Election 2022: Greens eye double trouble for Liberals

The Greens have a serious chance of capturing two Liberal-held seats in Brisbane at Saturday’s election if they can increase their primary vote by one point in each seat.

Greens senator Larissa ­Waters. Picture: Emily Barker

The Greens have a serious chance of capturing two Liberal-held seats in their Brisbane heartland at Saturday’s federal election if they can increase their primary vote by one point in each seat.

The neighbouring Liberal-held seats of Brisbane and Ryan have become three-way races between sitting Coalition MPs, Greens and Labor as an anticipated swing away from Scott Morrison sweeps Queensland.

Liberal MPs Julian Simmonds and Trevor Evans each have to get 50 per cent of the primary vote to win in their own right or face the prospect of losing to Labor or Greens candidates on lower ­primary votes pushed over the line on the back of preferences.

Brisbane and Ryan, the only two Queensland Coalition seats to shed votes in the 2019 win, are under increased threat after surging Greens support in the 2020 state and council elections.

A YouGov poll commissioned by The Australian suggests the inner-city seat of Brisbane, held by Mr Evans, would be lost to Labor’s Madonna Jarrett.

The poll predicts that Mr Evans would secure 36 per cent of the primary vote, ahead of Ms Jarrett on 29 per cent, with Greens candidate Stephen Bates on 28 per cent.

In Mr Simmonds’ seat of Ryan, which takes in the city’s western suburbs, the Coalition is tipped to take 40 per cent of the primary vote, with Labor trailing on 25 per cent followed closely by the Greens on 24 per cent.

If the Greens can increase their primary vote by one point in each seat, their candidates have a strong chance of leapfrogging Labor and sweeping to power on the back of preferences.

Griffith University political analyst Paul Williams said while the Greens were not frontrunners yet, this was the party’s best chance of picking up its first ­federal lower house seat in Queensland.

“No one should be surprised when seats like Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan go Greens – it might not be this election but it will happen at some point,” he said.

Greens senator Larissa ­Waters, who represents Queensland, ­ attributes the predicted surge in primary support, up 4 per cent in Ryan and 6 per cent in Brisbane since the 2019 election, to a doorknocking blitz.

“We have really gone from strength to strength in recent years,” Senator Waters said.

“We have great candidates who have been campaigning for more than a year, knocking on tens of thousands of doors with bigger campaign teams than ever before.

“I am so encouraged by the ­response we have been getting.

“Queensland is a state that the rest of the country thinks is really conservative, but that is just not the case.”