Disaster confronting Labor as inner-city voters desert Jackie Trad for Greens

Jackie Trad is set to lose her inner-city seat to the Greens at Saturday’s state election after a disastrous fall in her base vote, Newspoll shows.

Jackie Trad’s only hope of overcoming the hurdle of the LNP preferencing Labor last to increase her primary vote. But she has lost ground. Picture: Peter Wallis

Former Queensland deputy premier Jackie Trad is set to lose her inner-city seat to the Greens at Saturday’s state election after a disastrous fall in her base vote, Newspoll shows.

Ms Trad’s primary vote in South Brisbane has slipped four points on what she polled at the 2017 election and she trails the Greens’ Amy MacMahon by seven points, 39-32 per cent.

The Liberal National Party’s decision to preference the Greens ahead of Labor would comfortably deliver the seat to Ms MacMahon on Newspoll’s numbers. When preferences are allocated, her lead over Ms Trad blows out to nine points, 54.5-45.5 per cent two-party-preferred.

Ms Trad’s only hope of overcoming the hurdle of the LNP preferencing Labor last, contrary to usual practice, was to increase her primary vote. Instead, Newspoll shows she has lost ground in the fiercely contested battle for the seat she has held since entering state parliament in 2012.

The result — if borne out at the ballot box — will rob state Labor of one of its brightest stars and a likely future leader.

Defeat in South Brisbane would complete Ms Trad’s fall from grace after she was mired in integrity controversies over the purchase of an investment property last year and an investi­gation by the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission into alleged interference in the appointment of a local school principal, forcing her to resign as 2IC to Annastacia Palaszczuk and treasurer in May.

Ms Trad was subsequently cleared by the CCC.

Amy MacMahon, centre, the Greens candidate for South Brisbane, in Woolloongabba, Brisbane, on Sunday. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Victory in South Brisbane would deliver the Greens two seats in state parliament, assuming MP Michael Berkman is returned in nearby Maiwar, and a potential balance of power role if Labor falls short of the 47 seats required for majority ­government.

The Newspoll, conducted for The Australian, will intensify concern in the ALP that a third inner-Brisbane seat, McConnel, could be snatched by the Greens.

LNP preferences saved Ms Trad three years ago during Ms MacMahon’s first tilt at the seat. Labor’s primary vote fell to 36 per cent and Ms Trad’s formerly ­comfortable margin was slashed to 3.55 per cent. The surge in the Greens’ primary vote in South Brisbane to 39 per cent represents a 4.6-point improvement and coupled with the LNP’s reversal of its standard preferencing policy, will doom Ms Trad unless she stages a dramatic comeback in the closing days of the campaign.

Her slim hopes of survival hinge on whether LNP voters are prepared to buck the party line and preference Labor over the Greens.

The LNP’s vote in South Brisbane is 24 per cent, unchanged from the last election.

Newspoll’s findings are based on a survey of 401 South Brisbane voters between last Thursday and Sunday. In respondent-allocated preferences, 40 per cent of LNP voters say they will preference Labor ahead of the Greens, 37 per cent say the Greens ahead of Labor and 23 per cent say they will follow the LNP how-to-vote card to put Labor last.

A 60-40 split of LNP preferences to the Greens, as indicated by Newspoll, means Ms Trad would need to find an extra 600 first-preference votes to lift her primary vote to 38.3 per cent to survive.

Both parties are throwing resources at South Brisbane, reflecting the high stakes and ferocity of the contest for the inner-city electorate that hugs Brisbane River through the wealthy enclaves of West End, Woolloongabba and Kangaroo Point.

The ground campaign, waged by squads of mostly young volunteers on each side, has been plagued by accusations of dirty tricks and questionable use of social media. In one of the most contested incidents, the secretary of the local Greens branch, Joanna Horton, tweeted that “this party is the nastiest skank bitch” in what she insisted was an ironic reference to the ALP taken from the movie Mean Girls. Both Ms Horton and the Greens denied she had Ms Trad in her sights.

Demanding an apology over the “incredibly sexist commentary”, Ms Trad said her signage had been defaced with similar language and when the corflutes were placed out of reach, the attack lines appeared on fencing.

“This is a concerted campaign and quite frankly it is disgraceful and Amy should just be a leader, she should apologise for this,” Ms Trad said during an online debate last week with the Greens challenger and LNP candidate Clem Grehan. “She shouldn’t dictate who should use sexist language and who should be offended.”

Ms MacMahon said senior Labor ministers had gone after Ms Horton to “bully a young woman” out of politics. “In reality the tweet didn’t say anything about anyone,” she said.