Queensland 2024

@NP yeah, below expectations of how big the swing to be FOR the LNP.

This is a map of seats by the percentage of the population born in Australia (darker = higher): https://jmp.sh/EH5Cav6x

As you can see, there are three corners of Queensland where immigrants usually settle, but they’re worlds apart from each other and thus have different ethnic groups (though both have large Chinese communities). There’s the working-class, heavily Labor-voting suburbs of the southwestern part of the Brisbane City Council, the affluent, blue-ribbon beachside city suburbs of the Gold Coast, and the progressive inner-city suburbs of Brisbane (though it’s the white people who tend to be the progressives not the immigrants).

There are six seats in Queensland where less than 55% of the population was born in Australia:

1. Stretton (43.4%) — ALP 14.8%
2. Toohey (49.6%) — ALP 14.5%
3. McConnel (53.9%) — ALP 61.1%
3. Algester (54.1%) — ALP 67.8%
5. South Brisbane (54.6%) — GRN 53.4% v ALP
6. Surfers Paradise (54.6%) — LNP 66.2%

@NP, you left out Inala which is 53.2% born in Australia

@ NP
Great map, is it possible to have this in a table just so we can have a ranking from top to bottom.

The Poll Bludger just released an Electoral overview for the Qld state election, each electorate shows Margin, Region, Enrolment, candidates in ballot paper order as well as the seats background profile.
https://www.pollbludger.net/qld2024/Overview.htm

@Marh oh yeah and Inala.

@Nimalan I’ll get to that eventually.

Labor still hasn’t got any candidates in the following seats: Buderim, Burnett, Condamine, Hinchinbrook, Lockyer, Southern Downs and Warrego. None of those are winnable seats, all but one are held by the LNP (Hinchinbrook is a KAP seat) and all but one are regional seats (Buderim is on the Sunshine Coast).

The LNP has candidates in every single seat, becoming the first and so far only party to do so for this election.

The Greens still haven’t got any candidates in Bancroft, Barron River, Broadwater, Bundaberg, Burdekin, Burnett, Callide, Coomera, Gregory, Hervey Bay, Hill, Hinchinbrook, Keppel, Lockyer (candidate withdrew), Macalister, Maryborough, Mermaid Beach, Mirani, Mulgrave, Mundingburra, Nanango, Pumicestone, Southport, Springwood, Surfers Paradise, Theodore, Thuringowa, Toowoomba South, Traeger, Warrego, Whitsunday and Woodridge. Most of those are regional seats where the Greens do poorly anyway so they may choose to not run in some if not all of them to focus their efforts on other seats.

There’s almost no chance One Nation will do what they said and run in all 93 seats. They only have candidates in Barron River, Bonney, Broadwater, Burdekin, Burnett, Cairns, Callide, Clayfield, Cook, Coomera, Currumbin, Gaven, Gladstone, Gympie, Hervey Bay, Hill, Hinchinbrook, Keppel, Kurwongbah, Lockyer, Lytton, Mackay, Maroochydore, Maryborough, Mermaid Beach, Mirani, Morayfield, Mudgeeraba, Mulgrave, Murrumba, Nanango, Pumicestone, Rockhampton, Scenic Rim, Southern Downs, Southport, Springwood, Surfers Paradise, Thuringowa and Whitsunday.

Overall that’s a mixed bag of seats but I think they’ve picked the right ones. Most of the seats they’ve chosen are regional seats where they do well with some outer suburban seats in the mix, plus the two leaders’ seats of Broadwater and Murrumba. They aren’t running in KAP leader Robbie Katter’s seat of Traeger, however.

I’m surprised they didn’t already field candidates in seats in Ipswich, Logan and Toowoomba yet they did in Gold Coast and Sunny Coast seats.

after looking at all the seats on poll bludger almost every seat is overquota, we could see the number of seats go from 93 to 105 next election

@Caleb if so that would be more seats than any state lower house in Australia. But Queensland doesn’t have an upper house which is why it has 93 seats (the same number as NSW and more than Victoria) despite having less people than NSW and Victoria.

@caleb not true in order for some seats to be over quota some must be under quota. There will be a significant redrawing of seats in December. Some seats like coomera will need a name change

Because the quota is the average amount of voters per seat

@Caleb I don’t think they will expand parliament again any time soon unfortunately, especially by that much. They might add another 4 or so seats like they did last time if it looks like a regional seat will have to be abolished at the redistribution. On that topic, of the larger rural seats, Traeger, Gregory, Burdekin, Mirani and Callide in particular are utterly failing to keep up with growth in the southeast and may need to be radically redrawn and reorganised instead of putting it off for another cycle.

I think Queensland should have the most lower house MPs of any state though, as Nether Portal said, we don’t have an upper house to deliver extra representation like the others do.

@by my calculations Mirani and callide will need to be radically redrawn as they are sitting right in the middle of the surplus and deficits. Both will likely need to be renamed. Definitely Mirani maybe callide

Will one nation gain any seats

@Up the Dragons no.

I’m a strong believer of the old 2 party system, LNP or ALP, the rest are irrelevant

@Nether Portal there is an interactive map here too for Born Outside of Australia https://pseph.io/queensland-election-2024/stats/Birthplace_Elsewhere_P

@Up the dragons Maryborough and Keppel are seats where One Nation are a possible a threat.

@Nether Portal One Nation will probably run paper candidates in the remaining seats. I agree with you, I’m surprised they don’t have candidates for seats where they have a decent voter base – like Condamine, Logan, Bancroft, Jordan, Glass House, Ipswich West, Ipswich, Toowoomba North, Bundamba and Waterford. Especially given they have candidates for seats like Broadwater, Surfers Paradise, Lytton and Clayfield.

Also Labor has announced a candidate for Condamine today.

@Nether Portal McConnel and South Brisbane have large international student communities, I think they could make up a significant portion of the immigrant population in these seats.

I sense in SEQ, the biggest swings will be in seats that are mostly or entirely in councils that are neighbours to Brisbane, Sunshine and Gold Coast Councils e.g. Logan, Ipswich, Scenic Rim, Moreton Bay. It’s mainly because of the cost of living issue and bread and butter issues, given that there are large mortgage belts and longer commute times. Seats like Ipswich, Morayfield, Kurwongbah and Macallister are traditionally Labor and there’s likely a working-class backlash.

Mount Ommaney might be the most swingy in all of BCC. I won’t count Inala since the post-by-election margin is already low.

Another poll out today, by Freshwater Strategy this time. It gives a primary vote of 43% for the LNP, 30% for Labor, 12% for the Greens, 8% for One Nation, and 7% for “Other.” TPP of 56-44.

The vast majority of polls have clustered around 56-58% TPP at this point so it looks like it’ll be a decisive landslide win but not an utter world-ending catastrophe for Labor.

Labor is in trouble in the working class areas around Brisbane, swings of around 12-15% expected

The LNP has officially announced they won’t be preferencing the Greens over Labor anywhere – via the Australian late last night. I highly doubt they have any chance in seats like Greenslopes and Miller now, at least at this election. Best to focus most of their resources on McConnel and Cooper.

Laine – I wouldn’t be so sure. The LNP won Greenslopes and Miller in 2012 and are unlikely to go further backwards than the 30% or so they got in 2020. The winning strategy for Greens is still to push Labor into 3rd.

South Brisbane will be harder to retain but not by much – now it’s a Green seat it’s not hard to imagine Labor slipping into 3rd and/or Greens ratcheting up their primary vote. Look at Gabba ward.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the possibility of Labor gaining ground during the campaign and we see a hung parliament situation where Labor loses a lot of their seats outside of Brisbane due to a strong law-and-order campaign by the LNP but gains some Brisbane seats due to the popularity of the 50c public transport fares.

ALP
Loses
– Bundaberg
– Nicklin
– Hervey Bay
– Caloundra
– Barron River
– Townsville
– Thuringowa
– Mundingburra
– Gaven
– Cooper
– McConnell
Gains
– Chatsworth
– Everton
42 seats

LNP
Loses
– Chatsworth
– Everton
Gains
– Bundaberg
– Nicklin
– Hervey Bay
– Caloundra
– Barron River
– Townsville
– Thuringowa
– Mundingburra
– Gaven
42 seats

GRN 2
Gains
– Cooper
– McConnell
4 seats

KAP 4
IND 1

With Crisafulli ruling out a minority government this morning it would mean a Labor minority government that would have to include independent Sandy Bolton and I could see Labor trying to govern with Katter’s as they hate the Greens so much. LOL. Miles better get cracking 🙂

@Blue Not John true. Even so I’m skeptical of Labor’s primary vote plummeting enough in those two seats to deliver Greens wins.

In other news, I forgot which page it was mentioned on but I know @Nether Portal has been wondering if the Greens would even run a full slate of candidates at this election, or just focus on areas where they get a decent vote share. They’ve added about a dozen or more so far to their website today, including for seats like Callide, so it appears they will.

The Greens Miller candidate was on the Serious Danger podcast on the weekend. He really didn’t sound like he believed he had much chance of winning at all, and the numbers of doorknocks he was talking about achieving just don’t sound like anywhere near enough to swing it for him. Keep in mind too that Miller is probably one of the very biggest beneficiaries of the 50c fares policy, which will definitely help Mark Bailey. The Greens Greenslopes campaign have done more doorknocking and have a lower margin to overcome in the first place, Joe Kelly generally has a lower profile than Mark Bailey so have a fair bit better chance of winning imo. A point in favour of both Greens campaigns is Labor foundering in the polls, obviously, and the demographic shift of younger progressive voters being forced out of the inner city housing market into the mid ring electorates, Miller and Greenslopes being good examples. That was definitely a factor in the council election, for example in Moorooka ward. Conversely, the exodus of inner city progressives could potentially make South Brisbane more vulnerable for a surprise Labor coup. There’s a chance of that I guess but history tends to show that once the greens win in the inner city, former progressive Labor voters tend to just start voting Green. Still that’s not a possibility I would absolutely write off. It’s just really pretty damn hard to say what’s going to happen in the Greens target seats. Labor is down in the polls but most polling tends to show that that general statewide trend is far less evident in the inner-middle city. LNP could rise to 1st place on the 3PP count, or it may not. There are just far too many variables to be confident in anything imo, and that goes (for a lesser extent) in Cooper and McConnel as well. Not without some real focused seat polling.

@Laine yes I did wonder that and I think they might do a One Nation and run a bunch of ghost candidates or just preselect the first local party member they can think of.

The Greens learning from One Nation is something I did not expect to ever happen. To put it in the form of a joke everyone online would understand by now: “we got the Greens learning from One Nation before GTA VI”.

@Nether Portal they’ve almost done a One Nation, a lot of their candidates in regional and outer-suburban seats are just names on paper (no candidate information). Some of their regional candidates also appear to live in Brisbane.

@A A this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. I wouldn’t want to be the person tasked with vetting potential local Greens candidates in seats like Warrego.

Unless the Warrego candidate is a child molester or something I don’t think the Greens really care who runs there. ‘Just don’t be a complete and utter disgrace of a freak that will generate headlines’ is pretty much the only necessary qualification. Same for the ALP candidate in Surfers Paradise, or the LNP in Inala.

After October 26 we aren’t gonna have much to talk about

I wouldn’t exactly call running paper candidates in unwinnable seats “doing a One Nation” when every party does it, though in Queensland in particular it’s interesting because there’s no real benefit to running a full slate given the lack of upper house (other than I guess a veneer of being “serious” because you’re running in every seat).

@Laine there’s probably like five Greens members in each of those rural ultra-safe LNP seats (e.g Southern Downs, Warrego, etc).

@Oguh not necessarily, the Coalition still does campaign in or at least visit unwinnable seats. Labor doesn’t campaign in a lot of rural seats they can’t win though (e.g seats in outback southern Queensland, the Mid North Coast and Great Dividing Range-straddling areas of NSW, the NSW Tablelands, Gippsland, far eastern SA, etc). Sure they don’t do it much but they still do it occasionally. Barnaby Joyce even visited Lambton High School last month, which isn’t even in his electorate (his seat is the very safe Nationals seat of New England and Lambton is in the very safe Labor seat of Newcastle).

Bring on the election. QLD’s are not used to waiting this long for an election as QLD usually has 3 year parliamentary terms, I think the extra year in office had made things worse for Labor.

At the moment perhaps Labor has crawled back a tiny bit and is doing better in Brisbane, in any case, still a big defeat, I think it will be more like a Beattieslide 2001/2004 for the LNP rather than a full blown 2012 as that would require 60%+ TPP

LNP range of seats likely will be between 59-64 That is my best guess right now. so the gov will likely lose 25-30 seats. At least that seems to be what Kos Samaras thinks. He has the TPP around 55% but I think it might be closer to 56%

@Daniel T I think the TPP will be like 57-58% for the LNP.

Labor will do better in Brisbane but worse outside Brisbane than in 2012, so I expect seats like Townsville to be on margins of around 60% or more.

Labor aren’t campaigning at all in North Queensland, likely because they need to defend their Brisbane seats.

It will be almost the opposite of the NT where Labor now holds no seats in Darwin, Palmerston or Alice Springs. Queensland Labor will hold only Gladstone in the regions but hold a few seats in Brisbane, mostly in the southwestern corner where lots of ethnic people live.

Travis Scott will be performing in Brisbane on the day of the election. Will this suppress turnout for the election? Particularly within the 18 – 29 demographics?

NP, is there any particular reason why Mackay and Rockhampton are considered likely (or at least possible) to go to the LNP, but Gladstone isn’t?

Are there significantly different demographics between Gladstone and the other “Labor towns”?

@Mark Mulcair I’m not sure about any significant demographic difference between them, but Gladstone is held on a far larger margin than the other two (23.5% compared to only 6.7% for Mackay and 8.6% for Rockhampton) and is home to the Port of Gladstone, as well as much more visible active industry and a seemingly competent Labor branch.

Bundaberg, Cairns and Townsville (for the most part) were also Labor towns throughout much of the 20th century, but as their traditional industries declined/diversified, and Labor’s base of power shifted to Brisbane, they began to look elsewhere. This culminated in the first conservative victory in Cairns in 108 years in 2012, and it remaining marginal ever since. Bundaberg was held with an iron grip by the center-left since 1896 but they finally lost it in 2006 due the Dr Death controversy, and Labor only narrowly held onto it back in 1995 too.

Labor’s support in the ‘provincial cities’ has been very slowly bleeding for decades and it’s catching up to the most rusted-on cities now too. Gladstone’s margin itself will probably take a huge cut at this election and never fully recover from it, especially with a redistribution on the way which is going to bring more small towns and rural areas into the seat.

Mackay 3
Rockhampton 2
Townsville 3
Cairns 4
Mt Isa 1
Gladstone
Mirani
Bundaberg 2
Burdekin
Toowoomba 2

@Mark Muclair the margin and the fact that Gladstone is a very working-class industrial town.

@Laine I agree I think Gladstone will swing really hard to the LNP.

@mick ???…

@laine Given gladstone is only 6% under quota it will probably just take in calliope just outside its border in callide which is also part of gladdstone council and voted 52-48 to Labor in 2020

Working out provincial cities seats
Maryborough
Hervey Bay

Laine,
Your description of Labor gaining provincial seats is quite interesting.
Toowoomba and Gympie are the now the only provincial urban centres, with populations greater than 20,000, that Labor doesn’t hold. Labor holds Cairns (3 seats), Townsvile (3 seats), Mackay, Yeppoon, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Bundaberg, Maryborough, and Hervey Bay.
Do you have any ideas why Labor has been so successful at gaining provincial seats in recent years?
Or to put it another way, do you have any ideas on why the LNP vote has collapsed in regional cities?

Mirani is a small town not a city.

@watson watch You can spin it whichever way you want to, but it doesn’t change the fact that previously safe and unlosable Labor seats are now permanently marginal even when they’re in government, let alone when the LNP is. Either way they’re about to lose all of them aside from Gladstone. Maybe they’ll hold Maryborough too if you wish upon a star before election night.

In some of these seats the LNP selected old blokes aged 65+ who are likely to retire after 1-2 terms, What does this signal? Do they have confidence of holding them when vacated, or do they not expect to do as well in these seats long term? Hervey Bay candidate is old.