ALP to lose at least one male MP in Queensland over strict gender quote rules

Labor’s strict gender quota rules will force the resignation of at least one campaign-hardened MP in the battleground state of Queensland, with fears it could cost Anthony Albanese a crucial seat.

Moreton MP Graham Perrett has weathered growing Greens support. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Labor’s strict gender quota rules will force the resignation of at least one campaign-hardened MP in the battleground state of Queensland, with fears it could cost Anthony Albanese a crucial seat.

Veteran backbenchers Shayne Neumann and Graham Perrett are under threat of losing their jobs when Labor’s affirmative action policy ramps up in 2025, requiring women to be preselected in at least half of the party’s held seats.

Both men won their seats from the Coalition in Kevin Rudd’s 2007 “Ruddslide” and defied huge swings against Labor in Queensland since. There is concern within the ALP that it could lose the seats if there is a candidate changeover before the next election.

In Ipswich-based Blair, Mr Neumann is Labor’s only surviving regional or rural MP and has fended off a strong One Nation vote, while Mr Perrett in Moreton, covering Brisbane’s inner southern suburbs, has weathered growing Greens support.

Labor has just five of the 30 federal seats in Queensland and only one is held by a woman, Aged Care Minister Anika Wells in Lilley.

The four male MPs are Mr Neumann and Mr Perrett – both backbenchers – as well as federal

Speaker Milton Dick and Shayne Neumann.

Speaker Milton Dick in Oxley and Treasurer Jim Chalmers in Rankin. Senators Murray Watt and Anthony Chisholm secured six-year terms in 2022 and are not up for re-election.

Senator Nita Green will contest her position at the next election and is safe from affirmative action.

Mr Neumann was a frontbencher for nine years in opposition, but was demoted to the backbench after Labor claimed victory in 2022.

Holding his seat on a 5.2 per cent margin, Mr Neumann told The Weekend Australian he wanted to run at the next election, due between August and May 2025.

He said retaining Blair had taken his “total commitment, seven days a week”.

“I have worked very, very hard and I have built support across areas that Labor, in Queensland, has traditionally held federally,” Mr Neumann said.

“In my electorate I’ve got four state seats that are Labor seats and four that are LNP. I have a lot of (Joh) Bjelke-Petersen’s old seat. You’ve got to constantly campaign all the time. And it’s not just about hard work, you have to deliver.”

At the 2022 election, Mr Perrett increased his margin from a tight 1.9 per cent to 9.1 per cent, on the back of Greens preferences. He scored 37 per cent of the primary vote, the Greens had 21 per cent and the Liberal National candidate secured 33 per cent.

Mr Perrett said he had kept Moreton in Labor hands through “a lot of hard work and a bit of luck”. “There is a long time between now and the next election but I can assure you I am a passionate believer in affirmative action,” he said.

Mr Perrett was adamant he planned to contest his seat, but Labor sources said he planned to go and would likely announce his retirement closer to the election.

Former Queensland ALP state secretary Julie-Ann Campbell, who quit the party after the last election to work in the private sector, is frontrunner to replace Mr Perrett.

As state secretary, Ms Campbell controversially outsourced the running of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s 2020 re-election campaign to two of the state’s top lobbyists, Cameron Milner and Evan Moorhead. Both men have since been banned from lobbying the state Labor government.

Although affirmative action rules require only one retirement, both Mr Perrett and Mr Neumann are under pressure to quit.

“The sharks are circling, there is no doubt about it,” one Labor source said. “Neumann won’t go easily. He will have to be dragged out kicking and screaming, with his fingernails clinging to the panels of Parliament House.”

Former Palaszczuk adviser Wendy Bourne, local state MP Jennifer Howard and Neumann staffer Madonna Oliver are all seen within the party as future candidates in Blair.