Drift from Coalition as ‘miracle’ state leaning toward Albanese victory
An anticipated swing away from Scott Morrison in Queensland could deliver Anthony Albanese government.
An anticipated swing away from Scott Morrison in Queensland, the state that delivered his “miracle” victory in 2019, could deliver Anthony Albanese as many as four seats and government at the May 21 election.
Labor and Coalition strategists say track polling indicates support falling away from the Morrison government in its stronghold, where it has 23 of the state’s 30 seats.
The Liberal-held seat of Brisbane is the most vulnerable in an inner-city swing away from the Morrison government, aided by growing support for the Greens. This has also put the blue-ribbon electorate of Ryan in danger.
Both sides concede that the Cairns-based seat of Leichhardt, held by veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch, is “in play” along with the outer Brisbane seat of Longman, which has changed hands four times in the past two decades.
But preferences from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party could prove critical to the Coalition holding Longman and the targeted central Queensland seat of Flynn.
The inner south Brisbane seat of Griffith, held by Labor’s environment spokeswoman Terri Butler on a margin of 2.9 per cent, could prove to be an election night surprise after the Greens targeted the seat with the party’s biggest-ever doorknocking campaign.
A Labor strategist said he believed Griffith would hold and that the next two weeks would decide the outcome in Longman, Leichhardt and, possibly Flynn, the resource-rich electorate where Nationals MP Ken O’Dowd is retiring.
ALP track polling has a consistent swing away from the government of 6 to 7 per cent in the primary vote across urban Brisbane. “I think we will win Brisbane where the support is coming to us and the Greens,” one strategist said. “There are swings across regional Queensland and Leichhardt is probably our next best chance, because the One Nation vote is lower there, and then Longman.”
An LNP strategist said the government had not given up on retaining Brisbane, held on a margin of 4.9 per cent, or Longman, where the margin is 3.3 per cent.
“Brisbane is highly contested, I think we can still hold it, as is Longman and it is always a fight for Warren (Entsch) in his seat,” he said.
“Labor likes to declare victory even before the votes are cast. They have been claiming for the last three elections that they were going to pick up another eight to 10 seats and it doesn’t eventuate.
“Preferences will play a role and, yes, there seems to be a bit of activity in Ryan.”
Where Longman, Leichhardt, Flynn and Brisbane have been targeted since last year, Ryan, taking in Brisbane’s western suburbs, has emerged on the radar in the past few months, putting one-term MP Julian Simmonds under pressure.
Ryan and Brisbane were the only two Queensland electorates where the Coalition’s two-party-preferred vote declined in 2019 – by 1.1 per cent in Brisbane and 2.95 per cent in Ryan.
Polling conducted by Utting Research for the Together Union in mid-February, before the date of the election was announced, suggested a swing against the Coalition in Ryan.
The poll of 400 Ryan voters showed 37 per cent would vote for the LNP, 12 per cent down on 2019. It had Labor on 35 per cent, up from 25 per cent, and the Greens at 16 per cent, down from 20 per cent. That left Brisbane with a vulnerable margin of 4.9 per cent and Ryan with 6 per cent.
Utting calculated the two-party-preferred vote as 50.2 per cent for the LNP and 49.8 per cent for Labor. It identified “jobs and the economy” as the No.1 priority for voters in the electorate, ahead of “global warming and climate change”.
“We know that voters in Ryan are concerned about runaway climate change,” Queensland Conservation Council director Dave Copeland said.
“They are informed voters, and when they read that the UN Secretary-General calls out Australia as a holdout on climate emission targets, the (Great Barrier) Reef suffers mass bleaching during a La Nina year and the Antarctic temperatures are 30 degrees above normal, they get angry.”
The Greens candidate in Griffith and party strategist Max Chandler-Mather said he was increasingly confident that he will take the seat from Labor.
“We have strong policies on housing, mental and dental care and, of course, climate change and people are turning to us.”
An earlier version of this story said the Utting Research polling was commissioned by the Together We Can union. It was commissioned by the Together Union.
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