Wynnum Manly – Brisbane 2024

Labor could’ve easily won this ward if it wasn’t for a certain vote splitter by the name of Craig Moore

Yep should be a straightforward gain next time… in 2028…

Labor’s vote here fell 22%, barely half of which went to Moore. LNP and Greens were up on the vote significantly.

So something else must have been going on here.

Mark, I think that many of these bayside suburbs (including Lota, Manly and Wynnum) are trending more towards the Coalition – similar to the bayside suburbs of Melbourne in that they are recording higher proportion of those who are self-employed or in the trade profession. These voters are the ones who are moving away from Labor, so that may explain the result here.

Overall, I think this ward may be seen as a lost cause for Labor if these voting trends continue into the future.

The LNP have gained this ward. Labor may cop a big swing in Lytton in October.

The LNP are also set for a landslide victory at the October state election, with polling and the results on Super Saturday showing how tired Queenslanders are of Labor. Labor’s safest seat (Inala) having turned into only a fairly safe seat in a single by-election while the safe Labor seat of Ipswich West was gained by the LNP. These may well be record swings. Furthermore, Labor barely gained ground in BCC wards, having lost Wynnum Manly to the LNP (with Calamvale currently “Labor likely” and Northgate currently “Labor ahead” according to Antony Green). The Greens got swings in most wards and indeed most suburbs as well as in the Lord Mayoral race but OPV stopped them from gaining marginal LNP wards like Central, Enoggera and Walter Taylor. Paddington is back in doubt as of now, but the Greens are ahead and I’m expecting that the Greens will win Paddington. In the Lord Mayoral race there was a swing against the LNP and Labor on primaries (which went to the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and a few independents), while on the TCP count there’s currently a 0.6% swing against the LNP, but Adrian Schrinner has still been comfortably re-elected. The same thing happened in the ward elections except that the TCP count in the ward elections saw a small swing to the LNP. However, although Labor did well in Deagon (mostly due to the fact that the LNP candidate was disendorsed but remained on the ballot paper as an LNP candidate), there was a swing against Labor in some of their safest wards, such as Forest Lake, which overlaps with the federal seat of Oxley (Labor’s safest seat in Queensland) and the state seat of Inala. Again, Labor retained Inala at yesterday’s by-election but there was indeed a huge swing against Labor, motivated by the growing unpopularity of Anthony Albanese and Steven Miles, the poor economic situation in Queensland (“the four crises”), controversy within the Vietnamese community after a local Vietnamese candidate-hopeful failed to be preselected as the Labor candidate (but still decided to run as an independent) and of course the loss of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s personal vote.

What will it take for the Greens to win more wards in the increasingly progressive inner-city of Brisbane? They need to finish first at local, state and federal elections in those booths, otherwise they can’t win. Even though Labor preferences flow heavily to the Greens and vice versa, when the majority of LNP voters (along with a minority of Labor/Greens voters) exhaust their preferences, the LNP will likely finish first. For the Greens to win, they need to finish first or come very close in second place provided that the Labor vote is large enough to deliver a Greens victory. For Labor to win back wards from the LNP? They need to do better. They need to connect with their working-class base.

It’s possible that David Crisafulli could campaign on a John Howard-style platform of supporting Howard’s battlers, but modified to 2024 state standards (which differ from 1996 federal standards since 1996 was 28 years ago).