ALP 2.9%
Incumbent MP
Terri Butler, since 2014.
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.
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.
Assessment
This electorate is a marginal contest between Labor and the LNP, and it is not hard to imagine Labor losing to the LNP, although Labor’s vote is close to a low point in Queensland. Labor also outpolled the Greens by 7% at the key exclusion point in 2019. If the Greens can close that gap, Labor would lose and the Greens would likely win on Labor preferences. That gap is still quite substantial but remains one of the Greens’ most appealing prospects.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Olivia Roberts | Liberal National | 40,816 | 41.0 | -0.2 |
| Terri Butler | Labor | 30,836 | 31.0 | -2.2 |
| Max Chandler-Mather | Greens | 23,562 | 23.7 | +6.7 |
| Julie Darlington | One Nation | 2,109 | 2.1 | +2.1 |
| Christian John Julius | United Australia Party | 1,444 | 1.4 | +1.5 |
| Tony Murray | Conservative National Party | 850 | 0.9 | +0.9 |
| Informal | 2,302 | 2.3 | -1.8 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing |
| Terri Butler | Labor | 52,659 | 52.9 | +1.4 |
| Olivia Roberts | Liberal National | 46,958 | 47.1 | -1.4 |
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.
Labor won the two-party-preferred vote in all four areas, ranging from 50.2% in Bulimba to 63.6% in South Brisbane. The LNP managed to narrowly win the pre-poll vote despite a significant deficit on election day.
But Labor is competing here not just against the LNP but also against the Greens, who are hoping to overtake Labor. If you look at the relative strength of Labor on the primary vote, the pattern is very different.
The Labor vote is lowest in South Brisbane, where they polled the best on the two-party-preferred vote, and best in the east, where they barely defeated the LNP. The Greens vote varies from 17.8% to 36.1%. The Greens vote is a threat to Labor, but if they fail to overtake Labor their preferences become crucial to Labor’s two-party-preferred majority.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | ALP 2PP | Total votes | % of votes |
| Bulimba | 20.3 | 31.7 | 50.2 | 18,531 | 18.6 |
| Greenslopes | 25.5 | 32.7 | 56.3 | 14,259 | 14.3 |
| South Brisbane | 36.1 | 29.9 | 63.6 | 13,586 | 13.6 |
| East | 17.8 | 34.8 | 51.5 | 7,400 | 7.4 |
| Pre-poll | 22.3 | 28.9 | 49.5 | 28,782 | 28.9 |
| Other votes | 20.6 | 31.3 | 50.6 | 17,059 | 17.1 |
Election results in Griffith at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
A must watch electorate in inner-Brisbane. Terri Butler seems genuinely concerned about Max Chandler-Mather, the Queensland Greens candidate beating her in 3PP. But if there is a really poor primary vote for Labor in Brisbane metropolitan area in particular, the LNP may pick up this seat.
Queensland’s Macnamara.
CG
Geez mate we had a big set too about this comparison last election ….!
Sheesh you just couldn’t leave it alone could you !!??.
cheers WD
I agree that Butler could lose at this rate which would only leave Labor with 2 seats (Oxley and Rankin) they wouldn’t hold Moreton,Blair or Lilley if they lose this to the LNP. It doesn’t matter how popular the Premier is because the support never translated last time why would it this time?
I wouldn’t take a Jackie Trad loss as a warning sign here only because Jackie Trad lost because of Jackie Trad, the vote was anti-her rather than Anti-Labor. So please tell me what those Labor operators are on who want Trad to run for federal politics.
Its funny but instinctively Griffith feels more vulnerable than other QLD seats with the exception of Blair. However which way it goes could be very different.
With the surge in the Green vote Butler is astute enough to be apprehensive. Then again Butler did very well in most LNP booths so who would know? There might well be a resurgence in the LNP vote here. A real toss up
Then Again Labor could hold say Lilley & lose this to the LNP. Either way id predict that Griffith will lose all parts west of the M 1 next redistribution, & that would be curtains for Butler.
Labor have stepped up their campaign against Max Chandler-Mather, with some pretty amusingly desperate attacks actually (today it was because he was helping Morrison by pointing out that Australia no longer has public pharmaceuticals, apparently). The parallels between the Amy Macmahon/Jackie Trad spats are pretty obvious imo. I’d say they’re expecting to lose Griffith at this point, but I dunno if I’d draw too many conclusions about how they’re feeling on other seats because of that.
At any rate this is the Greens’ best chance for a second house seat in Queensland, they won’t win Brisbane or Ryan if they don’t get this one. I don’t see the LNP taking it, except on the back of an absolute landslide victory. But I wouldn’t rule that out either.
This could fall to the Green’s. This will be interesting to watch.
one of the spiciest contests
Brisbane is more likely to go to the Green than this. C’mon guys you can’t take the state election as a ramification because Jackie Trad lost for being Jackie Trad. it was anti-her. McMahon would have lost if Trad had retired. If Butler losses which I think she is a favourite but not overwhelming. Then this seat will fall to the LNP.
Last time I checked this was ALP vs LNP not ALP vs GRN. And remember before Trad lost, the seat was already an ALP vs GRN so we are at least a couple of elections away from it becoming LAB vs GRN and besides this doesn’t solely just contain South Brisbane.
Daniel, the Greens’ path to victory is by overtaking Labor, so it would be LNP vs GRN, not ALP vs GRN.
There was definitely a personal factor against Trad in the state election but the Greens’ strength in this area has been growing very quickly besides. The local branch is one of the biggest and probably the most influential in the entire state, and unlike the north Brisbane people (who largely run the Brisbane campaign), they’ve got an effective party machine and haven’t managed to ratf–k themselves with internal bickering. I compared the current dynamic to last year’s state election because when Labor spend a lot of time mounting (desperate) attacks on the Greens rather than focusing almost entirely on the LNP, it’s isually an indicator of who they feel is the real threat.
I’d be quite surprised if Griffith ever went LAB vs GRN. That would imply the effective Liberal vote dropping by more than 10%.
As Ben points out, the Greens have two paths to victory in single-member seats.
Option A, overtaking Labor and then beating the LNP on Labor prefs, is easier in some ways and harder in others, but I expect it to be the more common of the two. It’s doable with a Greens 3PP under 30%, but it then needs a quite high Liberal 3PP too, otherwise Labor’s too far in front. Successfully done in The Gabba 2016, Maiwar 2017 and Prahran 2014, and attempted in Higgins, Kooyong, Brisbane and Ryan. Tendency thus far for genuine three-cornered contests.
Option B, going up against Labor on top-two, is only ever going to be applicable in the most heavily left-wing electorates, where the Liberal vote is below 33%. To make matters tricky, the Libs get play kingmaker. Successfully done in South Brisbane 2020, and Melbourne 2014; famously attempted in Cooper.
The LNP HTV recommended preferences to the Greens over Labor in South Brisbane. Didn’t this make the difference?
Of course. But the Libs will almost certainly win the primary vote in Griffith. They won’t be distributing preferences.
Actually maybe not even that’s a cert, depending how bullish you are on the LNP’s inner city vote collapsing. They won’t be *losing* the 3pp vote. I think that at least is definitely not happening.
Regarding South Brisbane, Amy MacMahon led the 3PP in 2020 (but not in 2017). I ended up calculating that if LNP prefs had flowed at the same proportions they had in 2017 (37% Greens), then Jackie Trad would’ve retained by a few hundred votes; 42-58 would’ve been the balance point.
As it happened, MacMahon ended up getting something like 69% of prefs on the LNP candidate’s exclusion, hence the fairly solid 55-45 2CP.
Author/s: Lydia Lynch
Publication: The Australian
The Greens have launched their biggest campaign in party history in a bid to eat away support for Labor frontbencher Terri Butler “like termites” and claim their first lower house seat in Queensland.
(BR: Edited for length)
The idea that the Greens only need a 3.5% swing to win sounds ridiculous to me. That only makes sense to me if the 2PP vote is stable. Not that I take Labor’s bullishness at face value, and I have to wonder what data this Dr Williams is working with to write Chandler-Mather off not just for this election but the next one too. Ironically enough it’s the LNP source here that’s most plausible.
FL, the comments policy is perfectly clear, don’t publish whole news articles in the comments.
Furtive, even if the 2PP vote isn’t stable, it’s unknown what the individual effects would be on the respective totals of Labor and the Greens when the count gets to the final exclusion. Such is the problem with using a two-party tool in a three-party contest.
Given the demographics in Griffith and the voting patterns at state and local elections, any swing from LNP to Labor out of a desire to change government might be accompanied by a swing from Labor to the Greens, out of a desire to see more ambitious policy than what Albanese is offering. It’s hard to comment on the relative sizes of any swings without localised polling.
For that reason, estimating the swing the Greens would need vis-a-vis Labor in order to win is difficult. The only thing you can really go on is the gap between Labor and the Greens in 2019 at the penultimate count, which was 7%. I imagine this is where the 3.5% swing figure comes from. They’d probably need a larger figure than that to win, but that’s speculation since I haven’t seen any localised polling.
“The idea that the Greens only need a 3.5% swing to win sounds ridiculous to me.”
***
A 3.5% swing from Labor to the Greens would mean Labor going down 3.5% and the Greens going up by 3.5% for a net change of 7%. If that were to occur the two parties would be roughly equal on primary vote.
Of course it’s speculation- so is the 3.5% swing to win line. It’s a question of whether that speculation is plausible – that Chandler-Mather could conceivably win on a primary vote of 27-28%, all else being equal. I don’t think he’d have a hope, and I don’t think he thinks he could win on that either. He’d never get the preference flows Terri Butler gets.
Anyway here’s the article for anyone who wanted to read:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Fpolitics%2Fgriffith-termite-greens-seek-the-wood-on-alp%2Fnews-story%2F1da211594958e78617174efd7dd3ef3b&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-cold-test-noscore&V21spcbehaviour=append
If anyone’s caught behind the paywall, scroll down here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/rynt47/termite_greens_seek_the_wood_on_alp/
“He’d never get the preference flows Terri Butler gets.”
How do you figure? When we’ve seen Labor pushed into third place their preference flows to the Greens have been very strong, sometimes stronger than the Greens flows to Labor.
Above 86%? In Griffith? Maybe in West End, but in Hawthorne? Carina? Cannon Hill? I don’t see it.
But I was more thinking about UAP and ON, who flowed 30/35% respectively to Labor. Greens are dreaming if they think they’ll get that kind of love imo. And unless Socialist Alliance runs this year I can’t see them getting better preferences from any other minor party.
Furtive, if you look at the results from Griffith 2019, the exclusion of both the UAP and ON candidates actually delivered more votes to the Greens than to Labor. Of course, both were well short of the flow to the LNP.
I just checked and you’re right Wilson. I’m still skeptical they’ll get the ALP preference flows. Love to be proved wrong on election day of course.
The UAP are sending their preferences away from the incumbent, which could theoretically help the Greens if any of the UAP aren’t extreme populist right.
Terri Butler is seen as a rising star within the labor party. She is articulate when doing media appearances and is well known in her electorate. While there is a energetic Green presence in this seat and they are targeting this seat their preferences should see Terri Butler retain Griffith. Social justice issues and environmental policies play heavily in this inner city seat and that will work in favour of Labor and the Greens. At the state level apart from South Brisbane which was won by the Greens they are all held by Labor. The state seat of South Brisbane was won by the Greens only because the State Liberal party in Queensland amazingly directed their second preferences to their political enemy the Greens: such was their hatred of Labor’s Jackie Trad. That won’t happen this time. Terri Butler should retain this seat.
Labor paying $1.22 to win on Sportsbet, Coalition $5.00, Greens $9.00. It would seem the markets believe any disdain for the federal government in the inner suburbs will benefit Labor more so than the Greens. If they’ve gauged it accurately, it might be another election or two before the Greens can take the seat. Butler seems to be a popular incumbent.
SB’s odds for the Greens are absurdly long, not just here but in Richmond especially. I wouldn’t be taking much notice of them if I were you. Well… other than to take advantage of said absurd odds! $34 for the Greens in Richmond huge considering they are a genuine chance of actually winning the seat. Should be around $3 or $4 not $34.
Here in Griffith, the Greens should be ahead of the Coalition for sure. This seat is either going Green or staying with Labor. Based on the trend, how disappointing and lacklustre Butler is, and the huge campaign the Greens are mounting (biggest in party history), $9 is waaay too high. Slightly more reasonable than the $34 in Richmond though lol.
That Tanya Plibersek promoting Butler on social media suggests to me that Labor are in trouble here. Labor’s whole campaign strategy won’t appeal to Labor-Greens swingers in this seat. Overall Greens are unlucky to only get 1/150 seats for around 10% of national vote, their luck has to improve somewhere & Griffith looks like it.
Odds have shifted somewhat in the last few hours. Butler still a heavy favourite but Greens and Liberals now at equal odds of 7.50.
Greens now into $4.5 and LNP out to $9 in Griffith. That’s a bit more like it.
Given the latest polls, Butler should hang on. But if the ALP primary decreases in Brisbane, this seat becomes hard to call. But Labor’s primary isn’t that great in Queensland when compared to WA or Victoria, so this one is a bit difficult call in terms of who finishes third or second.
Greens will run very hard here on the religious discrimination bill, but will fact that it failed in the end enable Labor to minimise the damage? Still best Greens prospect IMO.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-762967
The ALP versus Greens 3CP margin was 7% in Griffith in 2019. The ALP versus Greens 3CP margins in Higgins and Brisbane were both under 2% and they don`t have ALP incumbents, so I rate them as probably better prospects at this election.
Tom the first and best, there’s an obvious difference: overtaking Labor wins Griffith for the Greens. The Liberals still have to be overtaken in Higgins and Brisbane.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-763000
The the combined ALP versus Greens 3CP margins and ALP versus Liberal/LNP margins in both Higgins and Brisbane are lower than the ALP versus Greens 3CP margin in Griffith. And if Higgins and Brisbane are anything like Prahran 2014 (Higgins does have a significant proportion of the same areas as Prahran 2014, Brisbane is also a relatively inner suburban demographic), the ALP to Greens preference flow may be higher than the Greens to ALP preference flow (the Greens beat the Liberals in the 2CP count in Prahran 2014 but the Liberals beat the ALP on 2PP) and so the Greens may have a slightly easier time overtaking the Liberals the the ALP.
There is a high likelihood of a 3CP swing from the Liberals/LNP to the ALP, given how on the nose the government is, which would expand the 3CP swing needed from the ALP to the Greens for the Greens to overtake the ALP but make it easier for the Greens to then overtake the Liberals in Higgins and Brisbane. The significantly smaller ALP versus Greens 3CP margins in Higgins and Brisbane are thus much more likely to remain in the achievable range than than larger 3CP margin in Griffith.
I somewhat agree with Tom, if the combined Labor + Green vote exceeds the Liberal vote in a Coalition held seat, then either one win the seat will as the preference flow between both parties will be tight (at least 80%).
In contrast, for a Labor held seat unless the Liberals recommend preferences to the Greens (giving a preference flow of 60-70% minimum), then the Greens need to outpoll Labor on first preferences, which I believe is a much harder task.
I still reckon Max Chandler Mather (compared to other inner Brisbane contests) has the strongest shot at winning a Queensland House of Reps seat for the Greens.
It’s possible the GRNs sweep on primaries all booths in West End, South Brisbane, Highgate Hill.
@Yoh An Tee there are seats that have been Labor held for a very long time where they haven’t won on primaries in a while (MacNamara and Richmond). Either way Greens need to beat Labor on primaries, but it’s easier in seats where LNP win on primaries just because it requires flipping fewer voters, and there’s likely to be a smaller “rusted on ALP” contingent.
Tom the first and best, I dispute your calculations. They only work if you’re considering the swing required as being the full difference between Greens and Labor 3CP figures plus half the difference between LNP and Labor 2CP figures. The latter makes sense because 2CP is a zero sum game; if one side gains in vote share, it must come at the cost of the other. But, if the Greens are going to overtake Labor on 3CP, where will those votes come from? Due to their positions on the political spectrum, you’d figure most would come from Labor. So the required swing in Griffith for the Greens would be well short of the 7% difference in 3CP vote.
Wilson, looking at results for the South Brisbane state district, the Greens have increased their vote substantially but I would say the split is more like 60:40 in terms of vote absorbed from Labor and LNP respectively. In other words, only a slight majority of vote absorbed from Labor and probably only a slight variation from the 7% figure Tom quoted.
The discussion here seems to be can Labor lose this seat to the grn
This a marginal seat alp/lib so probably liberal preferences will not be distributed like in South Brisbane. Given Labor held in.a very bad climate where they didn’t get 2 alp senators in 2019. I would say the chances of a. Gr win are remote
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-764497
You do have a point about the moving beast of 3CP margins, to a point. If you do count the 3CP margins as half, with the rest of the votes static, the needed swings are as follows:
3.5% in Griffith.
5.735 in Brisbane.
4.485% in Higgins.
However, given the likely Coalition to ALP swing on 3CP, the likelihood that some of any swing to the Greens will come from the Coalition rather than the ALP and the potential for a slightly higher preference flow to the Greens in the 2CP count, just halving the 3CP gap between the ALP and the Greens is likely overgenerous to the Greens, almost certainly enough to make Higgins easier and probably Brisbane as well.
Yoh An, these are the changes in 3CP vote share in South Brisbane between 2017 and 2020:
Greens – 36.63 to 39.46, +2.83%
Labor – 37.50 to 35.62, -1.88%
LNP – 25.87 to 24.92, -0.95%
That makes it almost exactly a 2:1 split between Labor and LNP votes moving to the Greens, more than a slight majority.
If that trend holds for Griffith, by my calculations, it means the Greens would have to gain 4.2% in Griffith to overtake Labor in 3CP, with 2.8% of that coming from Labor and 1.4% coming from the LNP. I’d call that well short of 7%.
Tom the first and best, I agree that simply halving the 3CP Labor-Greens margin would be over-generous to the Greens, as some votes will surely come from the LNP. The more accurate figure is the 4.2% I calculated above. But this is lower than the required swings you posted above for Higgins and Brisbane, that use a halved 3CP Labor-Greens margin.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-764530 &
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-764531
How are you getting 4.2% in Griffith? With a 2:1 split of the 3CP gap, I am getting 4.67%.
The combined swings needed in Brisbane and Higgins are easier to achieve because an increase in votes that go 1. ALP 2. Greens and 3. Liberal (or their 3CP equivalents from minor candidates) help the Greens with achieving the 2CP part of the swing (with is the larger part of the combined swing), unlike in Griffith where no 2CP swing is needed and they only make the Greens task harder.
Tom the first and best, you seem to have taken 2/3 of the 7% 3CP Labor-Greens margin to arrive at 4.67%. It’s not that simple.
Remember, the 7% has to be made up of both the Greens percentage gain (let’s call it x) and the Labor percentage loss (let’s call it y).
So we can say x + y = 7
The Greens gain can only come from Labor and the LNP (let’s call their percentage gain z).
So we can say x = y + z.
When I say above that there’s a 2:1 split between Labor and LNP votes moving to the Greens, that means the LNP percentage loss must be half that of the Labor percentage loss.
So we can say z = 0.5y
Substituting into the previous equation, we can say x = 1.5y
Now substituting that into our first equation, we can say that 2.5y = 7. Dividing both sides by 2.5, we can say y = 2.8. If we substitute that into our first and third equations, we find that x = 4.2 and z = 1.4
So we can conclude, if the Greens gain from the majors at the same ratio they did in South Brisbane 2020, they will need to gain an extra 4.2%, of which 2.8% will come from Labor and 1.4% will come from the LNP.
What you haven’t accounted for in your second paragraph, is that votes of that pattern make it harder for the Greens to overtake Labor in the 3CP, which is necessary to make it to the 2CP vote at all. Any benefit in the 2CP race has an equally large drawback in the 3CP race, and the Greens are starting from behind in the 3CP race for Griffith, Brisbane and Higgins.
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/aus2022/griffith2022/comment-page-1#comment-764598
Thank you for explaining your calculations on percentage loss.
The ALP-Greens gap is 1.93% in Higgins, before adjusting for a 2:1 split.
The ALP-Greens gap is 1.63% in Brisbane, before adjusting for a 2:1 split.
They are both significantly smaller than Griffith`s 4.2% gap, after adjusting for a 2:1 split and therefore they both have significantly more room for a Coalition to ALP 3CP swing than Griffith.
Tom, I would say Higgins and Brisbane are more mixed – with the loss of Liberal vote splitting about 1.5 to 1 in favor of the Greens instead of 2 to 1. This would mean the 2% gap you quote would be harder to close compared to Griffith.