Election 2022: Liberals face battle for survival as heat comes to Brisbane heartland

The Coalition fears the blue-ribbon Brisbane seat of Ryan is in danger of falling to Labor.

Ryan MP Julian Simmonds. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

It’s long been a Liberal Party heartland, home to cabinet ministers and MPs considered to have potential, but the Coalition fears the blue-ribbon seat of Ryan is in danger of falling to Labor.

The Brisbane electorate, taking in the affluent suburbs in the city’s west, has been held by the Liberal Party for all but eight months since it was designated in 1949. However, a trend-bucking swing against the Coalition in 2019 and recent results in the ­corresponding state electorate of Maiwar have left Liberal strategists conceding sitting MP Julian Simmonds has a tough task ahead of him.

Liberal and Labor strategists are expecting an anti-Coalition swing in Ryan, as well as the neighbouring seat of Brisbane, because of dissatisfaction with the Coalition’s climate policies.

Ryan and Brisbane were the only two Queensland Coalition seats with a two-party-preferred swing against the Coalition in 2019. Ryan was one of only three Queensland electorates where Labor improved its primary vote in 2019 and ALP candidate Peter Cossar has returned for a second crack this year.

Mr Simmonds, who holds the seat with a 6 per cent margin, said he was campaigning on the Coalition’s policy of “stronger economy, lower taxes, better defence” and focusing on what he had achieved locally in the past three years.

“Like the overall election, I think this seat will be tight and I don’t take it for granted,” Mr Simmonds said. “I’m very conscious it’s the LNP versus a Labor and Greens coalition, because their preferences will be combined.”

He said the Coalition was committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and warned wavering Liberal voters that a Labor government would have the Greens “pulling the strings”.

Labor held Ryan for just eight months in 2001 when Leonie short won a by-election after the retirement of veteran Fraser and Howard government minister John Moore.

She was defeated in the 2001 election by Michael Johnson, who held the seat until 2010 when he was replaced by Jane Prentice.

Ms Prentice, a former assistant minister, retired in 2019 after she lost a bitter preselection battle against Mr Simmonds, who was a Brisbane City councillor at the time.

Labor isn’t the only party that fancies its chances in Ryan. The Greens have had increasing electoral success in Queensland in the past five years, winning two Brisbane-based seats in state ­parliament, including Maiwar, which overlaps Ryan, and electing their first representative to Brisbane City Council.

The party ran third in Ryan in 2019, receiving 20.5 per cent of the primary vote, behind Labor’s 24.4 per cent and Mr Simmonds’ 48.6 per cent.

Greens candidate Elizabeth Watson-Brown said she could leapfrog Labor in the primary vote, and with help from their preferences, capture the seat from Mr Simmonds.

“Ryan is a bit more like those long-term Liberal seats that the teal independents are targeting,” Ms Watson-Brown said.

“Climate change is the top issue across the electorate.”

In Brisbane, held by Trevor Evans with a 4.9 per cent margin, the Greens secured 22.4 per cent of the primary vote in 2019, just behind Labor’s 24.5 per cent.

Mr Evans has previously told The Australian this election will be his toughest fight yet.