Queensland election 2017: Jackie Trad in danger of being a high-profile casualty

DEPUTY Premier Jackie Trad is in danger of being a high-profile casualty of the 2017 election campaign amid a massive insurgency in her inner Brisbane electorate.

DEPUTY Premier Jackie Trad is in danger of being a high-profile casualty of the 2017 election campaign amid a massive Greens insurgency in her inner Brisbane electorate.

An exclusive The Courier-Mail Galaxy Poll of Ms Trad’s South Brisbane seat has revealed 30-year-old Greens candidate Amy McMahon has edged into the lead.

Despite entering the election with a comfortable margin of almost 14 per cent, the shock result could see Ms Trad squeezed out by a political pincer move caused by shrinking support for both major parties.

Labor’s bob each-way bet on Adani – supporting the mega coal mine but not a Federal loan for the company’s proposed rail line – has not helped Ms Trad, who is regarded as a future Labor leader.

The potential loss of her deputy and dominant Left faction leader is another bitter blow to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s trouble-prone campaign which has been plagued by the Adani issue.

Greens candidate Amy McMahon. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

It will put pressure on Ms Palaszczuk’s position against forming a minority government with the Greens as Labor ramps up its campaign against the prospect of an LNP administration propped up by One Nation.

Killing the Adani coal mine would be Ms McMahon’s top priority if Ms Palaszczuk is forced to negotiate with the Greens, who are swapping preferences with Labor across the state.

The South Brisbane result also adds uncertainty around who would lead Labor if Ms Palaszczuk lost the election and Ms Trad lost her seat.

It comes after The Courier-Mail Galaxy Poll of eight battleground electorates showed Labor was losing seats in regional Queensland and not yet picking up replacements in the southeast corner.

Conducted late last week, the poll of 517 South Brisbane voters showed Labor’s support had slumped from 42 per cent at the last election to 38 per cent.

The LNP’s support in the eclectic electorate, which stretches from West End to East Brisbane and south into Annerley, has dropped from 32.3 per cent to 29 per cent.

The Greens are equal with the LNP, surging from 22.6 per cent in 2015 to 29 per cent.

Three left-leaning independent candidates, who scored 4 per cent of the vote, helped the Greens leapfrog the LNP for the first time.

With a high level of LNP voters nominating that they would preference the Greens above Labor, Ms McMahon leads Ms Trad 51 per cent to 49 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

Ms Trad has relied on Greens preferences since winning the seat in a by-election in 2012 but the LNP slipping into third would be a game-changer for her electoral prospects.

After an internal fission, the LNP will preference Labor ahead of the Greens.

Ms Trad, who has been frequently accused of flexing the Left faction’s muscle to favour South Brisbane and push an environmental-friendly agenda, could be forced to rely on her conservative foes distributing how-to-vote cards so LNP voters follow them.

TODAY’S POLL QUESTION

LNP candidate Simon Quinn, a Gold Coast Turf Club board member, has run a low-profile campaign with few signs around the electorate.

Buoyed by winning The Gabba ward in last year’s Brisbane City Council election, the Greens are piling resources into South Brisbane with billboards across the electorate and teams of door knockers coming in from across the southeast corner and interstate.

However, the Green insurrection also has implication across the river for LNP in frontbencher Scott Emerson’s new electorate of Maiwar.

The Greens scored 18 per cent of the vote in the area in 2015 and the electorate has been radically redrawn and renamed, cutting Mr Emerson’s margin from 6.7 per cent to 3 per cent.