Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner top mainland LNP figure as party crumbles

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has been elevated to the highest-ranking elected Liberal on mainland Australia after Labor claimed victory in the NSW state election on Saturday.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has been left as the highest-ranking Liberal leader in mainland Australia after Labor’s Chris Minns became the NSW Premier on the weekend.

In the wake of the more than 6 per cent swing to Labor, a senior Liberal Party source flagged “enormous challenges” for the party unless it had a “good hard look” at what it stood for and who it represented. Significant work needed to be done to reach out to women, young people and migrant communities, they said.

The NSW result revealed federal challenges – the three northern Sydney seats won by the Teals would be hard to win back, Eden-Monaro presented a challenge and  Chinese voters were still wary of the Coalition after the hardline stance taken by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton against the Chinese Communist Party.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner emerges as top mainland Liberal leader. Picture: David Clark

But another senior Liberal source argued the state result was spurred on by internal divisions in the NSW Liberal organisation, some scandals and an “it’s time” factor, but admitted the party needed to do more to reach women and younger voters.

Mr Dutton’s leadership remained “rock solid”, with the partyroom strongly behind him, they said.

“There’s absolutely no members expressing any dissatisfaction whatsoever,” the source said.

It comes ahead of the Aston by-election in Victoria next weekend, which could present more significant implications for Mr Dutton if the Liberals fail to win, but that is considered unlikely.

The last time the Brisbane civic leader was the most senior political leader in power for the Liberal Party was in 2007 during Campbell Newman’s tenure as lord mayor after John Howard conceded defeat to Kevin Rudd.

Queensland LNP MPs were privately fuming at the NSW branch of the Liberal Party after the federal election, where factional infighting led to late preselections and not enough time to launch proper campaigns.

The NSW state election was dogged with similar problems, as well as the Liberal government having had four premiers over 12 years, along with several scandals.

Despite voters again rejecting the conservative party, a prominent Queensland political scientist says David Crisafulli possesses strong personable leadership attributes to follow Chris Minns and SA Premier Peter Malinauskas as opposition leaders storming into government.

Labor now lead rule all state and territory governments except for Tasmania. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

But Griffith University associate professor Paul Williams said “there’s still a huge number of voters who don’t know anything about him”.

This obscurity is counterbalanced by Mr Crisafulli’s progress in framing the party as a reasonable alternative to the Palaszczuk government as it grapples a sequence of crises related to integrity, housing, youth crime and cost of living, the political scientist said.

“There’s several challenges. One: Can he keep up the momentum until the next election?

“And two: How does a small ‘l’ progressive leader from the southeast herd a partyroom of very conservative regional cats?

“We’re not seeing a Chris Minns-like LNP revival here yet, but by the same token, we’re still a year-and-a-half away from an election.”