If you are going to watch one seat in Queensland this election campaign, mark down the inner-city electorate of Brisbane. While hopeful of winning another seat or two, this electorate is the only one, at the moment, that Labor believes it will steal off the LNP.
It’s make-up is fascinating. Progressive voters, who fought early for LGBTIQA+ protections. Older voters, conservative to the bootstraps. Trendy suburbs like New Farm and Newstead. Established heritage suburbs like Windsor. The ritzy streets of Clayfield. It includes the city’s CBD, and snakes along the river from the Gateway Bridge to Milton, and then north.
It used to belong only to Labor, but a redistribution changed that, and in 2010 the LNP’s Teresa Gambaro took it off Arch Bevis, who had held it for 20 years. Since then, it’s been held by the LNP, including the incumbent Trevor Evans, Queensland’s first openly gay MP, who took over in 2016.
Canvas Brisbane voters and aircraft noise pops up as a local issue. But that’s topped by climate change, housing affordability and cost of living.
The candidates are all strong. Evans, who holds it with a 4.9% margin, is articulate and hardworking. Labor’s golden girl is Deloitte executive Madonna Jarrett. And the Greens vote will be crucial, with the party doubling its support to 22% between 2007 and 2019.
So why does Labor believe it has Brisbane “in the bag”? And why do Coalition strategists admit it will be difficult to hold, despite widespread praise for Evans?
“It’s the Morrison factor,” says a Liberal strategist.
“They just can’t stand Morrison,” says a Labor campaigner.
The Morrison factor is huge in Queensland. In city seats it’s as negative as a cold day in the South Pole, and will probably cost Evans his seat. But in rural and regional areas, the Morrison factor flips, with an approval level (according to some internal polling) almost double that of Anthony Albanese’s.
This is what drives the view that the Coalition will probably hang on to all the seats it has outside the state’s south-east. That means Queensland is unlikely to be the kingmaker on May 21; it also means the state’s galloping Greens vote might be less than expected this time around. And that may come down to the Morrison factor too.
“In Brisbane it’s about getting rid of Morrison and the best way to do that is to vote Labor,” one insider says.
Last night, on a televised Sky News debate hosted by Joe Hildebrand, voters believed Evans beat Jarrett 64% to 36%. To anyone watching, that is probably a fair mark. But that doesn’t matter when the Morrison factor comes into play.
The Liberal moderates like Evans are just window-dressing and majority-providers for the profoundly rotten Morrison-Joyce gang. They are intrinsically dishonest – pretending to be decent human beings while effectively enabling corruption and bastardry every day they sit in parliament. The sooner these existentially duplicitous minions are thrown out – whether by Greens, Labor, or Independents, the better.
A couple of unchallenged descriptors on Evans by Ms King – once again, subconsciously letting her Liberal bias shine through? Throughout his two terms, Evans has rarely (outside his own party) been described as hard-working or widely praised. He pops up at local markets close to election times and outside that is almost invisible within the electorate- many within his electorate wouldn’t know his name or his face if they walked into him on the street – unless he was surrounded by blue shirts holding out LNP flyers.
He’s just another of a small handful of “Moderate Libs” that have remained quiet as the LNP lurch further to the right. Since the Howard Scourge of moderates from the mid 90’s onward, I wonder why any would rightly join or represent a party that holds views opposed to their own more frequently than not.
Evans will struggle to be remembered come May 21, let alone missed after that.
an exercise in ideological purification that Mao would have nodded approvingly at.
Spot on Cameron, unlike Trent Zimmerman, his gay MP colleague, Evans didn’t have the courage of his convictions to cross the floor on the religious discrimination bill, nor made any significant statements regarding LNP policy on climate change, a national integrity commission and transition to renewable energy.
Maybe some see moderate Liberals as politicians who don’t say or do a lot to influence their party’s policies.
Evans, a gay man, voted for the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021:
https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/brisbane/trevor_evans/policies/198
He is invisible in the electorate. His unseating would be no loss whatsoever to the electors of Brisbane.
Why does Crikey continue to print this tory hack?
Evans is hopeless. He ran against another openly gay man from the alp when he was elected so really not a factor here. Hes been entirely absemt from the electorate outside of campaign periods. Absolitely not a ‘good lib’. Gambaro (brisbane for mafia) at least held regular public consultation on current issues.
I’ve not heard of Evan’s until now. Obviously he’s not a stand out in the Party. He’s just one of the Libs who has allowed rorting and incompetence and failure to address climate change continue these three plus years