Leichhardt – Australia 2025

Given that the Liberal candidate is quite Trump-aligned and Trump has gotten considerably less popular in recent months, together with this potentially being responsible for a noticeable nation-wide boost for Labour, Leichardt is now looking more likely as a Labour gain. If not, it’ll most likely be close enough to be one of the more intriguing seats to watch.

Labor always strong in Cairns, the MAGA guy has Entsch campaigning alonside him. Sure, Trump is loathed in DoctorsWivesVille NSW, not sure about anywhere else.

Some controversy over historical remarks by the LNP guy, not sure they would hurt him in a Seat like Leichhardt.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/09/lnp-candidate-jeremy-neal-leichardt-queensland-china-covid-lockdown-social-media-posts-ntwnfb
Out of 10 candidates, LNP has Trumpets 7, LC 8, Labor 9, Greens 10.
Looking at the tables above, Entsch anaged to turn 36.7% PV into 53.4% 2PP, a remarkable result in a bad year, imo.

There is also no Socialist Alliance or Animal Justice running this election- so it’s likely these voters will swing behind the Greens resulting in a higher Greens vote. Interesting that both the Greens and the ALP have preferenced each other over Legalise Cannabis. Legalise Cannabis could get a decent vote being top of the ballot.

Leichhardt is still the most feasible Labor gain (from the LNP) in Queensland at this election IMO. Entsch is off the ticket and at least from my perspective the new LNP candidate seems to be a bit “meh.” There was a controversy or two surrounding him in the media a few weeks back, from what I remember it was nothing all too serious, but that’s really not something you want to deal with given the recovery for Labor in the polls and the relatively tight margin here.

Right now I’m leaning towards a very narrow Labor gain, probably with a margin under 0.5%, but won’t be shocked at all if the LNP hang on here either.

There seems to have been a large shift in older voters in this electorate so perhaps the Coalition hang on.

Very fast growing yeah – not the right demographic moving in and it disrupts the effect of the disappearing personal vote of Ensch

After being on pre-poll handing out HTV’s over the last two weeks, there is a definite generational gap between younger people taking Greens + Labor and older people taking One Nation and LNP. I won’t be surprised if One Nation pick up a decent vote, Geena Court has been talking about Youth Crime nearly every day. Leichhardt is going to be way too close to call- all the right wing parties will harvest preferences towards the LNP EXCEPT Trumpet who have put the LNP last.

It was mentioned in the Australian Financial Review the hopes of Labor winning this seat were fading. AFR are not right all the time though, what was reported from their Liberal sources last election seemed to be propping up a narrative rather then being accurate in terms of the polling.

@QLDer when Geena Court ran in Cairns she picked up a decent vote share, with an 11% swing to get 16.9% of the primary vote. I’m surprised she didn’t run in Leichhardt this time.

We won!!!!!!!! Chicken dinner.

Not even slightly close. I was pretty confident on a Labor gain, but was not prepared for that result in either primary or TPP.

When you look at the results Warren Entsch’s personal vote was probably about 10%. The huge swings in indiginous aress show that personal vote loss even further. Everybody I knew in FNQ always spoke very highly of him as person and MP.

Unlike last time where there was a massive swing to the LNP in the Indigenous communities it appears that this time there’s been a big swing back to Labor in most of them. However, it’s still nothing like the margins Labor used to get in these towns.

Even areas of Leichhardt that used to be fairly solid Liberal territory have turned away. Neal won only 10 booths, and three of them were pre-polling booths.

The only locations in Leichhardt that favoured the LNP in the 2PP on election day were Palm Cove (by 2 votes), Trinity Beach (by 19 votes out of 1247 cast), Clifton Beach (by 19 votes again, out of 941 cast), Wonga Beach, Bentley Park, Miallo and Daintree.

Within Cairns itself, Smith recorded results of 69% at Cairns West, 68% at Manunda, 68% at Machans Beach, 67% at Smithfield, 65% in the city, 65% at Parramatta Park. Even leafy green Freshwater went 60% for the ALP.

Talking swings, the ALP had swings of 29% (Bamaga), 27% (Hope Vale), 24% (Coen), 22 % (Tamwoy) and 20% Pormpuraaw. Only Bentley Park (by 0.04%) and Trinity Beach (0.98%) headed towards the LNP.

So people here dismissed Jeremy Neal’s frankly repugnant and out of touch comments from a few years ago as a ‘nothingburger’ when the electorate’s LNP tendencies was with Entsch and his moderate record instead of Neal’s MAGA wannabe views. Now they’ve abandoned the LNP altogether with a catastrophic swing to Labor. Just extraordinary.

Pretty incredible this is the only regional seat Queensland Labor remains competitive in federally.

Leichhardt had been a bellwether seat from 1972 until 2010, and arguably it was Warren Entsch alone who prevented this seat being lost in 2022. Even while Entsch was in Canberra, Leichhardt voters would consistently vote ALP on the state level (the 2012 Newman landslide notwithstanding).

Do you mean it’s incredible that there’s only one regional seat Labor are competitive in, or this one in particular?

That Labor is only competitive in this seat anymore, when they also used to be competitive in Flynn, Capricornia, Dawson, Herbert, etc

Ah okay, I misinterpreted what you meant. I thought you were saying “It’s incredible – that out of all of the seats Labor would be competitive in – that it was Leichhardt of all seats!”

It wasn’t that long ago that the four other seats you mentioned were held by Labor. In the sweep of history, a rather insignificant time. Look at all the seats that the Howard government once held, but no longer do. Things can change, and do.

Yes, Real Talk – overall it is an artefact of demographic change. Rural voters with a background in the primary industry sector (agriculture, forestry, mining etc) no longer have a strong union focus and thus are not inclined to continue supporting Labor. At a state level, Labor lost the seats covering Rockhampton and Mackay (including the two central namesake ones that were even retained during the 2012 LNP landslide).

Conversely, the reverse effect is occurring in once affluent inner-city districts that had voted for the Liberals with double digit margins earlier this century. Tangney and Bennelong fit into this category and whilst the Liberals do have a chance of winning these seats back sometime in the near future (possibly 2028 if they can recover quickly), I doubt they will exceed the high single digits even in a landslide/wave environment.

It is symbolic to have a QLD seat outside Greater Brisbane for QLD

Some of you have picked up on the massive swings at indigenous polling booths especially on the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait Islands. Warren Entsch’s retirement is a big factor. After the voice referendum, I noticed that in a lot of such communities that voted for Warren Entsch or LNP in the past, there was a high yes vote. I thought that the referendum would come back as an election issue sometime later in Leichhardt.

The biggest 2PP swings (>15%) happened in indigenous-majority communities and with remote mobile teams. Some examples: Coen, Bamaga and Lockhart River on the mainland; Thursday Island and Horn Island as part of the Torres Strait Islands.

The LNP candidate was a MAGA guy as people previously mentioned. I wonder if Dutton’s culture wars were a factor in turning off people e.g. indigenous flags, the voice referendum last term, boycott of the apology to the stolen generations several terms ago.

There were also 2PP swings of over 15% in other indigenous-majority communities: Wilcannia in Western NSW and various communities and remote polling booths in Lingiari.

@Votante, Wilcannia actually voted for the Indigenous Party. Last time 54% of their preferences seatwide went to Mark Coulton and the Nationals. In 2022 the Indigenous Party also won Wilcannia but their vote decreased in 2025 though not as much as the Nationals vote did. Maybe Mark Coulton retiring has a part to play as well.

Nether Portal, there was a 5% 2PP swing in Parkes overall so maybe his retirement had something to do with it. I didn’t notice the large primary vote plus swings for the Indigenous Australians Party in Wilacannia and Brewarrina. This surely boosted the ALP 2PP vote.

@Votante well again last time the Indigenous Party’s preferences went to the Nationals.

As for the Indigenous communities in the Cape it could also be donkey voting. Legalise Cannabis got quite high primary votes in the Indigenous communities up there because they were first on the ballot, and Labor being above the LNP this time helps them.

Last time the Socialist Alliance got high votes in these communities because they were first on the ballot and ironically while in white towns and in Cairns their preferences obviously went to Labor, in Indigenous communities up north they went to the LNP.

These towns aren’t socialist or aggressively pro-recreational cannabis, they just are donkey voting.

Speaking of this, this is a serious issue that has to be solved. Not only is turnout low, the voters who turn up to vote are donkey voting. All this talk about a Voice to Parliament, yet the first people in Australia still aren’t fairly educated about how to vote in their own country.

Warren Entsch knew how to appeal up there, he cared about those communities. Hopefully Matt Smith does too because clearly Jeremy Neal didn’t. Putting partisanship aside, these people deserve a fair say in how the country they’ve lived in for over 60,000 years is run.

I will no longer be referring to Aboriginal communities in Far North Queensland as “Labor-voting” or “LNP-voting”. Yes in many Labor outpolls the LNP and vice versa but with the amount of donkey votes for minor parties giving preferences to the other party, it’s hard to say how these communities vote.

There needs to be a campaign to not just enrol Indigenous voters but to educate them on how to vote, and to inform them about politics in general.

@Nether Portal – The Socialist Alliance candidate in 2022 was Pat O’Shane who is an indigenous rights activist and would likely be well known to the indigenous community

@ Nether Portal
Maybe if you could so some analysis on Indigenous booths like Cherbourg, Woorbinda, Palm Island, Thursday Island, Wujul Wujul including notional TPP

@NP:
“These towns aren’t socialist or aggressively pro-recreational cannabis, they just are donkey voting.”
That’s a big call.
You also claim Pat O’Shane got a donkey vote, another big call.
Reality is a lot of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders end up imprisoned over Cannabis Laws and Pat O’Shane was born in Cairns, she’s well known all over Australia and an inspiring person.

I hope you are just as condescending in regards to voters in comfortable suburban homes who vote for the Socialist Alliance and Legalise Cannabis as you seem to be towards these voters in the Cape. Are you proposing education about “politics in general” for those who voted for the Trumpets, or Fusion, or the Animal Justice Party?

@Bazza more so I’m talking about the preferences. If someone were genuinely voting for the Socialists then they would preference Labor.

@Gympie @Real Talk I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the candidate at the top of the ballot is getting 16% of the vote every single time. As for terminology, “Aboriginal” is the correct term, not “Aborigine”.

Another thing I’m talking about here is turnout. There should be a campaign to get people here to vote. 30% turnout with compulsory voting isn’t good enough and shows that we haven’t closed the gap yet.

@Nimalan I can have a look at that.

I think my comments have come off as being condescending. But that’s not my point. I’m actually being passionate for helping these communities, not criticising them. I’ve been an LNP voter all my life. I don’t care if it helps another party get elected, these people deserve to have a fair say.

Here’s an example, from Pormpuraaw:

Vote percentage for the candidate that was first on the ballot:
* 2016 (Rise Up): 21.5%
* 2019 (Conservative National): 8.7%
* 2022 (Socialist Alliance): 10.7%
* 2025 (Legalise Cannabis): 22.7%

So some points:
1. I don’t think 8.7% of voters in a town that is 78.4% Indigenous would be voting for a party headed by Fraser Anning, a racist social conservative who got kicked out of One Nation or for Rise Up who are similar.
2. It looks like the trend is worsening.
3. It seems to be less of a problem on Thursday Island than elsewhere, perhaps because Thursday Island is more populated and thus visited more by politicians?
4. Have a look at the preference flows.

Preference flows to Labor for the candidate first on the ballot in Leichhardt:
* 2016: 34.3% (Rise Up) — normal because the LNP came before Labor on the ballot
* 2019: 47.3% (Conservative National)
* 2022: 60.1% (Socialist Alliance)

So in Indigenous communities the preferences for the candidate first on the ballot will go to whichever major party comes first (in 2019 and 2025 that was Labor, in 2022 that was the LNP). So in Cairns and the regional and rural areas the preferences are normal but in remote Indigenous communities they’re donkey votes.

Indigenous communities in other electorates in North Queensland show no sign of donkey voting.

In Yarrabah, the first placed LNP candidate received 3% of first preferences. A similar story in Doomadgee (9%). There was a swing away from the LNP on primaries in Normanton.

In Palm Island, the incumbent MP who was first on the ballot had a swing against him.

In Woorabinda, an independent on top of the ballot paper got a whopping 6%.

“So in Cairns and the regional and rural areas the preferences are normal but in remote Indigenous communities they’re donkey votes.”

You’re venturing into dangerous territory characterising non-indigenous votes as “normal”.

Let’s look at the data for each of the Cape booths to explore your hypothesis that the preferences in Leichhardt were not “normal”. As you’ve already stated, the ALP was higher than the LNP on the ballot. In all cases I will expressing the 2PP in percentage terms, rounded to the whole number:

* Aurukun (Remote Team 6) – ALP 78-22
* Bamaga – ALP 81-19
* Bloomfield – ALP 73-27
* Coen – ALP 61-39
* Hope Vale – ALP 73-27
* Horn Island – ALP 78-22
* Kowanyama – ALP 78-22
* Lockhart River – ALP 60-40
* Pormpuraaw – ALP 64-36
* Tamwoy – ALP 88-12
* Thursday Island – ALP 83-17
* Weipa – ALP 56-44

In all of the booths above except for Coen, Lockhart River, Pormpuraaw, Weipa and Kowanyama, the ALP won the primary vote. I hardly have to spell this out to everyone here, but some need to hear it: more than half of the population were able to cast a first preference vote for a major party of their choosing which didn’t appear at the immediate top of the ballot paper. In Kowanyama, the LNP had a 44% swing on primary vote, and 50% on 2PP.

The ALP won the primary vote and 2PP in every remote mobile polling booth.

Overall 5,359 voters cast their vote for the Legalise Cannabis candidate placed first – a majority of these voters not in indigenous or remote booths. I look forward to your analysis of the 180,976 voters not in Leichhardt who also voted for the Legalise Cannabis Party.