Two LNP councillors join Brisbane’s City Hall departure queue

Two senior Brisbane LNP councillors have announced they won’t contest the next election less than one year away, in the latest political shakeup of City Hall.

The latest announcement in particular, from 16-year inner-west representative Peter Matic, has the potential to open the seat up for the Greens taking.

Brisbane LNP councillors David McLachlan (Hamilton, left) and Peter Matic (Paddington, right) have joined announced they will not contest the March 2024 election, pulling the governing party into the recent round of reshuffling from Labor and the Greens. 

Both follow recent shuffling of new Labor and Greens councillors into two other wards, under rules allowing replacements by political parties – rather than byelections – within a year of the next election, with more to come.

Matic took to social media on Monday to share the news he would not seek re-election at the March 2024 vote after serving as an inner-west councillor since 2007, saying the time had been an “absolute honour”.

“This is not a decision I have made lightly,” he said. “Personally, it is time for new challenges and the opportunity to contribute in other ways.”

Councillor David McLachlan, who has held the inner-north Hamilton ward for the LNP since 2006 and was appointed the chair of council in 2021, announced last week he would not be recontesting after reflection over Easter.

“Now is the best time for a fresh face representing Hamilton Ward on the Schrinner Team in council that will help to build a better Brisbane over the next decade and beyond,” McLachlan said.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, whose party controls the most council wards, thanked both for their years of service to the city and its residents.

Both are expected to remain in their roles until a successor is appointed by their local LNP branches in an open preselection, a process likely to take a few months.

The new Greens and Labor councillors, announced by their parties in recent weeks, are expected to be sworn in early next month.

Labor’s longstanding Wynnum Manly councillor, Peter Cumming, has told News Corp he will resign later this month after a Christmas Eve drink-driving charge. His replacement is yet to be announced.

At the 2020 council elections, Matic held off significant swing to Greens challenger Donna Burns by just 311 votes in the Paddington ward – a seat reinstated as part of a redistribution in 2016.

Matic had previously represented the ward of Toowong. Both largely fall within one pocket of high Greens support which has delivered one seat in state parliament and a new federal representative last year.

McLachlan’s Hamilton ward, which he retained in 2020, is one of the LNP’s safest with more than 63 per cent of the first preference votes – but does overlap parts of the federal Brisbane seat which also went recently went Green.

The Greens are eyeing further gains in City Hall as they continue to convert support into seats across Brisbane, starting with the election of Jonathan Sriranganathan back in 2016 – who has passed his seat to arts worker and DJ Trina Massey.

In 2020, Greens candidates polled more than 20 per cent – and even 30 per cent – of the primary vote across seven of the 26 wards making up the country’s largest council.