Brisbane election shows us there’s not much joy chasing inner-city voters

It was returned with a 1.6 percent increase in the two-party preferred vote but managed to probably lose three seats and gain one in the process (We won't have final figures for some weeks, and some of the results were so close that they may not eventually be determined until all votes have been counted).

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Of those seats it seems to have lost, two went to Labor and one to the Greens. Salvageable good news for Labor you might think. Not really.

Not only do they appear to have lost the previously very safe ward of Wynnum Manly to the LNP, held at the last election by a margin of 61.4 percent, but they went down 5.6 percent on primaries across the city, while their rivals on the left, the Greens, probably took most of this, and rose by 5 percent.

First preference results were LNP 46.8 percent, ALP 27.3 percent, and Greens 22.9 percent. So not only are the Greens up, but they are closing on the ALP and were actually ahead of them on first preferences in eight wards out of 25.

These include the inner-city areas where the richest and best-educated voters live.

What does this mean for the LNP?

First is that Brisbane demonstrates the Liberal-National Coalition can hold government with a decisive margin without holding the cosmopolitan metropolitan capital city hearts. The LNP will hold somewhere around 18 wards out of a total of 25. Labor will hold six, the Greens two, and an independent one.

They've done this by appealing to middle and outer-suburban electors, mostly on their record of competence. There were no strong issues. Labor started off campaigning against the LNP for allegedly neglecting the suburbs but ended up with a negative campaign on LNP cost cutting.

The Greens campaigned on free public transport, rent freezes (that were beyond their power as a local government authority), 2,000 new pedestrian crossings, and several general development issues, like making "big developers pay their fair share," whatever that is supposed to mean.

The LNP had the benefit of incumbency and the lack of emotionally resonant issues.

Everyone wants a piece of Green

If I had to describe this council's ideology, it would be one of "lime green."

City council voters are concerned about "brown" environmental issues-municipal amenities principally rather than changing the way we live and think.