Inner-city voters change their colours

The Greens have tightened their grip in inner-city Brisbane by taking out former deputy premier Jackie Trad and recording significant swings in two other seats.

People are so excited about the vision that we’ve been offering’: successful Greens candidates Michael Berkman and Amy MacMaho. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Greens have strengthened their hold over inner-city Brisbane by taking out former Labor deputy premier Jackie Trad and recording significant swings in two other seats.

Amy McMahon, who easily defeated Ms Trad with the help of Liberal National Party preferences in South Brisbane, will join Michael Berkman, who became the first Greens state MP in 2017 after winning Maiwar in the city’s inner west.

The Greens also have a presence in the Brisbane City Council in the area through Jonathon Sri, whose council ward is contained within the South Brisbane state electorate.

The breakthrough in Brisbane means the Greens are becoming a major force in inner cities along the east coast, with two members in the NSW parliament, who represent the inner-city seats of Newtown and Balmain, and three in the Victorian parliament, in Phahran, Brunswick, and Melbourne, all inner-city seats.

The Greens federal leader, Adam Bandt, is the member for the inner-city seat of Melbourne in the federal parliament.

 

Yet aside from the northern NSW seat of Ballina in the NSW parliament, the Greens have only local government representation outside the inner cities.

The same trend was on display in Saturday’s election, where despite picking up an extra seat and coming close in another two in Brisbane’s inner city, the Greens’ statewide vote dropped from 10 per cent in 2017 to 9.1 per cent in this election.

The party has come close to winning in McConnell and Cooper, on the north side of the Brisbane River, but in each case they finished third, behind the ALP and the LNP, meaning that when they are eliminated, their preferences will put the ALP well ahead.

Their best hope is in Cooper, previously held for the ALP by former tourism minister Kate Jones, where the Greens’ Katinka Winston-Allam is 500 votes behind the LNP candidate, Trent Wiseman. If they can get ahead of Mr Wiseman, they could still win this seat on preferences.

South Brisbane was the seat they always targeted, and the LNP decision to give their preferences to them ahead of the ALP delivered the seat to the Greens.

The Greens had a swing of 4.1 per cent to them in South Brisbane but the biggest contributor to this swing was former LNP voters, with a 1.8 per cent swing away from the LNP and 1.3 per cent away from the ALP.

Counting is continuing in the seat, but on results so far, the Greens have 38.4 per cent of the primary vote ahead of the 34.7 per cent for the ALP; the LNP is a distant third on 22.5 per cent.

So while the Greens finished ahead of the ALP on primary votes, if LNP preferences had flowed as a bloc to the ALP, Ms Trad would have retained the seat.

It is the second attempt at the seat by Ms McMahon, 33, who was endorsed early in the term and thus able to campaign heavily for a long time, which was particularly productive for her at the time when Ms Trad was deputy premier and consequently often away from the electorate.

When asked whether her victory was the result of gaining LNP preferences, Ms McMahon said “our win here is the result of more people than ever putting the Greens first”.

“We’ve seen a huge surge in people who are voting first Greens. A lot of people are voting Greens for the first time in their lives, and that’s because people are so excited about the vision that we’ve been offering.”

She said like Mr Sri, who has been a supporter of movements such as Extinction Rebellion, she would continue to be involved in protests.

The most recent one she has attended was against refugee detention at a hostel at Kangaroo Point in the electorate.

Mr Berkman said the drop in the statewide figure was because there were more minor parties competing for the same vote.

“There’s generally more players in this election than ever before and we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and the result reflects the way people feel that Labor dealt with that.

“We’ll have plenty of time to pick over the entrails, but I’m ­really proud of the result.

“I’m really proud of at least doubling our representation in the Queensland parliament.”