Amy MacMahon set to take on Jackie Trad again in South Brisbane

Former climate change researcher Amy MacMahon will again attempt to unseat Jackie Trad at the state election after narrowly losing to the Deputy Premier in 2017.

There was a 10 per cent swing away from Labor to Ms MacMahon, the Greens' candidate in the South Brisbane electorate, at the last election.

Ms Trad won South Brisbane with just 500 more first preference votes than Ms MacMahon and retained the seat on the back of LNP preferences.

The Greens' Amy MacMahon is aiming to take South Brisbane off Deputy Premier Jackie Trad.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

However, in a controversial move, the LNP will be putting Ms Trad, who is also the state's Treasurer, last on its how-to-vote cards at the October 31 election.

Ms MacMahon said: "If we want politics in Queensland to change for the better then we have to stop electing politicians who rely on millions of dollars in corporate donations.

"We should be investing billions of dollars in schools, hospitals and crucial public infrastructure, creating thousands of secure jobs, but instead the Treasurer chose to freeze royalties for mining corporations, forgoing billions of dollars in revenue that instead went into the pockets of some of Labor’s biggest donors," she said.

When asked on Tuesday how nervous she was about losing the seat, Ms Trad said she was "not going to be distracted by politics".

"The election is literally months away and I just don't think now is the time for politics," she said.

"I am absolutely focused on how much we can do to open up the economy and get people back in jobs as soon as possible.

"The election will come and we will deal with that at the time of the election."

The Queensland Greens have targeted two other inner-city electorates – McConnel and Cooper – held by Labor ministers Grace Grace and Kate Jones.

Kirsten Lovejoy, who has worked as an environmental policy officer for the Labor government and stood as a Greens candidate three times before, will run against Education Minister Grace in McConnel.

She said the party was "still planning to run the biggest campaign in their history" despite lockdown restrictions.

"This election we’ll be mobilising thousands of people to make calls from home, and have hundreds of thousands of conversations about our vision to rebuild Queensland in favour of ordinary people," she said.

Former environmental lawyer Michael Berkman became the first Greens MP elected to the Queensland Parliament in 2017.

Mr Berkman won Maiwar over long-time LNP politician Scott Emerson after a seat redistribution before the last election.

The party on Tuesday also announced the following candidates: John Meyer in Clayfield, Katinka Winston-Allom in Cooper, Patsy O’Brien in Miller, Victor Huml in Greenslopes, Lawson McCane in Moggill.

On the same day the Greens launched seven candidates for the state election, the party has called for a public pharmaceutical company to be set up in Queensland.

Mr Berkman said in the past four years, three coronavirus vaccines were abandoned by private
pharmaceutical corporations because they weren’t seen as profitable.

"When Labor privatised our only public pharmaceutical company, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, in the 1990s, Australia lost one of its best tools to fight dangerous viruses and
bacteria," he said.

"Before privatisation it developed a tetanus vaccine and a combined vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

"Our Queensland public pharmaceutical company would keep jobs in Queensland, harnessing
the enormous talents and ingenuity of Queenslanders to produce the vaccines and crucial antibiotics that private pharmaceutical corporations don’t see as profitable.

"It would save Queensland Health millions of dollars by producing cheap generic drugs and
stopping price gouging by private pharmaceutical corporations who overcharge hospitals and
consumers."