is 6m. I think you were getting the population of Brisbane mixed up with the population of Greater Brisbane.

@John But Mayors are already elected. All you have to do is A) lock the current local government boundaries in place after a review so no-one tinkers with them and B) Make the position a dual one, voted for at Local Government elections. So you would be voting for your local councillor(s) and your Mayor/Upper House Representative. We already have elected Members doing two jobs – that’s how Ministers work.

One of the interesting things with this is the unintended and unknown consequences. There’s a balance between electing a bunch of people with no overt political leanings into government versus the political party’s moving into local government. To be honest, I’m not sure what would happen. The only area this takes place formally is Brisbane City Council and while many Councillors are members of political parties there would be a substantial pushback against allowing that to happen (on both the ALP and LNP side). Especially after the object lesson that was NSW.

@Yoh An As opposed to people voting against the best interests of their area because they’re in a safe seat?

@Nether Portal Whitsunday is a really interesting electorate. With a 3.26% margin you’d think that the ALP would have it in their target seat list. But due to a whole host of reasons, mostly dating back to the 2020 election and the debacle that the local branch suffered through, there’s nothing left there.

No branch, no former candidate, no former, former candidate and no likely candidate for this election. My guess is that they’ll end up having to parachute someone in and it will be a case of which union will have to run it.

@mark labor wont be winning any seast

Re dlp.. it and the qlp were formed 1955 to 1957.
Tony Abbott and the Katters
Shifted from Labor via the dlp to the coalition.
Religious bigotry of the past now largely does not exist any more.

@Mick Quinlivan Tony Abbott was never a Labor member, but he was a DLP member until 1979, when he joined the Liberals.

Bob Katter himself was actually a National like his dad but became an independent then created KAP.

@Mark Yore Whitsunday is classed by the ALP as “winnable”. Glass House is also classed as “winnable”, yet they don’t have a candidate. (although they’re obviously not winning either electorate) Whitsunday will also be interesting because the former mayor of the area is running for One Nation.

@Nether Portal One Nation will probably run ghost candidates in any seats they can’t find candidates for. Like they did at the last federal election, and the last state election.

@ nether..
You are right..
Abbott was the dlp at Sydney uni

@NP, well Bob Katter’s father was initially a Labor Person but later turned National once he became MP however he always opposed neoliberalim

Having the Mayors (or another person elected per-LGA) serve as Upper House representatives really doesn’t work on any sort of one-vote-one-value principle. Qld doesn’t do everything right, but we get OVOV basically correct (I don’t even mind the large district allowance).

And there’s no question of redrawing LGA boundaries regularly to support OVOV; local governments’ main task is to manage infrastructure.

So an upper house formed this way would have to have very little power. Just committee/inquiry work, maybe a one-use option on delaying a bill from passing.

Yes it would severely skew the upper house in favour of rural areas. Which some people seem to think is consistent with democracy, but it’s really not.

It’s also worth noting that it would probably inject more state politics into local council, if you’re electing someone to both serve in local council and as a state MP. Considering every mayor in Queensland is directly elected, you would effectively still have direct elections, just massively malapportioned and interconnected with local government.

@AlexJ The Senate doesn’t really work on any sort of one-vote-one-value principle either. But we have it because its purpose was as both a House of Review and a bulwark against the numerical supremacy of the more populous States.

One of the problems with Queensland is that it doesn’t have any body for oversight. The Committee system as it is is notoriously weak because it’s run on a winner-takes-all basis.

An Upper House formed this way would have the exact powers granted to the Senate as part of its role as a check on government by scrutinising bills, delegated legislation, government administration, and government policy in general.

Unless you’re arguing that a Unicameral Parliament doesn’t require review (except when the other Party is in government).

@Mark Yore I just don’t really see the point in going out of our way to set up such an odd and disproportionate system. If Queensland ever brings back its legislative council then it should just use the same electoral system found in the other state upper houses.

Personally I wouldn’t mind if we continued without an upper house and instead adopted a proportional electoral system for the legislative assembly (as is the case in Tasmania and the ACT.) But given Labor would likely never govern without the Greens again and the LNP is only open to regressive electoral reform, that idea is pretty much dead in the water.

@A A I don’t think Julie Hall and One Nation have a realistic shot in Whitsunday. She was out of her depth in Council when she was Mayor but I don’t think she would have been re-elected if she had stood. KAP would probably have a better chance, mostly because their ground game is better, but they don’t have a candidate yet.

Katter and his Dad were “Old Labor” the party that they were once apart of is unrecognisable from todays party.

betting is favouring labor in cairns so ive taken the lnp at 2.27

@John good choice.

Why is betting favouring Labor in Cairns when the betting is still showing that the LNP are going to win easily? Especially given that betting is essentially writing Labor off Barron River (odds are $1.07 for the LNP and $5.00 for Labor).

Though in saying that the last NT election was predicted to be close but ended up being a landslide win for the CLP, so polls are probably more accurate than Sportsbet.

Also, why is there a Warrego market? Nobody would ever say anyone but the LNP would win a seat like that. I see they took Bundamba (a very safe Labor seat) off, so why not take Warrego (a very safe LNP seat) off and add some reasonable odds for key seats?

@ Mark Yore I can grudgingly accept the Senate malapportionment as the price of federation. That doesn’t mean I should support massive malapportionment elsewhere.

I strongly agree with your comments about the lack of oversight!

I would be happy to see Qld adopt an upper house on the model of any of the other mainland states bar perhaps Victoria.
I would also be happy to see Qld with a unicameral MMP parliament like our friends across the ditch – that would also generally do away with single-party control.
I’m even willing to contemplate more exotic things like sortition (this would be purely a reviews-and-inquiries body though).

@Mark Yore I don’t think One Nation and Julie Hall have a realistic shot at all, I just think it’s an interesting factor. Especially seeing where votes from Labor will go to.

@Nether Portal I’m wondering the same thing, Cairns is gone to the LNP, I have no idea why betting odds are in Labor’s favour there. Also they had Woodridge but took that off, so I’m also not sure why Warrego is there.

FriendlyJordies has started doing a series of videos on Qld’s state election
https://youtu.be/K7ro89tmL6Y?si=hcIB8YGQD4L6SDz8
https://youtu.be/dIGtD4s7t5Y?si=AFSKPsVYKhHw5iYy

Friendlyjordies is the only person who is still defending Labor, both Albo and Miles. He somehow called the current federal Labor government “good economic managers” and has tried to dismantle Queensland’s upcoming government the same way he tried to dismantle the NSW Coalition government, by attacking John “Bruz” Barilaro (he compared him to Mario, the Italian plumber in the Mario Bros. games). This time he’s referred to Crisafulli as “the new Bruz” and “[the] ethnic [version of] Richard Nixon”. I know he does some things for comedic value and he’s Croatian and Italian himself (his real name is Jordan Shanks-Markovina), but still.

What a silly man and what a Labor puppet. Economists have called this government the worst in modern Australian history.

Economists working for the AFR, News Corp and the LNP may have said the Albanese Labor government’s economic management is the worst ever, but there are plenty of other economists who have said that the government is managing the economy better than the LNP did.

There are SO MANY media outlets who have defended the LNP through everything (LNP puppets), and continually attacked Labor. Sky News, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Australian Taxpayers Alliance (just actually an LNP defence racket), even 7 and 9 news are experts at sensationalising media, and choosing the stories that fit the LNP’s agenda.

Why can’t Jordies be the Labor version of that? He is a comedian, so his videos have a comedic element, but if you actually watch them, he uses data and information to make some pretty solid points, and debunk the LNP defending of the mainstream media.

He literally called out blatant corruption by Barilaro – you should look at the whole story. He has done a lot better job at calling out facts than the so called “journalists” at Sky News, Channel 7 and Channel 9, who only care about sensationalistic stories.

To sum it up, I agree that Jordies defends Labor. But there are so many media outlets who do the same for the LNP. It works both ways, and that’s a part of freedom of speech.

Also, you can’t tell me that all economists agree that Albo’s government is the worst ever. While there are some economists who think he’s doing a bad job, there area also plenty of economists who think he’s doing a good job.

I may be a Labor supporter, but I call out bias when I see it. There is bias towards Labor from Jordies, and bias towards the LNP from Sky News. @Nether Portal do you agree with me?

@A A @Nether Portal I know why the betting markets aren’t pricing the election results correctly. According to how most of the people on this page think the results are going to go, anyway.

Generally, if you’re here with Ben you have a greater than average interest in how elections work and what issues influence the results. You also probably have an understanding of what the true figures are like and understand that most of the polling results are not necessarily incorrect, they’re just stale.

For those operating within various campaigns, there’s also information flows that doesn’t necessarily make it out of that bubble.

So we have a better grasp of the outcome then the people who are setting the odds for a relatively niche event – compared to football and horse racing anyway. There’s also less opportunity to unfairly influence the result. It’s not as if you can drop a few LSD caps in someone’s drink before they make a speech or insert a couple of thousand extra votes into the count.

Most of the big bookmakers don’t have their A team working on this tiny market and they’re prepared to take a bit of a loss for the PR value. Being just a little bit smarter than the bookies is how David Walsh makes his money.

Which is a long way of explaining that when the bookies offered 100 to 1 for the LNP in 2012 for Nudgee, you’d have been crazy to not put money on it if you knew the ALP had lost the seat two weeks before the election.

@AA I think Sky News obviously prefers the Coalition over Labor, yes, but I do think they skew more to One Nation than the Coalition.

@Mark Yore I actually think sports betting is less accurate than election betting, though of course sports betting is less accurate because unpredictable stuff can happen (Leicester winning the 2015-16 Premier League season is a great example) and because sports are played way more often than elections are held (there is professional sport played on almost every day of the year each year).

I agree though I call out bias when I see it, especially if it’s massive bias like Jordies to Labor, the Young Turks to left-wing Democrats or Fox News to right-wing Republicans (I can’t think of an example for the Coalition since as I said Sky News pushes the Coalition to the right).

@Nether Portal Jordies is an absolute fuckwit (not to mention he’s a CCP and Kremlin shill too, basically the Australian Hasan Piker) but the Bruz shit was genuinely funny. Plus his employee being arrested by the anti-terrorism squad was fucking scary shit that shouldn’t happen in any democracy.

His main problem is that he obviously ignores any corruption or incompetence on Labor side (look at his treatment of Bruz or Gladys vs his treatment of Dan Andrews for example)