Greens take lead in Morrison’s Brisbane conservative bastion

The Greens have become the frontrunner to win the Brisbane seat of Ryan and deliver the progressive party only its second seat in the House of Representatives.

LNP Brisbane MP Trevor Evans seeking support at Brisbane City Hall on Friday as he faces a close fight for survival against the ALP. Picture: Richard Walker

The Greens have become the frontrunner to win the Brisbane seat of Ryan and deliver the progressive party only its second seat in the House of Representatives.

After winning its first Brisbane council division and two state parliament seats in just the past six years, The Greens are continuing their march across the city and have leapfrogged past Labor in recent days in the blue-ribbon electorate once reserved for future Liberal ministers.

The leafy seat, taking in the affluent suburbs in Brisbane’s west, is almost certainly going to fall after being held by the Liberals for all but eight months since it was designated in 1949. Labor strategists say The Greens have the lead in the seat, held by sitting MP Julian Simmonds, and which Liberal strategists on Friday night conceded would be very difficult to retain.

Anthony Albanese is likely to make a dent in the Liberal National Party’s long dominance in Queensland, with track polling by both sides showing that three Morrison government seats are vulnerable.

Queensland is the Morrison government’s stronghold, where it has 23 of the state’s 30 seats.

The federal opposition is confident in taking the Liberal-held seat of Brisbane, held by Trevor Evans, and being contested by Labor’s Madonna Jarrett.

The LNP’s Trevor Evans at pre-polling for the Federal Election at Brisbane City Hall. Picture: Richard Walker

Labor has edged ahead of The Greens in recent days, and will use their preferences to claim a likely easy victory in the seat.

Both Brisbane (on a margin of five per cent) and Ryan (on a margin of 6.1 per cent) were the only two Queensland Coalition-held seats to go backwards in support at the 2019 election in which Scott Morrison picked up two Labor seats, Herbert in Townsville and Longman on Brisbane’s northern outskirts.

Both sides say the Cairns-based seat of Leichhardt, held by veteran Liberal MP Warren Entsch (with a margin of 4.2 per cent), is also “in play” along with Longman (margin of 3.3 per cent), which has changed hands four times in the past two decades.

A Labor strategist said he was hopeful of winning both seats but that preferences from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party could help retain the seats for the Coalition.

“The preference flows are killing us,’’ he said.

Despite Labor ramping up their efforts to take the Nationals-held seat of Flynn (margin of 8.7 per cent), which is centred around Gladstone, it is likely to be retained by the government.

The resource-rich electorate, where Nationals MP Ken O’Dowd is retiring, is likely to be won by former LNP state MP Colin Boyce.

The inner southern Brisbane seat of Griffith, held by Labor’s environment spokeswoman Terri Butler (margin of 2.9 per cent) has been touted as a possible election night surprise after the Greens targeted the seat with the party’s biggest-ever doorknocking campaign.

But Labor, which only began track polling in the past two weeks, says it will be held.