It is voters like 28-year-old Hugh Thomas who changed Queensland's political landscape at this weekend's federal election.
He lives in Clayfield, on the northern edge of the Brisbane electorate – one of three inner-city seats where the Greens are ahead in the vote count.
The Brisbane electorate has the second-highest concentration of young voters of any in the country, with 18 to 29-year-olds representing more than a quarter of electors.
Not far behind are its sister 'greenslide' seats – Griffith and Ryan — where young people occupy 24.7 per cent and 22.5 per cent of the electoral roll.
Ranking |
Electorate |
Voters aged 18-29 |
|---|---|---|
1 |
Melbourne |
26.9 per cent |
2 |
Brisbane |
25.7 per cent |
3 |
Griffith |
24.7 per cent |
4 |
Canberra |
23.1 per cent |
5 |
Ryan |
22.5 per cent |
Source: Electoral enrolment data
And while regional Queensland remains LNP heartland — accounting for 40 per cent of the Coalition's federal seats — the chasm between urban and regional voters has widened since 2019.
From blue to green
Mr Thomas, a 28-year-old engineer, voted for the LNP at the last federal election in 2019 but put the Greens first this time.
He felt the major parties were in a race to the bottom.
"They ran a very negative campaign and I had to pick somebody who was doing something positive," he said.
Mr Thomas said he felt his vote away from the major parties would still result in change.
"I hope that at the right times they'll stand up — to be honest I'll be looking more closely at whether the Labor party listens to them or not," he said.
"Ultimately I thought that if the Labor Party won enough of a majority, they would just ignore the teal independents and the Greens and I didn't want that to happen."
Griffith University political commentator Susan Harris Rimmer said young people in inner-city suburbs were on the frontline of election-defining issues.
"What's happened is two massive floods, and a community that's been pretty hard hit by COVID, especially people who rent and are in frontline jobs," she said.
Professor Harris Rimmer said the Greens took a hyper-local approach to campaigning and policy, which appealed to young voters.
LNP holds on outside south-east
In 2019, regional Queensland saw a wave of LNP support in the wake of Bob Brown's anti-coal convoy, and while it retained all its seats outside the south-east this time, many of its margins constricted.
Capricornia and Flynn both saw swings greater than 6 per cent to Labor.
"I think it's very difficult for the Nats and the Libs to shore up the heartland Queensland seats while having to get the seats they need in urban areas," Professor Harris Rimmer said.
"A lot of people in regional Queensland know a climate transition is coming — they just want to see the plan, so it's not like there's a deeper ideological divide necessarily — it's about who cares about us the most.
"People want to feel like there's real skin in the game from their politicians, so I think that is the secret to some of the success of some of the longstanding Queensland politicians up north."
'Going tooth and nail against the Greens'
In coal country, Michelle Landry is preparing for her fourth term as the Member for Capricornia, but her first in opposition.
She is ready to go in to bat for her constituents, and she sees the Greens as their biggest threat.
"We do have that divide there where we've got young people who don't understand that — they don't understand how the coal is used that is dug up in Central Queensland, and the difficulties that our farmers face.
"They need to realise that the wealth of the nation comes from the coalfields of Central Queensland, we've got the biggest amount of cattle here in the whole of Australia, there's a lot of money that comes out of Central Queensland."
