Ryan – Australia 2025

A possible scenario is that the Greens and LNP primary votes fall but Labor’s rises, but not to the extent Labor will make the 2CP.

There are teal-ish and moderate liberal demographics. They have a disliking of Dutton, moreso than of Morrison. It might make them swing to Labor as they find the Greens too left-wing for their liking or to vote tactically to help Labor.

The Greens suffered swings at various elections in the inner city, notably QLD and ACT. If this trend continues, the Green vote in the eastern and northern parts would be most affected, as seen at the state election. Outside of UQ and St Lucia, a cohort of Greens voters are not rusted-on voters nor economically left-wing or socialist. They may be open to switching their votes.

I seem to recall some discussion on this site a few years ago where the hypothesis was put forward that former Liberal voters here switched to the Greens instead of Labor because Labor is perceived as the party of the working class.

I think @Nicholas that from a social class perspective the Greens, or at least Greens voters, have more in common with the Libs than Labor. Now as Labor moves inexorably towards being a party of the professional (particularly public service) class (and the Libs slowly move the other way) that is becoming less true.

I don’t think most of the professional class hold a lot of love for Dutton.

@Mostly Labor. Agreed, 100%, many Greens voters (namely the more affluent ones) overlap with the Liberals in terms of not being working-class or genuinely espousing working-class interests. Labor is the only balanced major option for working-class people who are wage earners – both the Greens and Libs are relatively more destructive.

Most of the professional class doesn’t love Dutton, they preferred a Turnbull type.

The political realignment of the working class to right-wing populists (which the Liberals are trying to rebrand as to win them over) and Labor being perceived as the party of so-called inner city “elites” has reversed that a bit.

In the past I think the core demographic of Greens voters crossed over more with traditional “small l” liberals in terms of social class than they did with Labor. This included up to (and including) 2016. I think from 2019 that has shifted pretty significantly.

Also there are different cohorts of Greens voters; one is the socially progressive but often quite affluent, highly educated professional class. But there is also the more socialist, left-wing student activist cohort of Greens voters too.

Different seats I think have a different balance of them. Whereas Brisbane, Ryan & Higgins certainly had the former, Wills certainly has more of the latter, while Macnamara, Melbourne & Cooper I think have a more balanced combination of both.

I think the rise of the Teals has pushed the Greens more to the latter, both in how they campaign and also where they focus resources. It’s easy to forget that Greens were treating Kooyong as a winnable seat in 2019 (and even 2022 before Monique Ryan seized the momentum). I

I think that is now the “soft” Green vote that would prefer teals and is happy to vote for the right Labor candidate (e.g. a strong incumbent or one who is able to brand themselves well) – and I don’t think that’s different in the post gentrification Melbourne and Sydney suburbs (which have a bit more student fervour and renter class left wing vote). Conversely the effect of apartments, renters and stay at home millennials shouldn’t be overlooked in the teal seats (i.e. actual left wing voters).

I will note as well that Bob Brown has featured much more in Greens campaigns than any other election I can remember since he stepped down as leader – presumably to rebuke the “Greens are no longer the party of Bob Brown” refrain. I don’t think any of the Greens candidates in winnable lower house seats are particularly off-putting to moderates (except maybe Remah Naji in Moreton – seems very strongly influenced by Sriranganathan and does a lot of long social media posts criticising the party she’s running for)

re redistribution im wanting to move ryan to the brisbane river and then eastwards into Brisbane

I live here and this one will be a squeaker. I think green win but a tight 2CP like 51-49

I’m saying lib win.

Queensland is expected to have very little swing statewide, or even swing to Labor in 2PP. State election this seat only had a 1.5% swing to the LNP or so despite a 7% swing statewide, and labors primary I think even went up in the state electorates here. The Greens would definitely be threatened by Labor *if* Labor was actually running a serious campaign, which they are not. I think Greens swing towards in 2CP, and the seat will be about as marginal in the 3CP as the 2CP (2-4% swing needed to unseat Greens in 2028 to either major after all is settled).

There should be a strong case for returning the areas of Brisbane LGA to Ryan from Blair as this was formally in the division prior to the creation of Wright in 2009.

What hasn’t been mentioned, is something has happened to the Liberal Party organisation in this area. I have handed out at the same booth for nearly 20 years. What is extremely noticeable is the change in their ability to staff booths on election day. Prior to Scott Emerson’s defeat, the booths had an excess of liberal volunteers in their 50’s and 60’s. At the last state election, which the liberals almost won, there were two bored paid students.

Another misconception – yes Ryan had always been Liberal until now – but its liberals are a dying breed. Ryan was the bastion of true liberals of the Liberal party in Qld, like no other seat. Jane Prentice being turfed by developer bro was probably the last straw for many members. Jane Prentice’s husband is Ian Prentice, member for Toowong 1980-83, one of the gingers.

Libby for the win, until she retires.

@Am Now

Newspoll, Resolve, Freshwater and Redbridge (albeit a state poll) all showed movement to the Coalition from 2022 in their most recent state breakdowns/surveys, mostly in the region of 2-4% as well.

Will be very close here

The green win is a reflection of the change in demographics which must have happened here.

I do not get the confidence in the Libs here. On the state election results this would be like a ~53ish Grn/Lab seat. This is the most left trending seat in QLD, the polls this week have the Labor TPP barely swinging since 2022. And this is meant to be a seat that is going to buck the trend and swing more than the state or nation wide average?

@drake state results dn\ont replicate at federal level in qld.

John, even so the LNP have struggled here in the past. I believe Simmonds and Brisbane MP Trevor Evans were the only ones to suffer a swing against them in 2019 when all other LNP MP’s received swings in their favour. As a result, this seat could diverge from the statewide average and still elect Elizabeth Watson Brown.

Even considering the state results, all the inner-city districts (Maiwar, McConnel, South Brisbane, Clayfield and Cooper) saw muted/below average swings against Labor.

state election was fought on styate issues. if katter had not reopedn the abortion issue libs win would of been greater. this election will be fought on CoL

John, I know but considering past results a divergence from the state and national average is still possible. After all, the 2019 election was somewhat fought on cost of living (concerns about impact of Labor’s tax changes on mining and other primary industry sectors). These issues are less of a concern for the affluent inner-city districts, so it is not certain that the LNP can gain this seat.

Overall, I think the LNP has at best a 50/50 chance of winning.

Surely if it’s fought on CoL that would favour Labor & Greens. A CoL focus does not help the Liberal Party whatsoever as they really have no policies to deal with CoL at all, other than cutting the fuel excise which is less relevant in the inner city.

@Mick not necessarily, the demographics of this seat aren’t really changing. It’s always been a fairly affluent seat, with leafy suburbia and semi-rural areas. There are also a few young renters, around the university in Saint Lucia. The only part of the seat that’s undergone major demographic change imo is the northern part around Mitchelton, which has really gentrified over the past 5 years. But it doesn’t contribute much to the overall result.

I put the swing to The Greens down to the unpopularity of the Morrison government – most of the Liberals in this area are “small-L”. If a teal ran in this seat, they would’ve been very competitive. A lot of them would’ve voted Greens as a protest vote due to the Morrison government, on issues like integrity and the environment.

@trent how does it favour labor and the greens its happened on their watch so what makes you think they can fix it?

@Drake QLD is famous for voting different ways at a council, state and federal level. I’d take state results here with a grain of salt. I live locally, most people I know vote Labor at a state level (better services) and LNP at a federal level (lower taxes). The failures of the Newman government have also put a lot of people off voting LNP at a state level, especially because Newman’s seat of Ashgrove overlapped with much of Ryan.

@Yoh An

I’d put the swing away from the libs in 2019 down to two main factors. Firstly, change of leadership. Most of the Libs here are small-L, and Turnbull was fairly popular amongst them. Changing to Morrison would’ve driven a few of them away. Secondly, Jane Prentice was fairly popular local MP, and her preselection defeat would’ve soured the Libs’ image in voters minds.

How do you mean it happened on their watch? COL implies inflation.

Firstly, inflation was global and I wouldn’t blame either of the governments for it. But even for voters who do blame the government of the day, inflation rose to under 6% under the previous government, and reduced to 2.4% under the this one.

So to quote yourself, what would make a voter think that the party responsible for the inflation would be able to fix it better than the party whose watch it actually DID reduce under..? Makes no sense.

Even if you talk about interest rate rises, they are a direct consequence of inflation so they were caused by inflation rising to 6%, not by it reducing to 2.4%. Most people understand rate rises are a delayed reaction to that – and while rates are higher now than when Labor took office, again it’s the same story: they started rising under the former government and have started falling (with more reductions expected) under the current government.

Again though, in all these cases it was predominantly global factors anyway.

I don’t think you give voters enough credit if you think the vast majority of them will simply blame Labor. At this point now, I think it’s only Liberal partisans trying to push that narrative who are saying that.

The abortion issue at the last state election had nothing to do with abortion
And everything with the kap trying to create s hung parliament where they had some say. Kap cannot be trusted to act outside their own self interest.

The housing affordability “crisis” was due to the huge rise in house value. 55k 1978
To almost 1 million on 2018 was not unusual.
Imagine a $2 m house where the purchaser had to borrow $1m pay interest and capital over say 25 years
The sums… any interest rate rise is dire
Even 0.25%

Travellingthrugh Ryan this morning ad it is very Apparantly that campaigning in this seat I far more intense than in other Northern Brisbane seats. Large numbers of. Greens ALP and Liberal corflutes up on Residential and commerciaaal. Fences. Greens holding street meeting to catch rush hour traffic on Moggil Road.

Mick’s comment about KAP and abortion have nothing to do with Ryan andddd pobabbbly nothing to do with the Federal election This comment is clearly using this site for political campaigning purposes rather than discussion about campaigning. If he is Allowed to get away with it there are hundreds of campaigns that will do likewise.
KAP have no candidate in Ryan.

Would anyone be able to spell out for me why a Labor victory in this seat is the most unlikely outcome in this 3 way contest? Surely it can’t be written off, or have I missed something?

Labor won the notional 2pp (52-48) in 2022 against the LNP. As has been pointed out above on 2024 state election results Labor would have again won ahead of the Greens in the 2pp contest against the LNP. The seat has been strongly trending away from the conservative side of politics since 2019.

According the PollBludger’s BludgerTrack, the Greens are down 1.2% in primary vote in QLD from 2022 but Labor is up 2%. Surely that implies a substantial swing from the Greens to Labor? I would have assumed therefore that if the Greens are to lose votes here Labor would more likely be the beneficiary?

Add again to all of that this is exactly the type of seat where the liberal brand is in trouble – highly educated, affluent, progressive – I would assume that if anyone was going to gain this seat off the Greens it would be Labor.

What have I overlooked?

Aggregates are not a great way of predicting what happens for a single seat, and particularly a seat that is as atypical as Ryan. Having the Greens vote down in Queensland and Labor vote up doesn’t reliably tell what happens in the relevant seats.

For example, in the 2020 QLD state election the statewide vote for the Greens went down but they gained South Brisbane and held Maiwar with a bigger margin, then the situation reversed in 2024 where their statewide vote went up while they lost South Brisbane and Maiwar’s margin was cut.

In this seat, the fact that the Greens cleared Labor on the 3CP by >8% in 2022 implies that there will need to be a big swing from GRN to LAB to bridge the gap in this seat, which is a necessity for them to win. That appears unlikely when considering that the Greens would be expected to have a sophomore swing from their new incumbent, and in particular that incumbents from outside the major parties tend to attract more personal votes. Nor have I heard anything particularly controversial from Watson-Brown or any special reason to think she will lose favour among the voters she gathered in 2022.

I would agree that I don’t think a Labor victory is the most unlikely outcome – considering the cratering Liberal vote in recent times I don’t see them winning this seat – but I also don’t think it’s likely. I would expect a Greens retain.

Thanks Adda, appreciate the response

LNP lost 8.45% on 2PP in 2022, lost 2PP 47.4 to 52.6; 1 in 12 voters deep sixed the Liberal guy last time. New LNP candidate doesn’t have any baggage, Jane Prentice is supporting her candidacy, so there’s no reason why she wouldn’t win here.

Due to Dutton’s attacks on APS workers (of which there are many in Ryan from what I’ve heard) and Trump being a huge issue in this election, the Greens might have a chance at retaining Ryan.

However, even though the races in Ryan and Brisbane (probably) are different, for some reason, I just can’t picture a scenario where the Greens can retain Ryan and Griffith yet lose Brisbane (which has a close 3CP race) I could see a scenario where Greens retains all three seats or just lose Ryan. I think it probably comes from some assumption that Ryan is the first seat the Greens will lose if they do lose any.

At this stage I see the likelihood of winning.

Brisbane
1. ALP
2. Greens
3. Liberal

Griffith
1. Greens
2. AKP
3. Liberal

Ryan
1. Greens
2. Liberal
3. Labor

A few weeks I would have thought the Libs would have had a good chance in Ryan but that seems to be evaporating.

@Lurking Westie Treating Ryan as the “most marginal” works in terms of Greens vs Liberals contests, but the picture changes when Labor is involved. The margin between the Greens and Labor is lowest in Brisbane. Conversely, Ryan is probably the most secure of the 3 against Labor because Griffith has the risk of the Liberals dropping to 3rd place and their preferences allowing Labor to win.

The breakdowns in the polls at state level show the libs will hold their vote share in qld if not slightly increase it.

Is Labor even trying here? I’ve seen lots of signs for Watson-Brown and Forrest. There’s even some electronic billboards that cycle between ads for both of them. But I haven’t noticed anything from Labor.

In reflecting on some of the conversation above, I am reminded of this observation about Australian political history – The Australian Democrats splintered from the Liberal Party, and then much of their support base was later absorbed by The Greens. Neither side would want to admit it, but the Liberal Party and The Greens have a shared lineage that does not go through the Labor Party.

The collapse of the Democrats is an interesting topic, especially for a seat like this which feels quite Democrat-y. Looking back at where they went; the left-wing of the Democrats (and importantly for Queensland this included Andrew Bartlett) largely bolted to the Greens and quite a few Greens MPs are ex-democrats, whereas the right-wing largely splintered between various centrist groups. As an example, Meg Lees is involved with Climate 200 nowadays.

The Greens used to do ok with the right flank of the old Democrats base as well – more interested in “keep the bastards honest” intellectual politics than any particular ideology – but that seems to have been taken over by the teals. There’s also the anti-politics voters that Greens haven’t done particularly well with since 2010 as they’ve gone to the right.

A well funded teal with media and preference support could probably win Ryan and Brisbane off the Greens – but it is worth noting the “Voices of Ryan” group endorsed the Greens in 2022 and don’t seem to have reemerged since (as they would have if they were unhappy with EWB).

Do we know much about EWB’s ideological inclinations within The Greens? (For example, Bandt is said to be of the left flank of The Greens, and MCM identifies as a “socialist”.)

And what about Forrest? I would assume she’s a moderate given her preselection here (and the Liberals seem to have for the most part learned their lesson about nominating conservatives in moderate seats), but maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.

I think EWB seems fairly moderate, she’s not been particularly prominent in the more ‘radical’ (I don’t like using the word in this way but it gets the meaning across) positions i.e. palestine, CFMEU etc. She’s been leaning more into the dental into medicare and anti-Dutton sentiment. It is a bit hard to tell with the Greens though, as they basically all have the same positions, at least publically.

As for Forrest, she also seems to be mostly running on things like housing, haven’t seen much on nuclear or culture war stuff. I would still caution against assuming the libs have learnt that lesson, they’re still doing it in other places, just not here.

yeah i think the Teals are the closest thing to Democrats. Parts of the Greens are like the Democrats the Doctors Wives but the core bases of the Greens is now young renters.

11 days of campaigning left! While a Lib victory here is probably the sensible bet, I can’t resist predicting a Green retain. EWB is the incumbent and has avoided the polarising nature of someone like MCM. Despite all the (sensible) discussion here around the historic links between Green and Liberal voters, nevertheless >81% of Labor preferences flowed to the Greens in 2022. I see no reason to suspect this will change. Labor voters still want Dutton out, and centrists in a place like this are not likely to be swayed by either his ability to fund his son’s first home or Jacinta Price bringing the MAGA element (ala Katter bringing the abortion element to the State election). The Libs have picked an ideal candidate, who apparently is avoiding those issues, but still, things like work-from-home cut through to this crowd, don’t they?
I think Labor will take Brisbane from the Greens, yes. That’s the result of hard work from the major parties (and a couple of own-goals from the Greens) to pitch the smaller party as out-of-touch lefties with too many policies and not enough money or sense to fund them. But just because that works in a direct Lab/Grn battle, does it work here, when people are putting a 2 (or lower) next to the Greens? Although not from Ryan, many of my friends fit into that target demographic: teal-ish people who have never voted Liberal (yet) and won’t do so this time because of Dutton, yet are sceptical of the Greens and couldn’t bring themselves to vote ‘1’ but not actually fearful of them the way you might find the outer ‘burbs’.
On top of all this, I feel that the anti-major party sentiment among cookers will remain stable, with a similar (if not slightly higher) number of preferences going to Greens over Lib/Lab. The Libs will increase their primary, as all the evidence would suggest. But will it be enough under these circumstances?

TBH I live here and I don’t even know if the lib primary will increase at all. Much more Greens signs than last time, and fewer libs ones. Possibly an artifact of Greens voters generally being more engaged, but still. Also Dutton is not a leader who voters here will like, he’s probably less popular than Morrison was. The anti-Morrison vote will become an anti-Dutton vote, and quite possibly grow significantly.

I live in one of the more LNP parts of the seat (FTP) and there’s a remarkable amount of signs in general, but I would say there pretty close to even. A good sign for the greens.

I agree with what other people have said, the LNP have picked a very good moderate small L candidate for this seat, but Dutton and many of his policy choices are exactly what will NOT appeal to LNP and swing voters in this seat. Lizzie is definitely a more “moderate” green and is helped by being a older white female professional (tealish, which suits the area) though some federal greens stances will harm her. Labor appears to think it has no chance of winning despite Hack being quite good.

Ultimately, I think, at best, the LNP will get a very small swing to them, but I think a swing against may be more likely. I think we will see a shift of Greens to Labor as 1st preference, but I don’t think it will be enough to stop the greens winning.

I don’t know why climate 200 ignores Brisbane (given it is the 3rd largest city) and Ryan would be #1 in the sort of seat it could win.

“I don’t know why climate 200 ignores Brisbane (given it is the 3rd largest city) and Ryan would be #1 in the sort of seat it could win.”

Does Climate 200 want political power in thier own right, or do they just want a parliament who will support the environment? Presuming the latter, there’s wouldn’t be much motivation to spend money on seats with Green incumbents .