Labor chief Kate Flanders aims for Labor resurrection but first the post mortem

New Labor state secretary Kate Flanders concedes it will be tough to reclaim ground lost to the Greens and minor parties in Queensland at recent elections.

Kate Flanders. Picture: Centre For Future Work

New Labor state secretary Kate Flanders has conceded it will be tough to reclaim ground lost to the Greens and minor parties in Queensland at recent elections.

Ms Flanders, a former organiser with the public sector ­Together Union, was chosen to lead the party in Queensland after an internal Left faction vote last week. Her top priorities will be to recruit new members to match massive doorknocking blitzes unleashed by the Greens at previous elections and dissecting results from last month’s federal poll.

Labor recorded its worst federal election result in Queensland since 1996, with a net loss of one seat on May 21. Labor now holds just five of Queensland’s 30 federal seats.

The party posted a 0.74 per cent improvement on its 2019 primary vote, which now sits at just 27.4 per cent, well behind the Liberal ­National Party on 39.6 per cent.

The Greens secured the largest swing of any party at 2.6 per cent and now boasts a 12.9 per cent primary vote in Queensland.

Thousands of volunteers were recruited and trained over ­successive elections by the Greens, more than 90,000 doors were knocked, and hundreds of public forums were organised to discuss the ­issues and the party’s policies.

The strategy translated to electoral success for the progressive minor party, with three new ­federal MPs and a new senator to join veteran Larissa Waters in Canberra.

But the results threaten Annastacia Palaszczuk’s re-election prospects in 2024, with a number of Brisbane-based seats in serious jeopardy, including Cooper, McConnell and Bulimba.

The Palaszczuk Labor government launched crisis talks in the days after the election to start planning on how to better appeal to progressive city voters without alienating resource-dependent ­regional electorates.

In an email on Monday, seen by The Australian, Ms Flanders ­encouraged branch members to participate in local campaign post mortems as the party embarks on a period of “big reflection”.

“We absolutely need to look at what the results here mean for us going forward,” she wrote.

Ms Flanders, who ran Labor’s unsuccessful target-seat campaign in Queensland, told The Australian there were “many theories” about why the party failed to win any new seats at last month’s ­election.

“I do not know the right answer yet,” she said.

“Some of it must be that we did not get the right message to voters at the right time, or they just didn’t find it convincing. I think I am ­concerned about people voting Greens instead of Labor, when Labor would actually deliver on the things that they are ­looking for.”

Ms Flanders will replace Julie-Ann Campbell, who quit as state secretary to join consultancy firm EY as an associate partner.

Ms Campbell is expected to run for federal politics – rumoured to be in the seat of Moreton – at the next election.