ALP 11.1%
Incumbent MP
Grace Grace, since 2017. Previously Member for Brisbane Central 2007-2012 and 2015-2017.
Geography
Central Brisbane. The seat covers the Brisbane CBD and the suburbs of Fortitude Valley, New Farm, Newstead, Spring Hill, Herston, Bowen Hills, Windsor and parts of Kelvin Grove, Wilston and Newmarket.
History
The seat of McConnel was created in 2017, but is simply a new name for Brisbane Central, which had existed since 1977. This seat has been won by Labor at all but one election.
The seat was first won in 1977 by Brian Davis. He had previously held the seat of Brisbane from 1969 to 1974, when he lost to the Liberal Party. He held Brisbane Central from 1977 to 1989.
In 1989 Davis was succeeded by Peter Beattie, the former State Secretary of the Queensland ALP. Beattie was appointed as Minister for Health in the Goss government in 1995. In 1996, the Goss government lost power and the National-Liberal coalition took power without an election. Following this change Beattie was elected as leader of the ALP.
Peter Beattie led the ALP into the 1998 election and became Premier at the head of a Labor minority government, which quickly gained a majority following a by-election. He won landslide victories in 2001, 2004 and 2006 before retiring in 2007.
At the following by-election, the seat was won by Labor candidate Grace Grace, former general secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions. Without a Liberal candidate, Grace’s main opposition came from Greens candidate Anne Boccabella, but retained the seat comfortably with a 7.9% margin.
Grace was re-elected in 2009, but Beattie’s 2006 margin of 14.4% collapsed to only 6%.
In 2012, Grace was defeated by LNP candidate Robert Cavallucci, but she won back the seat in 2015. Brisbane Central was renamed ‘McConnel’ at the 2017 election, and Grace has won two further terms in the renamed seat.
Assessment
McConnel looks safe on a Labor vs LNP basis, but the Greens are not far away from making the top two. If the Greens overtake the LNP, LNP preferences could decide the result. It’s also not implausible, if there is a swing away from Labor and to the LNP, that the race could turn into a Greens vs LNP race, in which case the Greens would likely win easily on Labor preferences.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 11,616 | 35.3 | +1.6 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 10,192 | 31.0 | -5.6 |
| Kirsten Lovejoy | Greens | 9,263 | 28.1 | +1.0 |
| Paul Swan | Legalise Cannabis | 721 | 2.2 | +2.2 |
| Anne Perry | One Nation | 474 | 1.4 | +1.4 |
| Miranda Bertram | Independent | 236 | 0.7 | +0.7 |
| Malcolm Wood | United Australia | 164 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| Alan Hamilton | Informed Medical Options | 152 | 0.5 | +0.5 |
| John Fair Dobinson | Independent | 93 | 0.3 | -0.8 |
| Informal | 885 | 2.6 |
2020 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Grace Grace | Labor | 20,096 | 61.1 | +3.2 |
| Pinky Singh | Liberal National | 12,815 | 38.9 | -3.2 |
Booths in McConnel have been divided into three areas: central, east and west.
Labor won a majority of the two-party-preferred vote in all three areas, ranging from 59% in the east to 66.5% in the centre.
The Greens came third, with a primary vote of 31.8% in the centre and east, and 36% in the west.
| Voter group | GRN prim % | ALP 2PP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 31.8 | 59.0 | 3,739 | 11.4 |
| West | 36.0 | 65.1 | 2,428 | 7.4 |
| Central | 31.8 | 66.5 | 2,221 | 6.7 |
| Pre-poll | 27.4 | 61.9 | 12,494 | 38.0 |
| Other votes | 25.5 | 59.0 | 12,029 | 36.6 |
Election results in McConnel at the 2020 Queensland state election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal National Party and the Greens.
@AA in Victoria, the seat of Richmond (a progressive inner-city Melbourne seat) went to the Greens in 2022 even though the Andrews government (like the Allan government) was quite progressive. Yes preferences may have helped but the Greens still finished first.
As you said, Liberal preferences were the main factor behind Richmond falling to The Greens. Plus the retiring member factor, and controversies around the new Labor candidate’s claim to have Aboriginal heritage.
Mcconnel has none of these factors. People have been saying it will fall to The Greens since 2017, but that just haven’t happened.
@ Nether Portal although federal politics are usually not an indicator of state-level support (and vice-versa), I think the federal division of Melbourne having a long-term and high profile Green MP for the previous decade probably helped them finally pick up Richmond in 2022, as well as of course the retirement of Richard Wynne and subsequent loss of incumbency for Labor.
Personally I’m still tipping a Greens win in both Cooper and McConnel, but I can see the argument for why they might hold on, especially considering how they fell below expectations in the council elections earlier this year. It certainly helps Labor that neither Bush nor Grace are as scandal-plagued as Jackie Trad was.
@Nether Portal
Another possible factor is that Steven Miles is very popular with young people on social media. As a young person, people who I talk to are very supportive of his policies. This electorate has a young demographic, compared to the rest of the state.
After the events of the last few months I wonder if there may be increased leakage from Labor votes going to the Greens.
@Redistributed you mean like more Labor voters than usual preferencing the LNP above the Greens?
@Redistributed
People can differentiate between federal and state Labor. Especially in Queensland. So any of the recent events (CFMEU, census) involving federal Labor won’t really affect state Labor’s chances.
NP – exactly! If that does occur the Greens may have a problem in Ryan and/or Brisbane.
NP and redistributed – this phenomenon where Labor votes flow less strongly to the Greens actually occurred in Fannie Bay for the NT, enabling the CLP’s Laurie Zio to win instead.
this is what may help the libs win back ryan and brisbane and may also help the coaltion in richmond in nsw
Just reading through these comments, and I wonder if it is worth the ALP preferencing the Greens behind the Libs in seats like this (maybe all of QLD). Hear me out. We know from experience that once Greens win a seat at a general election they are very hard to remove. If the Greens win seats like this, it means that next time around Labor will need to fight on two flanks in order to get a majority. There would also be the chance to find out just how many Labor->Greens voters there really are. If it turns out that even preferencing the Libs sees a 70%+ flow to the Greens then maybe the ALP should seriously consider a more formal agreement with the Greens. If however ALP voters follow the HTV and send prefs to the Libs, then the ALP can drive a much harder bargain with the Greens. Currently, the Greens (and a surprising number of their voters) think because the Greens send prefs to the ALP they have power over Labor Governments and have a mandate to block Labor policies if they conflict with their own. If it turns out the other way, that the Greens are reliant on ALP prefs then the ALP can play much more hardball when the Greens turn up to block Labor plans.
Following on from the South Brisbane thread, Duffey (the LNP candidate here) has been very overt in his support for the LGBTQ+ community, and is openly gay himself.
I’ve just noticed, the 2PP margin here isn’t that large… is there an outside chance the LNP wins this?
@Nicholas similar to Trevor Evans was also openly gay and a moderate.
Trevor should run for a state seat.
@Nicholas – yes there is. As a resident in McConnel I can confirm the LNP has a relatively strong base to work from here as demonstrated in March when they held the Central ward. The tired trope of gentrification is responsible. This part of Brisbane continues to become more expensive and the demographics reflect that. The Labor vote in the inner city areas of Brisbane has eroded at all levels of govt over the past 20 years and I suspect they will come a distant third next month in McConnel as the general anti-Labor swing bites. The LNP is already very active locally as are the Greens – I see this as a blue/green battle. Even with FPV, I suspect the result will be close if the LNP primary vote is high enough.
Mostly Labor Voter, Labor are of course free to set their HTV recommendations any way they wish. However, I would suggest there are two reasons they’ve never recommended the LNP ahead of the Greens.
Firstly, the LNP are Labor’s competition for forming government, whereas the Greens are not. And the Greens will always back Labor in a hung parliament unless Labor actively pushes them away. So recommending the LNP above the Greens damages Labor’s chances of holding onto power.
Secondly, leaving Labor voters aside for a second and looking only at their volunteer base, many of these people are motivated by ideology, and their ideology is much closer to the Greens than to the LNP. Recommending the LNP over the Greens has the potential to alienate many volunteers and cause them to not show up, which would be terrible for Labor’s ground game and potentially cost them seats elsewhere.
And why would the Greens ever agree to a formal agreement with a party that recommended the LNP over them? They’d probably see Labor as an unreliable partner who will try to dispose of them as quickly as possible like Gillard did to Wilkie a decade ago. Expecting the Greens to turn around and agree to a deal after being snubbed is wishful thinking.
I think you misunderstand why the Greens feel they have the mandate to vote against Labor policy that conflicts with their own. It isn’t about preference flows, it’s simply about their values. Their voters expect them to stand for a set of values, even if it makes no difference to the final outcome. This is why the Greens have voted against Labor on numerous bills in the current Queensland Parliament, despite them not having the power to block anything. The Labor majority ensures the bills get passed regardless. And I feel certain they would continue this pattern regardless of preference flows. The threat of being recommended lower than the LNP would not stop them voting against new fossil fuel projects.
Perhaps this comes down to whether Labor find minority government to be an acceptable outcome for them. If so, they won’t recommend the LNP above the Greens anywhere. If not, then they might do so, hoping for a majority in future. But it shouldn’t be taken for granted that Labor will be able to achieve that next election. They’ve lost multiple inner city electorates to the Greens and the rural socialist vote to Katter. This makes them very dependent on suburban Brisbane and regional cities for a majority, and those areas may not all return to the Labor fold next election if they’re lost in this one.
Labor will always preference greena ovee libs as if they donr tue greens will weaponised it against them. Libs can’t win this seat as the combined labor,greens vote is just way too strong to overcome.
I can’t think of a better way to hasten Labor’s demise as the alternative party of government than picking now, of all times, to play tough guy with Greens preferences
If Labor cannot win then it would be in their interests to use their preferences if relevant against the lnp.
A minority position gives you a chance of governing and if it is a lnp minority make it harder for them to govern. Also I would not assume the Katters would back a lnp govt
@Mick it will be liberal majority in latter sides with labor has not only ruini n g his career in state politics but his career in federal politics when his dad retires or should I say gets voted out because it would probably ruin bob katters chance of reelection