Brisbane’s youngest councillor triumphs in first election

Brisbane’s youngest councillor has achieved a convincing win in one of the city’s most marginal wards.

THE youngest councillor in Brisbane, the LNP’s Lisa Atwood, has come out of her first election with a convincing win in the marginal ward of Doboy.

The 29-year-old was appointed Doboy councillor by the LNP last year after her predecessor Ryan Murphy switched to the safe ward of Chandler. Cr Murphy was 23 when elected in 2012.

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With 5000 of the 7000 postal votes yet to come in, Cr Atwood said the outcome was not confirmed but her opponent, Labor’s Jo Culshaw, would have to get 75 per cent of the remaining postal votes to win Doboy.

With 41 per cent of the vote counted, Cr Atwood had 56 per cent.

While the ABC has reported an 11 per cent swing to the LNP, the result of the two-way contest in Doboy is difficult to compare to the two-party preferred results in the 2016 election between four candidates.

LNP councillor Lisa Attwood increases the margin in Doboy. Picture: Annette Dew

In 2016 Cr Murphy faced the election with the lowest margin of any LNP ward and won with 49 per cent of the primary vote. The Labor candidate had 39 per cent while The Greens had 8 per cent and an independent 4 per cent.

Cr Atwood said she was thrilled with the result and was determined to get on with the job to improve parks and footpaths and help get the community through the health crisis.

“For the nine months that I was out there I gave it my everything. My goal was to get people to know who I was and what I wanted to achieve for the community and engage with the community,” she said.

“On Saturday night I had a pretty good indication. At Hemmant, Murarrie and Cannon Hill booths, to win those booths that are traditionally 60 per cent Labor booths was a bit humbling.”

Ms Culshaw said the health crisis created a difficult environment for Labor to make any gains late in the campaign.

“The ECQ did a good job under very trying circumstances. It caught everybody by surprise. This election was unprecedented and the situation was changing on a daily basis. I think COVID-19 had a very big impact,” she said.

Labor candidate for Doboy Jo Culshaw. Picture: Tara Croser

“The health crisis made it difficult to reach out to people and also people had bigger things to focus on. A lot of people are scared they are going to be losing their jobs, there are big issues out there and it created a lot of fear. I think people went with what they knew. It wasn’t the time to try something new. It was very tough to get the message out in those last couple of weeks.”