Voice referendum: How QLD voted and some results will shock you

Queensland emerged as a land of extremes in the Voice to Parliament referendum, with some startling trends emerging.

The western Queensland electorate of Maranoa delivered the highest no vote in the country, but two towns within the massive region also delivered the highest yes votes in the state.

It demonstrated the diverse and divisive nature of the poll results in the Sunshine State.

Just three electorates were confirmed to have voted yes in the state, the Greens-held Brisbane, Griffith and Ryan.

Lilley, which was too close to call on Saturday night had swung no, while the southern Brisbane electorate of Moreton was still on a knife edge, but was trending toward the negative.

LNP Member for Groom Garth Hamilton (left) campaigning for the ‘no’ case in Toowoomba with volunteers Denis Sandrin and Beverly Bates. Picture: Michael Nolan

Maranoa had the highest no vote of any electorate in the country, 84.7 per cent, but the polling booth with the highest vote against the Voice proposal was the small town of Yetman in northern NSW, which saw 96.3 per cent of its population vote no.

The second highest rejection from any polling booth in the country and highest in the state was from Dulacca, which voted 95 per cent no and only 6 people out of 120 voting yes.

But in Maranoa the border town of Mungindi saw 91 per cent of its population vote yes, as well as 87.2 per cent of Killarney.

Voters in Kelvin Grove, in Brisbane’s inner north, voted in greater number for the Voice to be enshrined in the Constitution than those in the remote Indigenous community of Mornington Island.

In the Fraser Coast community of Burrum Heads – where there has been a dispute for the past year over native title and access through a narrow strip of land to the beach – over 85 per cent of the residents were against the Voice.

Brisbane’s inner north (top) and Roma in the Maranoa electorate (above)

Inner Brisbane suburbs such as West End, Milton, Dutton Park, Spring Hill, Windsor, Teneriffe and New Farm all backed the Voice, with close to two-thirds of people swinging in behind it.

Outer suburbs were almost the inverse, with just over a third of voters in places like Clontarff, Marsden, Redcliffe, Bracken Ridge and Murrumba Downs supporting it.

Likewise, the Voice struggled to gain support in the southeast outside of Brisbane, with Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast electorates, with between a quarter and a third of those voters voting yes.

Of the 45 referendums, the Voice to Parliament received the ninth smallest yes vote of 39.47 per cent, though this was subject to slight change with postal votes still being counted.

It still received stronger support than four-year fixed terms for federal MPs, held in 1988, inserting a preamble into the Constitution in 1999 and recognising local governments in the Constitution.

Originally published as Voice referendum: How QLD voted and some results will shock you