Division of Brisbane

Brisbane Australian House of Representatives Division
Map Interactive map of boundaries
Created	1901
MP	Stephen Bates
Party	Greens
Namesake	Brisbane
Electors	125,241 (2022)
Area	57 km2 (22.0 sq mi)
Demographic	Inner metropolitan

The Division of Brisbane is an Australian electoral division in the state of Queensland.

The electorate has had a large number of openly gay candidates over the years. In 2016, both major parties (the LNP and the Labor Party) fielded an openly gay candidate for the first time in Australian history. In 2022, the Greens candidate Stephen Bates, an openly gay man, defeated incumbent LNP member Trevor Evans, who is also gay.

The division was proclaimed in 1900, and was one of the original 65 divisions to be contested at the first federal election. It is named after the city of Brisbane.

It was in Labor hands for all but five years from 1931 to 2010, and for most of that time was a marginal Labor seat. However, a redistribution ahead of the 2010 election pushed the seat into more conservative-leaning territory east of Breakfast Creek. This helped Liberal Party challenger Teresa Gambaro take the seat from Labor incumbent Arch Bevis, marking the first time in over a century that Labor had been in government without holding Brisbane. She was re-elected in 2013 with an increased majority.

Gambaro did not re-contest the seat at the 2016 election. The contest was historic in that it was the first Australian federal election where both major party candidates in a lower house seat contest were openly gay – Trevor Evans for the Liberal Nationals and Pat O'Neill for Labor.^[1] Evans retained the seat for the LNP. Evans was re-elected in 2019 despite being the only incumbent Liberal National MP to suffer a swing against them at that election.

The seat of Brisbane has a growing Greens vote, with the party being only 2.12% short of overtaking the Labor Party on primary vote and thus likely entering the two-party preferred vote. The Greens won 2 booths at the 2019 federal election (Kelvin Grove and Spring Hill) and came second in a further 9 booths. The increase in the Greens vote in Brisbane has come largely at the expense of the Labor Party, with their vote having dropped by 22.47% from 1993, when the Greens first contested Brisbane, to 2019, where the Greens received 22.37% of the overall vote. In the 2022 federal election, Greens candidate Stephen Bates won the seat. The party also won the neighbouring divisions of Ryan and Griffith.^[2]

On its original boundaries, Brisbane covered all of what is now the northern part of the City of Brisbane, but successive boundary changes cut it back to the inner suburban area. However, between 1913 and 1949 the seat instead covered the inner south-west.

Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appointed by the Australian Electoral Commission. Redistributions occur for the boundaries of divisions in a particular state, and they occur every seven years, or sooner if a state's representation entitlement changes or when divisions of a state are malapportioned.^[3]

It now extends from the city centre into the western suburbs, and includes the Brisbane CBD, Alderley, Ashgrove, Bowen Hills, Clayfield, Enoggera, Ferny Grove, Fortitude Valley, Gaythorne, Grange, Herston, Kelvin Grove, Keperra, Milton, Mitchelton, New Farm, Newmarket, Newstead, Teneriffe, Red Hill, Spring Hill, Upper Kedron, Wilston, Windsor, Gordon Park, Wooloowin, Lutwyche, parts of Bardon, Everton Park, Paddington and Stafford.

In the 2009 redistribution announced by the Australian Electoral Commission, the suburbs of Hendra, Ascot and Hamilton were included in the seat of Brisbane.

	Image	Member	Party	Term	Notes
		Thomas Macdonald-Paterson (1844–1906)	Protectionist	30 March 1901 – 1903	Previously held the Legislative Assembly of Queensland seat of Brisbane North. Lost preselection and then lost seat
			Independent Protectionist	1903 – 16 December 1903
		Millice Culpin (1846–1941)	Labour	16 December 1903 – 12 December 1906	Lost seat
		Justin Foxton (1849–1916)	Anti-Socialist	12 December 1906 – 26 May 1909	Previously held the Legislative Assembly of Queensland seat of Carnarvon. Served as minister under Deakin. Lost seat
			Liberal	26 May 1909 – 13 April 1910
		William Finlayson (1867–1955)	Labor	13 April 1910 – 13 December 1919	Lost seat. Later appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council in 1920
		Donald Cameron (1879–1960)	Nationalist	13 December 1919 – 7 May 1931	Lost seat. Later elected to the Division of Lilley in 1934
			United Australia	7 May 1931 – 19 December 1931
		George Lawson (1880–1966)	Labor	19 December 1931 – 2 November 1961	Previously a member of the Queensland Legislative Council. Served as minister under Curtin. Retired. Last veteran of the Second Boer War to serve in the House of Representatives
		Manfred Cross (1929–2024)		9 December 1961 – 13 December 1975	Lost seat
		Peter Johnson (1943–)	Liberal	13 December 1975 – 18 October 1980	Lost seat
		Manfred Cross (1929–2024)	Labor	18 October 1980 – 19 February 1990	Retired
		Arch Bevis (1955–)		24 March 1990 – 19 July 2010	Lost seat
		Teresa Gambaro (1958–)	Liberal National	21 August 2010 – 9 May 2016	Previously held the Division of Petrie. Retired
		Trevor Evans (1981–)		2 July 2016 – 21 May 2022	Lost seat
		Stephen Bates (1992–)	Greens	21 May 2022 – present	Incumbent

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Primary vote results in Brisbane (Parties that did not get 5% of the vote are omitted)

  National

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Two-candidate-preferred results in Brisbane

• Division of Brisbane (Qld) – Australian Electoral Commission

27°26′17″S 153°01′41″E / 27.438°S 153.028°E / -27.438; 153.028