Coronavirus: Slow count virus-crippled Queensland elections, but Brisbane mayor holds power
Brisbane mayor Adrian Schrinner held onto power as counts continue across Queensland’s coronavirus-crippled polls.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has held on to power with a strong Liberal National Party majority, despite a surge in support across the city for the Greens.
Mr Schrinner was returned despite a 6.3 per cent swing against him, with most of those voters deserting the conservatives for the Greens.
It followed nearly 24 hours of confusion over the Electoral Commission of Queensland’s vote count in Saturday’s 77 council elections and two state by-elections, which were marred by technology problems.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk came under fire for refusing to postpone the ballots due to the coronavirus, with analysts for the major parties saying voter turnout was down by up to 30 per cent in some parts of the state.
The local government elections delivered new administrations in two councils, Logan and Ipswich, which had been sacked last year after investigations found rampant corruption and maladministration.
Elsewhere, 36 incumbent mayors were returned, including on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, and in Cairns, Townsville and Bundaberg.
But it was Australia’s largest local government, Brisbane City Council, that delivered a shock swing to the Greens — just four years after the minor party won its first council seat in the state.
Greens councillor Jonathan Sri retained his inner-city ward of The Gabba with a massive 17 per cent swing in his primary vote. The minor party could pick up two other wards — in Paddington and Central — and polled second in the primary vote in several other contests.
Ominously for Labor Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, the Greens polled 52 per cent of the primary vote in the West End booth — in the heart of her South Brisbane marginal electorate — to Labor’s 22 per cent.
The Greens are also a strong chance of winning council seats on the Sunshine Coast and in the Gold Coast hinterland council of the Scenic Rim.
In the Brisbane mayoralty race, Mr Schrinner holds 46.58 per cent of the primary vote, with Labor’s Pat Condren on 31.27 per cent and the Greens’ Kath Angus on 15.8 per cent, with 55 per cent of the vote counted. The results represent a 6.3 per cent swing away from the 2016 mayoralty results, when now retired LNP mayor Graham Quirk was elected on the primary vote alone.
Despite LNP fears as recently as three weeks ago that Labor would win the mayoralty and majority of wards, the ALP looks set to pick up at most two new wards in the 26-seat chamber — its first gains in 20 years.
Incumbent Tom Tate was tracking ahead on the Gold Coast, while Teresa Harding was ahead in the poll for Ipswich mayor and Darren Power was leading the pack in Logan.
Ms Palaszczuk slammed the electoral commission for delivering the results so slowly, and said she would order a review into its handling of the count.
“I’m pretty disappointed, frankly,” she said. “I mean, they’ve got one job and their job is to make sure they can actually run an election, so I’ll be ordering a review of that as to why it happened.
“I understand there was technical issues with the computer system,” she added.
“Of course it’s frustrating, but what we will see, come next week, is we will have mayors in place. My No 1 issue, I need to be talking to these mayors, talking about regional needs, making sure that they are communicating with the public, and we haven’t had that for a month.”
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