Review into Labor’s Brisbane City Councii Eiection Campaign 2016

Report by Elias Hallaj

■ ■ QueensiciidLabor

Rod Harding for Lord Mayor

ILL

The Review of Queensland Labor’s Brisbane City Council (BCC) campaign in 2016 was undertaken by former ACT Branch Secretary Elias Hallaj and submitted as a report to the June Administrative Committee of the Queensland Branch of the ALP.

Executive Summary4

Terms of Reference5

Submissions and interviews6

Summary of Recommendations9

Background / BCC Electoral landscape12

Core Labor message and central themes16

Preselection process17

Campaign structure and MECs19

Campaign training, planning and capacity21

Policy development23

Public opinion polls and the ward battlegrounds26

Media coverage, advertising and earned media28

Social media30

Lead-up to the formal campaign31

Key issues and Ward plans33

Formal campaign and early voting35

Final week36

Election Day38

39 Outcome

The Gabba and Northgate results and localised issues42

The emerging Green vote44

The Mayoral campaign46

Conclusions47

3.

Contents for BCC 2016 Election Campaign Review

Executive Summary

4.

Throughout this process I was impressed by the lack of finger-pointing and blame attributed by the people who participated and made submissions. This is a sign that they don’t see elections and party activity as an end in itself, but are primarily motivated by their desire to see Labor campaigns succeed and Labor policies and values promoted in government. During discussions and interviews with party members, candidates and representatives there was an overwhelming consensus that Queensland Branch officials and staff at Party Office had provided unprecedented support and assistance in this local election campaign. The overall result did not reflect the heightened focus on local campaigning in 2016 and its use as valuable campaign capacity-building platform for upcoming federal and state campaigns.

This review invited members of the party and campaign teams to reflect on their recent experience, analyse the results and make recommendations to assist future campaigns. In total there were more than 90 submissions and interviews. They all deserve thanks and acknowledgement, as do the thousands of volunteers who devoted time and effort to this and other Labor campaigns. Their continued contribution to this campaign through the review demonstrated that despite the loss and disappointment they valued the process and had faith in their party that members’ efforts are appreciated and form part of a broader purposeful consultation.

This recent acknowledgement and focus exacerbated the sense of loss and frustration from the defeat in the mayoral contest as well as seeing previously Labor- held wards go to both the LNP and Greens. For many it seemed the significant gains in many wards and the exemplary performance of many Labor candidates and campaigners was overshadowed by inexplicable losses in those three specific contests.

Over the last two years the Queensland Branch has wisely invested time in improving the skills, resourcing and coordination for its local campaign teams. Despite the disappointing result in this year’s Brisbane City Council election, there has been a perceptible increase in campaign capacity that will be available for future elections and ongoing development of policy and membership engagement.

Although Labor achieved the highest ALP 2PP Mayoral vote in 12 years the result of the 2016 Brisbane City Council campaign was very disappointing for many Labor Party members and supporters. Particularly disappointing for many was the loss of two Labor wards in circumstances where most of the campaign seemed to be progressing well for much of the formal campaign period.

There is an acknowledgement in the Queensland Branch that local government provides an important building block for our party. It's an opportunity to recruit party supporters, members and future candidates as well as improve the skills and knowledge of party members and supporters in communications, campaign techniques and policy debate and development.

But in reality all losses and wins are explainable and the wisdom of hindsight often reveals factors beyond the control of candidates and campaign directors. I believe it is important not to conflate the overall result and effort with specific results and lessons in local wards. Many people are trying to understand what happened in The Gabba and Northgate Wards and if particular and separate lessons can be drawn from individual v^/ard results as well as the mayoral campaign. There are also lessons that should be drawn from other local government contests both in Queensland and other parts of Australia. Where the ALP shows strong leadership and growth in local politics usually reflects a healthy branch network as well as state and federal contestability.

I understand that it has been several decades since an external review was undertaken of a Brisbane City Council campaign. One life member lamented that it was a brave move and "the first time in 54 years a Qld Branch Secretary sought such input from ordinary members of the ALP”. This review is another sign that the Queensland Branch takes local government very seriously. There is a clear determination to learn from this loss and apply those lessons in future to assist local government candidates and representatives as well as party members.

Terms ofReference

The review should consider:

Submissions should be made by Friday 8 April 2016.

One common explanation for the re-election of a Lord Mayor who voters were not excited or enthusiastic about was because voters feared that change would bring a hung Parliament like the OLD Parliament or a gridlock-type Canberra situation that was on show in the Senate throughout the final week of the BCC campaign, The BCC result, in particular the mayoral result, would indicate that voters opted for a stable and safe choice over any degree of uncertainty.

It would be an injustice to write anything about the 2016 Labor campaign for the Brisbane City Council without acknowledging the hard work and sacrifices of Labor's candidates, their families, supporters and volunteers as well as the dedicated leadership and staff at the OLD Branch. The result certainly did not reflect on the abilities and dedication of the Qld Branch or its membership.

The effectiveness of Labor's performance in Brisbane City Council since the 2012 election including the policy agenda, political strategy and communications

The frustration of many experienced campaigners over the disappointing result was aptly summed up by the opening line in one submission. "It was a shit-house result, but not much could be done about it in the circumstances.”

One candidate explained she "felt like I’d won the battle but lost the war, and that was very frustrating.” Like many of her colleagues she felt she and her team had run a very professional and effective campaign and they were impressed by the contagious energy and enthusiasm of Rod Harding and the head office team. However, in the end it was clear that Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, despite being ineffective, was also inoffensive enough to be re-elected.

The review will report to the May Administrative Committee (this was subsequently held over until the June Administrative Committee due to the large number of members' submissions).

The loss of Council wards and how this can be avoided in the future

Opportunities for improvements to be made for future campaigns

How the party handles the next six months will lay the groundwork for the next BCC campaign. There is a strong hope amongst many of the contributors to this Review that the hard work over the past 12-18 months will be backed-in and reinforced with a sound strategy and plan for the next BCC campaign.

Following the fourth successive defeat of Labor in the Brisbane City Council elections, Queensland Labor will conduct a review of our election campaign and our performance in Council since 2012.

The review will seek submissions from Councillors, Party members and affiliated unions. The Panel will also consult with key community stakeholders and supporters.

The effectiveness in Labor’s 2016 BCC election campaign including strategy, communications, organising and research

The review will be undertaken by former ACT Branch Secretary Elias Hallaj.

SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED FROM

SwanWayne

Soorley 'Jim

DickMilton

Yeronga - :BoyneKen -

MoorheadEvan

PersleyJon >

TradJackie

Humphreys Campaign Coordinator .Sharon

BirdJohn

NeameSharon

Mike Kaiser

Wood ' ■Jaxen

HardingRod

HampsteadBrentCouncillor, MorningsideSuttonShayne

-3^

Candidate, Marchant Stephanie Serhan

Former Member for BrisbaneBevisArch

Candidate, The GapBevis

ROLE/POSITION/PARTY UNITSURNAMEFIRST NAME

Whenever possible the reviewer has not identified people who are quoted. The reality is much of the sentiment was repeated by several (and in some cases most) of the submissions which were made). Most contributors appreciated the opportunity to continue participating in a largely positive campaign, despite the disappointing results. Direct quotes are often used where an individual submission has captured the sentiment of several Interviews and written submissions.

Typical submissions began with very positive sentiments such as one “thanking Queensland Labor officials for initiating an independent review into the 2016 Brisbane City Council Election campaign and for the opportunity to contribute. This review and the reforms that will hopefully stem from it are vital if Labor is to learn the lessons of what was ultimately a devastating election result.”

Another submission stated "I acknowledge the work and energy that the Secretary, Evan Moorhead, and his capable team too numerous to mention who gave to the administration and funding of the campaign. I also wish to acknowledge numerous federal candidates and staff and their commitment to the campaign when they were anxious to focus on Federal issues in an important year for them.”

Branch Secretary

Assistant Branch Secretary

Ex State Secretary, Lilley MP

Ex Mayor, New Farm Branch y

Ex BCC Caucus Leader

Shane j6.

AcknowledgementsInterviews and submissions were concentrated around mid-April. A large number of people contributed to this Review with either a written submission or interview and in several cases both. The credit for initiating and administrating this Review should go to the QLD Branch Party office as well as to each person and group which made a submission or stepped forward to be interviewed. Much of the content is largely from those submissions and interviews.

Deputy Premier, MP South Brisbane

-H

Chairman Labor Holdings

Branch Executive Officer

Former Party SecretaryBranch Digital Organise'^^^HBBHH

Mayoral Candidate

Media Adviser .•

7.

Helen Abrahams Former Councillor, The Gabba

Nicole Lessio Candidate, The Gabba

Hayden Schofield Gabba Campaign Director

Elly Desmarchelier Gabba Campaign Manager

Amber Hawkins Candidate for Central Ward

Kim Flesser Former Councillor, Northqate__

Peter Cumming Councillor, Wynnum Manly

Stanley Hsu Candidate, Runcorn

Jared Cassidy Councillor, Deagon

Jeanette Temperley Organiser

Lucy Collier Organiser

Gerry Steel Organiser

Adam Obeid Candidate, Holland Park

Jeff Eelkema Candidate, Paddington

Janine Aitken Organiser

Josh Millroy Organiser

Dee Madigan Advertising Campaign

Steve Griffiths Councillor, Moorooka

Cath Palmer Candidate, Bracken Ridge

Charles Strunk Councillor, Forest Lake

Matthew Campbell Candidate, Coorparoo

Stella Rey Marchant Campaign

Mark Woodley Kurilpa Branch

John Campbell Doboy Campaign

John Kelly Aspley Branch

Simon Dilly Salisbury Branch

Leslie Shannon Yeronga

Peter Henneken West End

Anne Maree Sleat Brisbane

Ashwina Gotame Sunnybank Central

Christopher McLeod Aspley Branch

Clare Grant Nundah

Clifford Braddon Gabba

Dean Hopton Coopers Plains

Frank Carroll Yeronga .

Jaak Mardiste Runcorn-Kuraby

James Sparkes Nudgee Banyo

8.

Jason McCubbin Sanyo

John Laing • The Gap

Ken Fuller Lytton

Les Bryant Inala Branch

Lucy Cameron West End

Lyne Fomiatti Lytton

Maureen Neems Sandgate

Maxim Otten-Kamp Wynnum/Waterloo

Owen Wareham Stafford

Tony Cook Brisbane

Michael Kolmet Pullenvale

Ross Williams Ferny Grove

Peter Whittle Greenslopes

Trevor Jones Mitchelton

Noel Murphy Fortitude Valley

Sharyn Morrow Stretton

Therese O'Driscoll Banyo

Nathan Seng Redcliffe

Wilma James Algester

Pauline McLaughlin Manly

Don Willis Carina-Carindale

David Shankey South Brisbane

Lisa O'Donnell Greenslopes

Alan Snow Cannon Hill - Morningside

Alan Taylor Walter Taylor Branch

Gayle Dallaston Aspley Branch

Jacqueline Schneider Annerley Branch

John Waight Paddington Branch

Kerry Hackett Wynnum/Waterloo

Kerryn Loose Jones Candidate Doboy

Philip Anthony Candidate Hamilton

Reg Neil Candidate Northgate

Terry Sullivan Chermside Kedron Branch

Lord Mayoral campaign and Councillors.

2. Effectiveness of the 2016 BCC campaign

«

Provide more ongoing direct media support to the 9.

LNP promises should be monitored and campaign plans put in place now for BCC councillors and MFCs to gather the information required to hold the Mayor and BCC to account, (2.2)

Provide earlier media training and support for preselected candidates. (8.2)

Set up monitoring of LNP Councillors social media activity, particularly potential successors of the current Lord Mayor, (9.1)

The Party Rules should require MFCs to meet regularly and where they are defunct they should be actively resuscitated and supported by local state and federal representative and other party units. (4,1)

Labor's BCC Campaign in 2016 was the most well- resourced and well-regarded BCC campaign for many years, with unprecedented support from full-time campaign organisers and other staff in Party Office. The research and communications support was in many ways unprecedented for a local government campaign. However, the Review identified simple misunderstanding amongst some campaigners of basic campaign techniques, indicating not all participants understood the strategies being employed by the campaign leadership. There is a large scope for continuing to refine the use of research, training and organising techniques, particularly with emerging technologies, to place the Party in a stronger position for future campaigns.

All the materials used during BCC campaigns by all parties should be stored in a secure archive for future reference and possible use by future campaign directors. (5.2)

1. Effectiveness of Labor’s performance in Brisbane City Council since 2012

Plans should be put in place to attempt to provide future BCC candidates and their teams the same high levels of professional support and training they received in 2016. (3.2)

To address some of the systemic disadvantages of Oppositions in holding BCC administrations to account, it would be worth having a 'root and branch’ review of the legislation governing Brisbane City Council, (6.4)

The BCC Labor team continue to place a premium on quality earned media coverage and where possible other Party units provide support and assistance to monitor and support an ongoing media strategy for BCC Councillors and campaigners. (8.1)

A BCC policy development strategy should be discussed and implemented by the end of 2016.(6.1)

Invest in more training for Councillors and development of targeted social media campaigning techniques to prepare for the next BCC campaign. (8.3)

Labor’s Caucus performed well since 2012 in difficult circumstances. In many ways their hands were tied behind their backs by restrictive rules and fewer resources than the incumbent Mayor and his Councillors. However, the Review identifies steps which can be taken to ensure that in future Labor’s local government team in Brisbane might be better prepared and equipped for the very difficult challenge of unseating incumbents in local government campaigns.

• Set up and maintain a good data base of local issues and local commitments that the opposition and potential candidates in non-held wards can still run on this term. (11.1)

• The Call Centre should be maintained as a permanent fixture and resource within Party Office and utilised by Councillors as well as MPs and Senators and volunteers on a regular basis for mini­campaigns around various issues of importance to Labor voters. (5.3)

Summary of key recommendationsThe body of the Review explains the following recommendations in more detail and in the context of the various stages of Labor’s BCC campaign. However, it is valuable to consider the individual recommendations in the context of the Terms Of Reference. Each of the recommendations below is followed by a number indicating the chapter in which it is found;

10.

Labor should adopt as a standard operating procedure the LNP tactic of replacing retiring Councillors at the 12-month mark to enable adequate succession planning and engagement with the community by new Councillors. (15.1)All the research used during BCC campaigns should

be stored in a secure archive for future reference and use by future campaign directors. (7.2)

Continue investing in an ongoing campaign training programs for all party members utilising best practice in Queensland and existing experienced campaigners and trainers from across the state and around Australia. (10.2)

Consideration should be given to distributing more material which targets preferences before and during election day. (14.2)

Invest in more doorknocking and phoning training for party members and BCC Councillors and development of targeted grassroots and community campaigning techniques to prepare for the next BCC campaign. (10.1)

Consider utilising webinars and other new training techniques to improve campaign skills sharing and development across the state. (10.3)

Explain the purpose and effect of running targeted postal vote campaigns to all Councillors and campaigners. Some teams will require more training and support than others. (12.1)

Succession planning must be taken seriously and potential candidates in each key ward should be spoken to early and assisted in developing a community profile before being endorsed as candidates. (15.2)

Local MFCs assisted by other party units should be maintained in all Wards and in particular both The Gabba and Northgate Wards. (16.2)

3. The loss of Council Wards and how this can be avoided

A closer review of the research conducted in several recent interstate and Qld local, state and federal campaigns should be made. Recommendations about methodology, accuracy and strategy of past and current research should be provided to assist in designing the research plan for the next BCC campaign to ensure best practices are considered and utilised were they can be afforded. (7.1)

Labor should continue to utilise the first and final 72 hours of any campaign to frame the key themes and differentiate the two parties. Labor should continue to plan to use this time to remind voters about key issues and maintain campaign momentum through media events and voter contact at the local level. (13.1)

Provide regular annual training in using Campaign Central to run targeted campaigns with limited resources. (12.2)

The results in the two wards which Labor lost can be explained partially by localised factors and would require a targeted and localised strategy to regain in future elections. (16.1)

Qld Labor should work closely with other Labor campaigners in jurisdictions with strong or emerging Green Party votes to ascertain which localised strategy will be most suited in the various BCC Wards and during the Mayoral campaign in 2020. (171)

The Party should conduct preselections between18 and 12 months prior to elections as a matter of course unless there are exceptional circumstances.(3.1)

An unprecedented level of training, support and information was provided in this BCC campaign and the Party should continue to look for more ways of sharing best practice between campaign teams and continue to provide support to any inexperienced or new campaigners in preparation for election day.(14.1)

Labor’s loss of two Wards in 2016 was very disappointing and detracted from improvements and successful swings towards Labor in the Mayoral contest and other Wards. The losses can be at last partly explained by several localised factors, such as the failure to utilise the opportunity to retire incumbents in time to allow new Councillors to establish themselves and develop closer ties to the community prior to the election campaign.

NEW ENERGY

Ensure sitting members are proactively inviting candidates to represent or accompany them to community/local events and meetings (10.4)Party Officers should provide continuous grassroots

campaign training for MFCs, party activists and potential candidates. (5.1)

The Party should organise and conduct an annual conference or seminar which focuses on the importance and value of local government

The experience of key personnel in the 2016 BCC campaign should be utilised .as soon as practical to start the policy development, party debate and community consultations for the next BCC campaign. (2.1)

A BCC Strategy Group should be set up and start meeting at least two years prior to the next election. (6.2)

The BCC Strategy group should liaise with MECs and Councillors to coordinate policy development prior to the next election. (6.3)

Maintain a spotlight on the fact that the LNP has saddled Brisbane with a very large debt and remind people how this affects ratepayers and what Labor will do about it in the future. (11.2)

and allows best practice in local government and grassroots campaigning to be shared and promoted within the party. This could potentially become a national event hosted by the Queensland Branch and a national network of local government campaign skills and expertise that could be utilised in future BCC election campaigns. (4.2)

4. Opportunities for improvements for future campaigns

Labor's BCC campaign was very well run on multiple levels. The Review provided a valuable opportunity to encourage experienced Party campaigners to suggest ways that the party can continue to develop its campaigning capacity and its utilisation of grassroots community campaign techniques in future elections and policy development.

G

minority government, and at the start of a federal election year, the results in Brisbane will be watched for state and federal implications.

"The administration of LNP Lord Mayor Graham Quirk was favoured to win re-election, but the question is how much Labor's vote will recover from the depths it plumbed in 2012. In the Lord Mayoral contest in 2012, Quirk polled 61.9% of the first preference vote, up 1.9 percentage points on Newman’s 2008 result, and 68.5% after preferences (+2.4). Labor's Lord Mayoral Candidate Ray Smith polled 25.2% (-3.8), Green Andrew Bartlett 10.7% (+2.3) while two other candidates polled 2.2%. The LNP won 18 Council seats, gaining three wards from Labor but unable to recover Tennyson ward from LNP turned Independent councillor Nicole Johnston.

“Although there have been no by-elections since 2012, two casual vacancies have been filled in the last twelve months. In Deagon ward, long serving Labor councillor Victoria Newton retired and was replaced by Jared Cassidy, In The Gap Ward, eighteen-year Liberal/LNP veteran Geraldine Knapp has been replaced by Steven Toomey. Both Cassidy and Toomey will face their first elections as councillors in 2016. Four councillors are not re-contesting. Having represented areas covered by ultra-safe Pullenvale ward for the LNP since 1997, Margaret de Wit will be retiring at the 2016 election. Three long serving Labor councillors are retiring, Helen Abrahams in The Gabba, Kim Flesser in Northgate, and current Labor opposition leader Milton Dick, whose safe Labor ward of Richlands has been abolished, though the new Forest Lake ward is a notional Labor ward. After two terms on council, Dick has been chosen by Labor to contest the local seat of Oxley at this year's federal election. Given that sitting councillors have significant personal following, all six of the above wards are likely to have their results influenced by the departure of sitting members.”

"Four years have passed since the 2012 victory and much has happened in state and federal politics. Graham Quirk has outlasted three Prime Ministers as well as the political highs and lows of Campbell Newman’s premiership. Despite his massive state victory in 2012, Newman lost his seat at the January2015 state election as the LNP’s massive majority was wiped out. When Graham Quirk was elected Lord Mayor in 2012, no one would have foreseen that Annastacia Palaszczuk would be Labor Premier of Queensland in 2016. With Queensland governed by

12.

A brief history and background to the current BCC ElectorallandscapeA good background summary to the 2016 Brisbane City Council Elections is available on many public websites, including the ABC. "Brisbane City Council is Australia's largest local government body and was created in the 1920s by the amalgamation of areas from 20 local authorities. It was the only success for Australian proponents of 'greater city’ councils. The Council has control over a number of services that in other states are run by state government. This includes Brisbane City Council having much greater involvement in public transport, traffic management and in the development of major road projects. Brisbane electors have two votes, one for a local ward Councillor and a second for the Lord Mayor. Voting for both is by optional preferential voting, as used at Queensland and NSW state elections. The average enrolment in Brisbane wards for the 2016 election will be just under 28,000, making them around the same size as Queensland state electorates.”

"Unlike other local government bodies in Queensland, the contest in Brisbane has direct involvement from political parties, and the party contest for control of Brisbane City Council has been a continuing theme in Queensland political history. The Council’s administration and budget is controlled by the popularly elected Lord Mayor. The Council executive is composed of the Lord Mayor and the councillors who chair the six major council committees. The executive operates like a Cabinet, and in another similarity with parliamentary systems, the Council recognises the position of Opposition Leader.

25% H

20%

ALP Gains Majority 4

h 15% H

Ir

T

13.

LABOR

JScWands p»cy \J3

lhe Gabba (Abfahams) 9J

MooiDofca fGriffilhs) ag

F

The Pendulum following the 2012 BCC election showed what a difficult and large task lay ahead of the Labor team in 2016. What made this monumental task seem smaller than it actually was where recent volatile results at the federal and state elections where massive and unusual swings in individual seats gave the false impression that contested elections normally feature huge swings. That is not the reality in most tightly fought contests. Unless there is a significant mood for change, most incumbent governments do not suffer very large swings and in 2016 some people temporarily lost sight of that political reality.

10% - 4

o9 A4*

I

5%

K 1

(>

LNP & Others3M

lanixxee Ipouttel

IM Omflei SSchrinoei)

3S& Walter Ts/Iot {Smunornds!

24524.4

Uac^egot (hhians) Hamtem ^4dachbn)

214 McOowall [Windham?

212 Wsharl (Adams)

215 TfieGapfltnapp)215 Sracken HidgB (CoofKi}

175158162

ParWnstxiMarhantCKin^Kaiawalfa

1S5 Enoggera

123 Toowofig (Matkl

11.0 Hctowl Parfl piteKenaeJ

8.6 CeiwaltHawanft

.;,72r TsnrqntxiCkisBioi^..

LNP 18ALP 7IND 1

26

20121st PrefLNP 57-0%ALP 32.4%GRN 8.1%IND 2.5%

Our Lord Mayoral candidate did extremely well in limited time. The fact that Rod had so little political experience as a candidate yet launched from zero existing profile to a serious contender in such a short time spoke volumes about his ability and work ethic.

There are systemic disadvantages for Labor built into BCC resources and processes such as access to audit information and scrutiny of cabinet decisions. It might be worth having a 'root and branch' review of the Local Government Act to level the playing field and introduce more accountability of the BCC and other councils.

Ben Rau wrote in his blog The Tally Room of the large swings in two clusters of wards that would be required to bring about a change in the BCC majority.

If anything, recent political instability across Queensland and Australia has shifted the advantage towards steady and predictable government. Unless there is an obvious scandal, few voters will be clamouring for change. Remarkably, despite historical difficulties in passing referendums, the referendum on 4-year terms passed easily and was not torpedoed by an anti-politician sentiment but propelled forward by a desire for more longer-term stability.

Although some Labor Councillors had done some significant policy development work prior to the election year, more needs to be done in future to highlight and campaign around key policy issues prior to the formal campaign period, especially if we expect to effectively criticise lacklustre decisions of LNP incumbents and convince voters of a need for change.

an ex-LNP independent holds one. If the LNP loses six seats, they will lose their majority and Labor will hold half of the wards. The first six wards on the pendulum are in two clusters.”

However, in early March 2016, the stability of the State Labor government was put at risk with the resignation of a Member of Parliament from the ALP. The simultaneous brawl in the Australian Senate in the first few months of 2016 was not seen as a power grab by the Coalition Government and the Greens but rather as another example of a dysfunctional federal Parliament that wasn’t putting in place the long term plans for the future.

"In the inner north-west of Brisbane, the LNP holds the wards of Central, Enoggera and Paddington. There have been huge cumulative swings to the LNP in two of these wards over the last two elections; 24.7% in Enoggera and 17% in Central. Enoggera overlaps with Campbell Newman’s former seat of Ashgrove, which saw a big swing to the LNP in 2012 (shortly before the council election), and a big swing back in 2015. The LNP also gained Brisbane Central at the 2012 state election and lost it in 2015. Enoggera was won by the Liberal Party in 2008, and the LNP then won Central in 2012. Paddington covers an area that has traditionally been the Liberal ward of Toowong, but was redrawn In 2008 in a way that would have made the ward more Labor­friendly in past years. All three of these inner north­west wards require large swings to change hands, but we have seen swings of that magnitude at the last two elections.”

"Doboy has swung a lot less than other Brisbane wards, but could still easily flip back to Labor. Coorparoo is a new ward, taking in large parts of Holland Park. If the swings of 2008 and 2012 were reversed, the LNP's 13.6% margin could be overturned. Holland Park has shifted south, taking large parts of Wishart. Holland Park’s 10% margin compares to swings of 8% to the LNP in both 2008 and 2012.”

“The Liberal National Party currently holds eighteen wards on Brisbane City Council, Labor holds seven and

14.

"The other three key wards are in the south-east, including Coorparoo, Holland Park and Doboy. Doboy is the only LNP ward on a genuinely slim margin, with the LNP defending a 1.8% margin.”

One review submission wrote "Although we lost I saw a lot of positive efforts and lessons learnt and Labor should be proud of the mayoral campaign in particular. We now have a solid base of knowledge, experienced people and resources for the next campaign and should maintain it.”

23.5

15.

23.724.825.126.832.7

Posted by Antony Green on December 14, 2015 at 05:31 PM in Brisbane City Council I Permalink

The following table (via an Antony Green post-2015 distribution blog post) demonstrates the enormous task that was ahead in the 2016 BCC election.

Pct5.8

MarchantCalamvaleThe GapJamboreeBracken RidgeMcDowallWalter Taylor (20.9% v GRN)HamiltonMacgregorChandlerPullenvale (31.0% v GRN)

Independent Wards (1)WardTennyson (v LNP)

2015 Brisbane City Council Electoral Pendulum (following redistributions)

LNP Wards (18) Labor Wards (7)Ward Pct Ward PctDoboy 3.5 Northgate 0.4Holland Park 8.8 Wynnum Manly 0.7Central 9.4 Deagon 5.2Paddington 11.8 Forest Lake 5.3Coorparoo 12.1 Morningside 6.0Enoggera 14.2 The Gabba 8.3Runcorn 16.3 Moorooka 10.7

Recommendations

16.

2.1 The experience of key personnel in the 2016 BCC campaign should be utilised as soon as practical to start the policy development, party debate and community consultations for the next BCC campaign.

Examples were provided for candidates of the type of local campaigns they could run and how to work with their organisers and the state party office to conduct campaign activities around different local issues.

Some candidates utilised this advice well and some didn’t need it as they had already set up and were running local issue-based campaigns, and in some cases candidates were already running community campaigns prior to preselection.

Rod’s integrated traffic and transport plan would tackle Brisbane’s worsening congestion by fixing local hotspots, and by increasing public transport patronage with new and better bus services and his visionary light rail. Rod's Seven Point Planning Guarantee would restore confidence in the development process and manage Brisbane’s growth in a sustainable way. All this whilst the Lord Mayor offered nothing to ease congestion but a fraudulent Metro.

The message about Rod Harding was he doesn’t come from the usual political background, and that’s a good thing. He’s a lawyer, he’s run his own small business and was a senior executive in Australia’s largest investment bank. This experience has taught Rod what it takes to get results. He’s never been afraid to get in there, roll up his sleeves and get the job done. The same will apply as Lord Mayor, whether it’s fixing a pensioner’s footpath, working to bring more business and jobs to Brisbane or making sure that we’re making progress on congestion and public transport.

Labor’s campaign message for the March 19 BCC election was that the people of Brisbane face a clear choice between a Mayor with no record of achievement, who doesn’t have a vision of the city; and Rod Harding who has an integrated traffic and transport plan to tackle congestion, is ready to properly manage growth and the new energy it takes to deliver for the city.

Both traffic congestion and planning/development served as two issues which drove policy development and campaign tactics. For example. Bad Development forums were held in various wards in 2015 and were used to raise Rod Harding’s profile and get local campaigns off the ground. These themes also served to provide some guidance around local campaigning and voter contact activities such as letter box drops, doorknocking, phone calls, public meetings and then media.

2.2 LNP promises should be monitored and campaign plans put in place now for BCC councillors and MFCs to gather the information required to hold the Mayor and BCC to account.

The core Labor message and central themes

Preselection process

“In all circumstances, the retiring Labor Councillors failed to undertake any kind of succession planning. They also remained in Council until the completion of the term, rather than taking the opportunity to retire 12 months before the election to allow for their replacements to establish themselves in their communities. Due to the acknowledged “power of incumbency" factor at local government level, I believe this failure to successful succession plan is they key factor in the loss of these seats. I also believe Labor would have retained most, if not all, of these seats if these transitions been more appropriately managed."

“There are two circumstances of Labor held wards being retained where retiring Councillors completed the four-year term, however on both occasions the margins within these wards were severely diminished. Morningside Ward in 2004 (Margin at retirement was 15%, reduced to 4%) and Richlands Ward in 2016 (Margin at retirement was 17.7%, reduced to 5.31%)”.

Through a series of campaign briefings and the employment of full-time organisers to look after different wards, head office ensured candidates were better-prepared for this campaign than many previous BCC campaigns.

Many submissions to the review suggested it would be better to get preselections out of the way even earlier in future. One submission wrote “With the eight-year cycle to re-distributions there needs to be two distinct processes. For the next term we could probably get away with not having candidates endorsed until 2018. For the following term, with a redistribution to take place, that process will need to have the likelihood of changed boundaries in mind so that candidates may have to cope with those changes. To leave it open until after the entire redistribution would create the situation we had this time around where late endorsement meant candidates had too little time to get officially into the field. There is a need to have a Ward spokesperson in place even if they do not have any intention of seeking candidacy.”

It was explained in one submission how the loss of The Gabba Ward and Northgate Ward was probably predictable in 2016, given similar losses in the past where incumbents had not retired earlier.

As they were preselected, candidates were provided with a free starter pack and useful information to enable them to 'hit the ground running'.

One Councillor repeated the truism of all campaigns “You always run out of time and money, so at least if we preselect earlier we’ll have more time!"

Several submissions focussed in on the suggestion that succession plans needed to be refined to take advantage of incumbency in the election cycle for newer councillors.

"Labor lost The Gabba Ward (9.76%) and Northgate Ward (0.36%) when Helen Abrahams and Kim Flesser retired. In 2012, Labor lost Central Ward (0.3%) and Karawatha (1.5%) when David Hinchliffe and Gail Macpherson chose to retire in these marginal seats. In 2008, Labor lost Enoggera Ward (9.5%) and Acacia Ridge Ward (3.8%) with the retirement of Anne Bennsion and Kevin Bianchi in marginal seats. (* Note in the 2008 election, Acacia Ridge was replaced by Parkinson Ward in the redistribution, however the bulk of the area was the same constituency).’’

One wrote “Councillors, factions and the party generally has failed appallingly at succession planning for Council wards and this has led to our diminished numbers in BCC over a sustained period.”

In two circumstances where retiring Councillors left Council within the twelve months before the election to allow a new Councillor to establish themselves, the results indicate the reduced swings against the new Councillor which undoubtedly played a role in retaining these wards. For example, in Moorooka Ward Mark Bailey retired in 2003, and was replaced with Steve Griffiths (6.6%) who won the subsequent 2004 election. In Deagon Ward the incumbent Councillor Victoria Newton retired in 2015 (5.61%), to be replaced with Jared Cassidy (3.75%) who also went on to retain the seat.

It is important to note, this is not just about retaining wards, it is also about ensuring future leaders, talented key contributors and strategic campaigners are pre­selected for the wards where retirements are occurring.

17.

Several submissions mentioned sentiments like this one "there should not be preselections for candidates in the final six weeks of the campaign. It is far too late. They should be talking to voters around a year before the election date, or at a bare minimum six months.”

Recommendations

18.

One contributor wrote “Labor’s Lord Mayor Candidate Rod Harding is a highly qualified, dedicated and driven person, Rod was the perfect candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane, His profile increased quite significantly towards the last 2 months of the campaign. He achieved popularity in independent polling, which unfortunately didn’t convert into actual votes.”

Another submission wrote “Our ward results demonstrated the need for proactive succession planning! A good example is Deagon Ward where Cr Victoria Newton handed over to Cr Jared Cassidy 6 months out before the election. This gives the incoming councillor an opportunity to write a letter, visit events in an official capacity and call every organisation as the “Councillor” for the ward. As for Northgate and The Gabba if they had followed a similar succession plan it may have resulted in a different outcome. Although this is speculative in nature, any amount of time as an incumbent ingrains you in the community giving you further opportunity to capitalise on a swing towards the ALP, which didn’t happen in Northgate and The Gabba,”

The future of Labor in City Hall depends on senior members of the party ensuring talented people can be recruited into Council to rebuild the team for the future.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was suggested Labor allowed the redistribution process to interfere with and delay some candidate preselections. Some candidates were ready to start earlier than when their preselections took place. Some candidates have indicated they would be happy being preselected 18 months before the election date. This would give them an opportunity to develop campaign teams and capacity much earlier and personally meet many more constituents. Earlier preselections could also allow more competitive preselections and better vetting of candidates.

The earlier selection of candidates in some non-held wards would have assisted with the engagement of the Lord Mayoral candidate in campaign activities in these wards. The redistribution did impact on the earlier completion of the party’s pre-selection processes in some wards and. without local candidates in the field for him to work with, may have contributed to a lower Lord Mayoral vote.

One observer lamented regarding proper succession planning “no Labor Councillor or faction has played a positive role in this way for at least a decade.” This is disputable, but it is indicative of the frustration felt my many party members about this issue.

One Councillor advised “Potential candidates should be in the field as soon as possible irrespective on elections in other tiers of government. They should come from existing community groups or become active within a number of high profile groups at least 18 months out from the election.”

3.1 The Party should conduct preselections between 18 and 12 months prior to elections as a matter of course unless there are exceptional circumstances.One campaign stated its concern regarding gender

balance in the preselection process, both during selection panel interviews and in the number of women finally pre-selected as candidates. They also expressed concern that the campaign reviewer was male.

In contrast the preselection of Labor’s mayoral candidate received widespread endorsement and praise.

3.2 Plans should be put in place to attempt to provide future BCC candidates and their teams the same high levels of professional support and training they received in 2015.

Campaign structure and MECs

19.

One submission wrote a typical acknowledgement: "Many others deserve thanks for their efforts in this year’s campaign. The result didn’t reflect how much the support from party office had improved. Evan did a great job in raising the profile and importance of the BCC effort this year and his staff and Sharon Humphreys also deserve recognition for playing a central role.”

One wrote "Evan is the most consultative Party Secretary I have ever worked with”.

By all accounts the central Campaign Strategy Team was comprised of a good mix of seasoned and experienced hands. One review contribution wrote: “The biggest challenge with such groups is often balancing size and numbers with the need to keep deliberations and meetings focussed, constructive and relatively short. Most importantly, decisions need to be made efficiently in order to focus limited time and resources on campaign outcomes."

Another experienced campaigner wrote: “The 2016 campaign was the most disciplined campaign I have ever been involved with.”

In discussing the balance between the ward and mayoral campaigns, one submission stressed: "Finally, credit must go to Labor Lord Mayoral Candidate Rod Harding. Without his work ethic, message discipline and leadership, we would not have achieved the swing in the Lord Mayoral vote that we did.” ■

Several submissions suggested ongoing MECs might be able to address the severe limitation of BCC Councillors’ resources in comparison to the Mayor's office.

Many contributions praised the unusually high focus of party office and specific campaign systems on this BCC campaign. Someone wrote “Queensland Branch Party Office devoted a lot of time and energy to assist with the 2016 BCC campaign and that should be commended.”

The Party Secretary and Campaign Director Evan Moorhead, and Deputy Campaign Director Jon Persley were regularly singled out for praise and thanks in numerous submissions.

Campaign Coordinator Sharon Humphreys was seen by many to play a critical role in the party office for this campaign and also repeatedly acknowledged and thanked in numerous submissions.

Another said “In my view, the 2016 Council Campaign received the best support from ALP headquarters I have ever experienced. It stands in stark contrast to past campaigns. Evan Morehead as State Secretary should be commended for his clear and calm leadership of the campaign and of the strategy group generally.”

Constructive advice was given regarding the need to explain the strategy and relationship between the various demands of campaigning. It was clear from the experienced submissions and corporate knowledge contained in them that the party would benefit from a more regular review and discussion around the “coordination between the mayoral campaign strategy and ward campaigns”.

Several submissions hoped for some continuing investment in central coordination and policy development support. One wrote "Party Office require expending some ongoing organisation and co­ordination, for keeping the MECs alive. MECs could help store and retain important local campaign intelligence and knowledge between BCC elections.”

“Sharon Humphreys should also be commended for her methodical and strategic co-ordination role she played across a wide range of areas including: - working with organisers and candidates on local campaigns, ensuring policy development, local election commitments and commitment costings were being appropriately tracked and progressed in a timely manner, and recording the key decisions of strategy and working groups to ensure they were actioned. Without her, the campaign may have experienced more fragmentation and communication issues.”

One reviewer wrote "There needs to be more clarity around the space between the mayoral campaign and local ward campaigns. There should be an understanding of the priority of the mayoral campaign and how ward campaigns should be leveraging off it and supporting it. Because incumbent Councillors are hard to beat, unless there is a landslide we're more likely to elect a Labor Mayor before we get a majority of wards.”

Recommendations

4.1 The Party Rules should require MECs to meet regularly and where they are defunct they should be actively resuscitated and supported by local state and federal representative and other party units.

Some submissions thanked Party Office for the additional resources they were provided in 2015 but also asked why it wasn’t a regular occurrence: "Local government is undervalued by too many party members and although party office did commit more resources this year there still needs to be a cultural shift in the party towards taking local government more seriously and professionally."

One wrote “MECs were let go after 2012 but we should have kept them going and built up some practical exercises and efforts and at least quarterly meetings. Even outside of BCC they should be a vehicle for identifying local heroes to run as Labor candidates so that Labor voters know who to support, otherwise we’re training voters to vote independent instead of voting for our party, its values and candidates that support those values."

One submission wrote “Candidate selection will need to be rigorous to ensure we don’t have our own Ashley Higgins moment, always a possibility these days,” referring to a Liberal National Party council candidate who had been forced out of the party and withdrawn from the election race amid allegations he sent explicit images to a teenage boy in 2011.

As part of the MEC and ongoing local government policy-development process, consideration might be given to conducting city-wide “mini-campaigns” around one or two key local government issues, particularly in years where there are no federal, state or local government campaigns scheduled.

4.2 The Party should organise and conduct an annual conference or seminar which focuses on the importance and value of local government and allows best practice in local government and grassroots campaigning to be shared and promoted within the party. This could potentially become a national event hosted by the Queensland Branch and a national network of local government campaign skills and expertise that could be utilised in future BCC election campaigns.

ft..

21.

The ward allocation listed below was amended as one organiser subsequently became a candidate, however it shows the logical allocation of wards based on regional association. This distribution of organisers’ focus seemed to work well and should be repeated.

One campaigner wrote “One aspect of the campaign system that needs tweaking is the formal clearance process. There were a few instances of candidates making statements without proper clearance. Although they were not significant commitments it could become a bigger problem in the future."

Although the campaign did receive unprecedented resources there were clearly some timing challenges. One submission mentioned “The CampaignCoordinator position (filled by Sharon Humphreys) made a huge difference to the coordination and follow- through but she was appointed in September, when the Lord Mayoral campaign began in March.”

One observer said “There weren’t many mistakes in the campaign, in fact there were some great investments in people and training which are now assisting with the federal campaign and have built the party’s campaign capacity across the board and will continue to act as building blocks in the future."

The call centre which was set up early in the campaign and used by candidates and organisers and volunteers was highly regarded. There was plenty of support from staff and excellent training provided to candidates and volunteers. This continues to be a very effective resource for the federal election campaign by organisers, candidates and volunteers.

One candidate wrote “Sharing knowledge and resources between campaigns is of upmost importance. Party office provided campaigns with an abundance of standardised material at the beginning and throughout the campaign. The weekly conference calling and Tuesday afternoon phone briefings by Party Office and Rod Harding was an excellent use of technology and time. It ensured everyone was receiving the same information through multiple channels, so nothing was missed.” Another candidate wrote "The party did well in resourcing the BCC campaign this year but their needs to be an ongoing and early support for campaigning on issues that will help us win wards and win the mayoralty in future.”

The Queensland Branch has amongst its ranks a large number of successful local campaigners and many examples of good outcomes in local government campaigns, such as the great result this year for the Labor team in Townsville. At least once a year Queensland could initiate a Labor Local Government seminar or webinar during which experienced local councillors and experts in media, grassroots campaign techniques and fundraising could share ideas and best practice between Labor teams. This could potentially become a regular national forum in which Queensland is seen to be taking the lead.

Qne experienced campaigner wrote "We should always recommend more local campaigning”, but admitted “there was not a lot I would do differently to what we did in 2016.”

Campaign planning, training and capacity building

Recommendations

22.

Some organisers noted that candidates came to the campaign with vastly different levels of experience and skills. It would have been desirable to give them all more training and practice in relevant campaigning and communications skills but this would only be practical with earlier preselections. Some candidates may have also benefited from basic management-style training such as time/priority/diary training, communication skills and developing more effective strategies.

5.3 The Call Centre should be maintained as a permanent fixture and resource within Party Office and utilised by Councillors as well as MPs and Senators and volunteers on a regular basis for mini-campaigns around various issues of importance to Labor voters.One organiser mentioned that earlier preselections

would not only allow better training and skills development for both organisers and candidates but it would also allow more audits and performance ratings. This could potentially provide greater assistance and mentoring to the candidates and teams who needed it the most. Giving candidates measurable tasks with clear KPIs earlier in the campaign would also help identify weaknesses and allow organisers more time to address time-critical performance and training issues.

5.1 Party Officers should provide continuous grassroots campaign training for MECs, party activists and potential candidates.

5.2 All the materials used during BCC campaigns by all parties should be stored in a secure archive for future reference and possible use by future campaign directors.

The candidates who received mentoring from more experienced campaigners seemed to do better and have more realistic expectations of the workload so perhaps there should be more opportunity in future to match new candidates with experienced campaigners, MPs, etc. to provide them ongoing support and advice. The campaign audits conducted by Evan, Jon and Sharon in late 2015 were very well regarded by the organisers and candidates. They proved effective in identifying some weaknesses and assisting campaigns in focussing their efforts in the last few months of the election.

offered campaign central training during non-campaign periods. I also think branch members should be able to apply to do training if they are interested in campaigning. <We would benefit from training in > How to make a door knocking list, how to understand what is on the screen in front of you when making phone calls, how to input data after doorknocking or enter scripts.”

T

One candidate wrote "I would like to see MEC delegates

Policy development

23.

Changes made to the City of Brisbane Act (COBA) by the Bligh Labor State Government in 2010 resulted in a reduced accountability to then LNP Lord Mayor Campbell Newman. Among the key changes adopted was the granting of “Cabinet Confidentiality" akin to that of State and Federal Governments, This makes the Brisbane City Council the most secretive Council in Australia. As a result, the previous ability of the Labor Opposition, and Independent Councillors, to obtain any information that has been subject to a discussion in Civic Cabinet has been removed. As a consequence,

One of the innovative systems put in place early in the campaign was a “Strategy Group" which met each Sunday prior to the campaign to refine and develop policy announcements for the campaign period.

A separate Transport Policy Working Group was established to oversee the development of public transport and transport infrastructure policies. This group co-opted outside advisors to assist with the development of specific transport related policy. Policy development and research proved time consuming and additional staff had to be employed by the party to assist with writing policy documents and costings.

Following a disappointing result in 2012, local Councillors focussed on representing local constituencies rather than planning policies for the2016 election. This meant policy development had to be fast tracked by the Qld Branch Party Office and central campaign team and processes put in place to co-ordinate this work with some caucus members. A Policy Working Group was established which included four sitting Councillors - two of whom were retiring. Cr Shayne Sutton proved invaluable in the development of policy and as a reference source given her corporate memory.

One submission explained "we also had to undertake testing of some key central policies and consultation with key external parties in a very short time frame. The central team in effect had to condense four years of policy development and consultation into a six- month period". This resulted in key campaign staff and resources being tied up in policy development which should have been tested and completed by Councillors who were familiar with their shadow portfolios, who could have used Questions on Notice to gather key information for central policy development and who could have assisted with providing third party support for Labor’s policies. It has been argued by some that the beginning of Labor's campaign launch would have benefited from a stronger policy platform and vision in key policy areas. There is an alternate and significant view that few voters are engaged in policy debate or paying enough attention so far out from election day. Finding the balance between these competing views is one of the many challenges of managing party and community expectations during campaigns.

One participant wrote “From a policy staffer's perspective this was one of the better resourced policy-development efforts since 2000. In future the whole caucus may need more policy development support between elections. In the last term three councillors (Milton Dick, Shayne Sutton and Helen Abrahams) carried much of the policy effort and deserve recognition but a whole lot of policy and announcements were centrally developed by the "Strategy Group” in the lead up to and during the campaign.”

Although policy development was more thorough than in past campaigns, it was agreed it should have been done much earlier. One adviser wrote "from a media and messaging perspective there had not been enough policy development work done prior to the mayoral candidate launch and this posed some serious challenges.”

There should be more liaison with the Queensland Government to review the legislation governing Brisbane City Council. Amendments to the Act to ensure that there is greater transparency aroundCouncil activities so the Labor Opposition is not kept in the dark on budget and contract details. Who does the Audits on the BCC? Is there an equivalent of the State Auditor-General across the BCC or Local Government in general?

There was also a lack of material and information retained from previous campaigns “The lack of previous campaign reviews or information documents about prior policies and opportunities made the mayoral candidate's job much more difficult than it needed to be. For a start it made articulating a clear simple vision for Brisbane more challenging.”

24.

The eventual policy agenda could readily be described as very progressive, Announcements around stopping bad development, free public transport on Fridays and an inner city light-rail line matched community expectations about Labor priorities but in retrospect may have appeared to be too focussed on the inner city. Although the development of public transport and better access to the CBD is good for all of Brisbane more needs to be said about the suburbs in future and there are already some good proposals from some candidates to broaden the policy focus in 2020.

It is worth noting that at the same time the State Labor Government amended COBA to establish this Cabinet Confidentiality, requests from Labor Councillors regarding minimum opposition resourcing to ensure balance and safeguard a robust democracy were unfortunately ignored.

With regard to communications, other than verbal reports to local branch meetings, there was no centrally co-ordinated communication to Brisbane based branch members although Opposition Leader Milton Dick has a large network within the ALP and attended many party functions to verbally brief members.

This compares with a $2.6million total office budget for running the Lord Mayor’s office (staff inclusive)

There is certainly a need for the party to have a more regular local government policy focus and facility for ongoing policy development. This could be part of existing systems or a separate event and process to annual conference and MECs. Although there is a normal practice of "wiping the slate clean" between mayoral campaigns it would be wiser to implement are longer strategy for 2020,

Councillors on BCC are unable to access information that would otherwise be accessible to Councillors on any other Council in Australia.

Key Stakeholder engagement and policy development skills among Labor Councillors needs to be developed and key performance indicators should be tracked by Party Office. When there are only seven people in the team, this puts a heavy burden on a very small number of shoulders. The bulk of the 2016 election policies were developed within the last six months of the campaign and campaign time and resourcing had to be dedicated to this process. This was time lost for voter engagement. Capacity within the ALP team has been diminished even further with the loss of two wards and the retirement of several key contributors.

When making comments about Labor’s performance from 2012 - 2016 it is important to understand the constraints in which the Council Opposition operates. In particular, chronic under-resourcing: The Leader of the Opposition (LoO) in Brisbane City Council is provided with only one mid-range staff member, usually a media adviser. There is no "Opposition Office". There is the LoO and one staff member.

This scenario creates a situation whereby most often, the LoO and his staff only have capacity to respond to the issue (s) of the day or items coming to the Council meeting for debate in any given week, regardless of whether these receive media attention.

Furthermore, there is no budget for the LoO’s office, meaning any money spent on stakeholder communications, RTI, or independent advice are funded from the LoO’s Ward Office budget - effectively taking away local resources from the Ward Office.

Some new candidates desired more opportunities to have input into the policy development process. One solution may be found through the Party’s annual policy development processes. Unlike at State or Federal levels, the Labor Party does not have a policy platform for local government issues - meaning there is no guiding document to set out our values and objectives. The establishment of a Local Conference (like State cr Federal conferences) to gain input from rank and file members will be a crucial step to ensure buy-in from our hard-working volunteers. The lack of policy discussion and involvement resulted in our local campaign being unable to articulate a clear and detailed message to voters about what Labor stood for and how we could deliver in Council.

It was mentioned that the Labor’s BCC costings were good, and perhaps there was a missed opportunity by holding these back and not focussing on them more in the final weeks, given the sizeable debt which Quirk had amassed.

This compares to Council Chairmen who have between 1 and 3 political staff each (Budgets range between $205,000 - $225,000 per office). They are also provided with administration support and support from their respective departments. In addition, the Lord Mayor's office has a $2,25million staff budget (2015/16 Budget)

Recommendations

25.

6.2 A BCC Strategy Group should be set up and start meeting at least two years prior to the next election.

6.1 A BCC policy development strategy should be discussed and implemented by the end of 2016With only five Councillors and one staff member

allocated to opposition the Party has to provide a level of support for policy development and a level of accountability for sitting Councillors to consult with party members and key community, business and industry groups. This could range from a formal BCC Policy Working Group reporting to the Party's central policy committee and State Conference, Brisbane based Regional Conferences incorporating a local government component that would feed into the BCC Policy Working Group and the Minister for Local Government, in wards where there are no sitting Labor Councillors but sitting Labor State/Federal members, facilitating joint MEC/SEC and or EEC meetings to ensure sitting MPs engage with MECs and local BCC

In addition to a structured system, key party leaders with an interest in Council should be asked to play an informal role in supporting the caucus and assist them engage with stakeholder engagement. Former Councillors may be good people to start with. This support, while informal, might benefit from being at least semi-structured at least from the outset.

The Labor Team in City Hall must be vocal on issues in communities outside the 5 seats they have retained. The Labor Team in City Hall must work hard to engage with key stakeholders in their portfolio areas to ensure the ALP has a positive relationship with them and they can work collaboratively to inform future policy development. Labor will need Councillors or candidates to monitor LNP activity. The LNP will make mistakes that the community will want to know about e.g. LNP donor land sales.

It will be important to keep track of all LNP promises in 2016 and use the lack of progress to highlight their dysfunction and time for a change in 2020. Key responsibilities for such a data base has to be tasked to councillors and monitored by the Leader of the Opposition and party officials.

6.3 The BCC Strategy group should liaise with MECs and Councillors to coordinate policy development prior to the next election.

Lessons from the recent long-term strategy of policy development undertaken by Bill Shorten and his team at the federal level could be applied for the BCC. The next year could be focussed on party campaign­capacity building and recruiting volunteers, MECs and local campaigners around important policy issues. Year 2 could be focussed on community engagement and policy development with stakeholders and residential groups. Work could be done identifying and recruiting potential candidates with community experience. Year 3 could be focussed on preselections and public engagement, effectively acting as a springboard into the final year of campaigning.

issues, BCC caucus meeting regularly with party officials to ensure input into political strategy and policy positions and better coordination between state and local caucus issues, BCC opposition leader reporting on a quarterly basis to Administrative Committee on progress of party development work by Councillors in non-held wards eg attendance at branch meetings, e-newsletter reporting on key local issues and campaigns/BCC Labor petitions etc.

Establishing a strong and ongoing relationship between party office and the ALP BCC caucus could assist the caucus in its community outreach work as well as staying on track with ongoing community engagement, campaign goals and objectives and long term strategic objectives.

6.4 To address some of the systemic disadvantages of oppositions in BCC administration, it might be worth having a 'root and branch’ review of the Local Government Act.

There is a strong desire and need for local input into policy development and more information prior to and following policy announcements, This could be addressed through ongoing MEC quarterly meetings and local government focussed policy events at state conference and other annual or more regular party gatherings. The ALP Head Office should adopt a structured system to ensure party members interested in Council issues are able to have continuous engagement with the Caucus and the community, A system of Council Champions or some kind of Municipal Action Group should be established to assist in marginal wards Labor needs to win back and to assist with policy development.

26.

In one of the submissions to the review it was stated “If polling is research, then we need to sack the pollsters."

One submission wrote: “I know polling is important in hindsight I wonder if we were too dependent on it?”

“A Galaxy poll of Lord Mayoral voting intentions was published in the Courier-Mail two weeks before polling and reported Graham Quirk ahead but with a substantially reduced majority compared to 2012. The poll had the LNP on 50%, Labor 38%, the Greens 9% and others 3%. This translated into a two-party preferred of LNP 53% Labor 47%, down 15% on 2012. A ReachTEL poll of 1116 respondents conducted on 10

“Then it is a battle for the LNP marginals. Doboy (LNP 3,5%) and Central (LNP 8.3%) were both LNP gains in 2012 and would be vulnerable to any swing back to Labor. The re-drawn Holland Park (LNP 8.8%) and new Coorparoo (LNP 12.1%) wards will be battlegrounds, as will Paddington (LNP 11.8%) which covers an area that Labor tends to dominate at state elections. Some of the areas lost by Labor in 2008 and 2012 now appear to be very safe for the LNP. Labor clearly engaged in 'sandbagging' wards in 2012, concentrating on defendable wards and resulting in enormous swings elsewhere. The wards in this category being defended by the LNP in 2016 are Enogerra (14.2%), Marchant (LNP 16.5%), Calamvale (LNP 18.1%), Runcorn (18.2%) and Jamboree (LNP 21.1%).”

Several campaigns mentioned the mentoring and moral support they received from local state and federal representatives. This helped in many ways but most obviously in raising the candidate’s profiles during public events and meetings and also helping ensure their limited time was used efficiently.

One very experienced campaigner explained the disparity between the public polling and the final result as "we confused voter interest with voter commitment. Our support was soft but we wanted to believe in the headline figures. I have no doubt for the first time in many years people were interested in Labor’s campaign. It was more organised and professional than any BCC campaign we have run for more than a decade. But they were far from committed to us and we failed to get that commitment. Sadly, we also lost two Labor wards and the result was dramatically worse than predicted. We forgot that governments also have to lose elections and oppositions rarely win them on their own.”

Prior to the election the ABC published the following “Where the Council Election will be decided” which summarised the public sentiment as well as the majority view within the party well: "After going . backward for two elections, you would expect that Labor will increase its vote at the 2016 election. This is especially the case given how close the 2012 elections were to Labor’s wipe-out at that year’s state election. Labor’s first task will be to retain its own marginal seats. On the northside Labor will be disadvantaged by the retirement of sitting councillor Kim Flesser in Northgate (ALP 0.4%), while in Brisbane's east Labor's Peter Cumming should have fewer problems retaining Wynnum Manly (ALP 0.7%) than in 2012. Departures also mean Labor will have to watch out for Deagon (ALP 5.2%) where recently appointed councillor Jared Cassidy faces his first election. Labor will have to win the new Forest Lake (ALP 5.3%) ward without the presence of departing Milton Dick, while prospects for the Greens may be boosted in The Gabba (ALP 8.3%) with the retirement of Helen Abrahams.”

Another submission stated: “I don't recall at any time in the preceding 4 years any attempt from Party Office to engage with the broader membership on BCC issues.”In hindsight there was a consensus that more work was needed to tap into the knowledge and skills about local government issues from the broader membership and motivate more of them to get more directly involved with future local government campaigns.

There have been several news reports of inaccurate internal party polling and the use of ReachTel polling to gauge support at the ward level deserves consideration and review. On 13 March a ReachTel survey of 418

Public opinion polls and the Ward battlegrounds

March and published in the Sunday Mail on 13 March had Graham Quirk leading Labor's Rod Harding 52-48 after preferences. The first preference results were LNP 42.6%, Labor 29,4%, Greens 10.8% and 13.6% undecided before further questioning on where voters were leaning.”

Recommendations

Experienced campaigners will explain that research is both expensive and unreliable and at some point the Campaign Director must make a final call on the allocation of scarce resources based on a mixture of research and experience as well as local knowledge. One important and indisputable lesson from 2016 is

Similarly, in Northgate Ward a ReachTel survey of 711 residents conducted in late February indicated Labor and the LNP neck and neck on a 41% primary, with a 17% Green primary of which Labor would likely receive much higher preferences than the LNP, On election day in the Ward there was a significant drop both in Green Party votes and preferences and the LNP surged ahead.

7.1 A closer review of the research conducted in several recent interstate and Old local, state and federal campaigns should be made. Recommendations about methodology, accuracy and strategy of past and current research should be provided to assist in designing the research plan for the next BCC campaign to ensure best practices are considered and utilised were they can be afforded.

residents across The Gabba Ward indicated that Labor’s candidate Nicole Lessio had the highest first preference vote of the four leading candidates and also indicated that three quarters of voters had made up their minds and “definitely decided” who they would vote for. The wisdom of hindsight would now conclude that this vote was either very soft or very volatile or shifted significantly over the subsequent week of the campaign.

the inability of research to predict a close result. This dilemma is unlikely to be resolved by more regular research or larger surveys with smaller margins of error. Instead the best strategy is to campaign more intensely and with closer direct ties to the community. Ultimately the best feedback loop is one the candidate or representative builds themselves through personal ties to the community that live, work and choose to represent.

7.2 All the research used during BCC campaigns should be stored in a secure archive for future reference and use by future campaign directors.

An indication of the huge media workload undertaken and delivered during the campaign is reflected in one submission “A second media person was drastically needed but only employed for the final four weeks.”

One submission wrote about the media coverage "Rod appeared very energetic and always had plenty of bright young enthusiastic supporters around him. It’s hard to imagine how this is interpreted by the electorate in comparison to an older, more boring, less exciting opponent? Perhaps there is something in Quirk that showed he was boring but predictable. In an electoral environment and mood that is looking for stability and is risk averse this might be a plus? We don’t know if Rod had been seen with more suits and serious older people around him would that have

Graham Quirk has had for years, unfiltered access to broadcast his message both through Brisbane media as well as through publications that the BCC itself produces and distributes on a regular basis.

experienced team. There is also a quote by the Deputy Mayor Cr Schinner about the ‘solid two-year campaign developing and releasing policy’ that Campbell Newman ran in 2004. That was the election that the LNP knocked off the sitting Labor Mayor Tim Quinn.

One of the most difficult aspects of opposition campaigning in Brisbane City Council is the significant media and communications advantage the LNP enjoy through the Office of the Lord Mayor.

One example is the 'good news’ that the administration regularly spruiks through its monthly-city wide newsletter (which goes out each and every month to every household and business across Brisbane at great expense) and which was paid for by the BCC during the election period.

Such a publication would probably not be allowed in other states or cities during election periods but it was considered appropriate under the Council guidelines at the time. It always has a big picture of the Lord Mayor and “A message from Lord Mayor Graham Quirk” on the front page. Such a newsletter (usually 8-10 pages of good news stories about what Council is doing) is hard to compete with during a campaign.

To exacerbate this advantage going into the election year, there was also coverage in late 2015 of “Brisbane council Labor retirements slash 59 years from its corporate memory”. Experienced Labor campaigners were retiring and although this presented opportunities for younger and more energetic media engagement it also represented a loss of personal connections and corporate knowledge in the nuances and predilections of journalists and media professionals across the Brisbane media landscape.

The article explained “With the departures of Labor councillors Kim Flesser (Northgate), Victoria Newton (Deagon), Milton Dick (Richlands) and Helen Abrahams (The Gabba), Labor will lose 59 years of council corporate memory. Labor’s remaining three councillors - Shayne Sutton (Morningside), Steve Griffiths (Moorooka) and Peter Cumming (Wynnum Manly) - would have a combined 46 years of service at the time of March 19 election.”

From all indications, despite being outspent on TV and radio and print, the central advertising campaign did well in maintaining Labor’s message throughout the campaign. As one experienced campaigner said "Evan did a good job on advertising with limited funds. We certainly punched above our weight.”

That same submission continued: "But the campaign really took off in the final eight weeks, we needed more of a focussed media message and plan for the final week. We seemed to lose momentum in the last week. More key media announcements in the last few days may have helped, instead we spent a lot of effort doing small events in too many wards that didn't get much media coverage.” ■

This article demonstrates that it was difficult forLabor to compete with the LNP message of a strong,

28.

One aspect of the advertising that could be refined is the reliance on 15 second ads on TV, which do not work well in isolation. They can be effective in backing up a 30 second ad message though but there needs to be space between positive and negative messaging.

Media coverage, advertising and earned media

One submission highlighted the fact that “we received very good media coverage, in fact no Labor team at any contest has been as favourably portrayed in Brisbane media since 2007.”

Recommendations

29.

conveyed a stronger impression about his business and leadership skills?”

Media support was relatively under resourced and additional support needed to be provided for at least the last six months. Opportunities for improvement in the media strategy and outcomes include providing the Lord Mayoral campaign a dedicated media advisor for electronic media. Ward campaigns need one media adviser specifically for local Quest papers and working closely with the dedicated reporters who cover council matters. Adequate media staffing also allows better preparation work on Q&As for policy announcements, localized releases on central policy announcements and better coordination with social media. The early establishment of protocols to coordinate with the opposition's media advisor and councillors for Council meetings on Tuesdays is also required. This is a key day for media coverage of all things BCC and effective coordination with the central campaign is essential in helping raise the profile of the Lord Mayoral candidate and Labor's position on key policy areas.

8.1 The BCC Labor team continue to place a premium on quality earned media coverage and where possible other Party units provide support and assistance to monitor and support an ongoing media strategy for BCC Councillors and campaigners.

8.2 Provide more ongoing direct media support to the Lord Mayoral campaign and Councillors.

“The LNP's capitalised on a simple message around community safety and claiming 'nothing is wrong' and their underhanded negative campaigning (as opposed to overt). Despite their arrogance, their big mistakes - land deals, secret deals, no consultation, candidate selection and their reliance on paid messaging rather than direct voter contact, they were able to bombard residents with forceful campaigning through paid advertising (Graham Quirk phone recording) and almost every billboard Brisbane 1 month - 2 weeks out from the election.”

There were capacity constraints around media management due to some difficulties in recruiting an appropriate media advisor in January. It helped a great deal when two experienced media personnel came on board. In future the engagement of more experienced media advisers should happen earlier if possible.

"Labor’s legitimate criticisms of Quirk and the LNP 1 think this was the weakest area of the campaign. Whilst there was a series of anti-Quirk and anti-LNP messaging, these seemed presented for effect rather than strategic advantage. The LNP brand is quite weak and this should have been the main target, particularly as the LNP engaged in a campaign of safety and assurance, in addition to a promotion of a Team image (even as simple as a name - Team Quirk).”

Some local ward campaigns felt they had been beaten 10 to 1 in advertising spend, including billboards and other paid advertising. This is an issue that must be addressed through local fundraising and also consideration of placing caps on expenditure to level the playing field in future campaigns.

8.3 Provide earlier media training and support for preselected candidates.

In this sense, the LNP appeared to the general public as a connected and tight team, even though reality is they are far from it. In contrast the LNP limited anti-ALP messaging targeted the whole Labor team and state government.

One submission wrote “in hindsight, I do think we could have crafted a stronger last week that more clearly returned to our key campaign theme of congestion and transport. Having said that, with three Lord Mayoral debates and a range of LNP bad news stories dominating news coverage this may have been difficult to achieve even if it had been planned. I do recall ■ thinking our week wasn’t strong but I failed to verbalise it,”

Social media

Recommendations

30.

The Rod Harding and candidates web site was a good resource but seemed static after a while with limited information available. Although there is a risk in investing too much time and resources into websites which don’t shift votes, there is a necessity to update policy and event information on a regular basis, where it is controlled and monitored by party office.

9.1 Invest in more training for Councillors and development of targeted social media campaigning techniques to prepare for the next BCC campaign.

In three years technology will change, we must ensure we are proactive with how different voters receive their information. With the decline in print media and the increase in over 55s using Facebook, it is important we reach our target audience efficiently and consistently across campaigns.

Research from various organisations including the Pew Research Centre in the US has shown that the use of mobile devices is increasing dramatically both for finding news and for finding information about politics and government.

9.2 Set up monitoring of LNP Councillors social media activity, particularly potential successors of the current Lord Mayor.

The use of social media (in particular Facebook) was extremely high amongst all candidates, but this could be improved with initiatives out of party office that explore better methods of voter penetration through social media. Although there is continuing scepticism that Facebook doesn't change many votes, it certainly raised profiles through using targeted advertising and has the potential to help grassroots organising by recruiting volunteers, raising donations and spreading the Labor message.

BCC Councillors and prospective candidates should be encouraged to use social media and innovative campaign techniques from now on to ensure that they have the skills and experience to utilise them effectively in the next campaign. It can be argued that social media should be amongst the Key Performance Indicators that would be measured on a regular basis in any campaign (along with basic campaign techniques and milestones such as voter outreach, volunteer recruitment, voter contact, data recording and fundraising).

Lead-up to the formalcampaign

31.

One experienced Councillor stressed the importance of doorknocking as a campaign tool in her submission. "In my opinion, doorknocking is vital for local government elections. It is the local in elections at this tier of government. I suggest that Cr Cummings

One member of the central party campaign team wrote: "There were some things that worked very well and in hindsight some things that could have been improved upon. An under-resourced opposition with only a few councillors with limited resources was a major issue and remains an issue."

One candidate wrote "I would also like to see some central organisation around a permanent BCC committee with a brief to monitor the BCC, develop a Brisbane Plan and associated policy, develop candidates and assist sitting councillors. Research would include developing date bases of community groups, identifying community leaders, communicating with ALP members and getting a sense of the needs of each ward and develop individual ward plans.”

Despite the many challenges some of the things which worked very well included: Weekly candidate conference calls; The first round of campaign audits followed by two additional audits; Weekly meetings with each organisers to track progress of local campaigns; Regular campaign bulletins that were task oriented and informative; A good mix of media advisors in the last month of the campaign; The strategy pushed by Evan in every audit to pick local hot issues and deliver 'chunks' of votes by using a layered campaign approach of petitions, community meeting, voter contact activity of door knocking and phone calls.

“Labor needs to take succession planning at BCC as seriously as the LNP do. They have had a historically effective strategy of grooming successors through early transitions and effectively giving new candidates a "leg-up” by installing them 12 months prior to an election, as the BCC rules allow. This has given many of their candidates some of the advantages of incumbency in an election year. This might have made a difference in a couple of Labor wards if new, younger replacements had been given the opportunity of earlier starts to their campaigns.

continued success is totally dependent on his extraordinary high level of doorknocking. Similarly, I believe my past success was due to high levels of doorknocking. The LNP were, and will be in the future, cashed up. In the last three days, there was a barrage of recorded phone messages and social media from the LNP and it worked. The reality is that this will be the strategy of the next campaign. By contrast. Labor must have the personal contact advantage/ differentiation. Doorknocking remains in my opinion the best way of getting votes and particularly in Local Government. It has to be done well out from elections and continuously. I understand, several high quality candidates, had amongst the highest levels of doorknocking. In retrospect it was insufficient. Priority was given on phone calling. Comments from two volunteers was that they were ringing ‘friendly people” and we were not getting to a broad cross section of the electorate. This should be investigated to see if this perception is valid.”

The leadership within the Party and local branches needs to be more proactive in selecting and promoting good candidates and giving them an earlier start in the campaign so that they have a reasonable chance of earning the necessary community support to be successful.

Recommendations

10.1 Invest in more doorknocking and phoning training for party members and BCC Councillors and development of targeted grassroots and community campaigning techniques to prepare for the next BCC campaign.

10.4 Ensure sitting members are proactively inviting candidates to represent or accompany them to community/local events and meetings

10.2 Continue investing in an ongoing "CampaignInsight” training program for all party members utilising best practice in Queensland and existing experienced campaigners and trainers from across the state and around Australia.

10.3 Consider utilising webinars and other new training techniques to improve campaign skills sharing and development across the state. .

Candidates who campaigned regularly expressed positive opinion about the Party’s doorknocking and phoning techniques, tools and the support and training they received. Party office provided adequate resources and training in this regard, including with the central campaign database tools. One candidate stated "The feedback that I received from telephone calling was over-whelming positive. In hindsight, I wonder whether the people that I called are generally ALP voters anyway?”

Key issues and local Ward plansA lot of work was done in a very short period of time to assist Councillors and candidates to identify and campaign on opportunities in their local communities. In future it may be helpful to ask Councillors and MECs to assist on an annual basis in maintaining a register of local campaign opportunities or potential projects to be considered for implementation during future campaigns as part of Labor’s local commitments. One submission suggested the central campaign was required to spend too much time on identifying local commitments as some candidates did not have adequate local knowledge of their own communities. In one case a local commitment was made for a major park upgrade, based on a local candidate's advice, as part of a city wide park improvement announcement. The proposed project was rejected by local residents and this became a management issue for the both the central and local ward campaign. Some sitting councillors had done very little work in non-held wards and this meant the campaign had to start from scratch in some cases. The strategy for identifying local 'hot spots’ for the Congestion Busting Fund was a very good one but took a lot of preliminary work on the part of the central campaign and in some cases projects were being ’approved’ too late to prosecute our case.

Most Labor candidates were clear in communicating that Labor supported responsible development and made it clear the process of poor planning and the uncertainty of regulation favouring developers was our main concern. However, one submission explained some branch members have different thoughts in that the message wasn’t communicated effectively throughout all of Brisbane. For instance, in a neighbouring ward, the anti-development sentiment around an already constructed multi-dwelling may have alienated existing residents.

It was also suggested in one submission that development, if not articulated carefully, could be a double-edged sword as many voters already had preconceived notions about what good and bad development meant to them. Also the majority of residents out in the large swathes of suburban low- density residential areas do not experience the effects of bad development in their day-to-day lives. As a result, it’s not an issue that resonates with them, and there is the risk of our stance being misconstrued as being inconsistent with a recognised need for higher density housing to accommodate a growing population and limit urban sprawl and congestion on arterial roads.

One submission wrote: "Traffic congestion was an issue we could have spent more time on as it resonated with many voters. There was a commitment of $66 million on a “Bus Transit Way” but not enough media publicity or explanation was given to residents about the infrastructure or benefits."

The BCC has saddled Brisbane with a very large debt and work will be needed to explain how this affects ratepayers much earlier in the campaign in future. There is a real opportunity for the present caucus and future campaign to run on this issue and some effort should be made to track its progress.

Because of the work done in 2015 and 2016 there are good opportunities for improvement on local issues campaigning in future as there now exists a good data base of local commitments that the opposition and potential candidates in non-held wards can still run on this term. A good case in point is a recent Quest Newspaper article on a local hot spot project that Labor promised to deliver (Brisbane Council election results signal continuation of Eight Mile Plains congestion capers. Quest Newspapers April 14, 2016. Ruth McCosker). Local residents still want the project delivered and Labor can keep the issue alive. A commitment by Labor Councillors to shadow LNP Councillors in key marginal wards is warranted but it needs to be monitored and supported by the Party Office, respective state and federal sitting MPs and key branches/MECs in each ward.

Bad Development and its consequences was correctly identified as a real concern for voters. Development issues were readily summarised as the uncertainty of the process, the secrecy of the process and the abundance of development without warning. People noticed the developments but only engaged when the secrecy and fear of change/unknown were raised. Flow on consequences such as parked out streets and traffic congestion were noticed throughout the whole ward. We were able to capitalise on the central campaign messaging.

Another wrote “The strategy to scrap the $650m KSD project and spread the funding to traffic projects across the city was the right strategy.” One candidate said some of the policy announcements came too late to be used effectively by local candidates and gave the example of how the KSD announcement could have 33.

Recommendations

34.

been used for petitions on fixing local roads in different parts of his ward had he been given more time. This would have helped in many outer urban wards where roads where a significant local issue.

One Labor candidate stressed that Labor needed to better articulate its pro-business credentials and policies as well as better focus its limited resources into wards it can win and needs to defend. “Labor spread itself too thinly compared to the LNP and Greens, who concentrated their efforts on fewer wards.”

11.2 Maintain a spotlight on the fact that the LNP has saddled Brisbane with a very large debt and remind people how this affects ratepayers and what Labor will do about it in the future.

Another submission mentioned “no consolidated opposition data base existed on non-delivery of key LNP commitments made in the 2012 campaign, key negative facts to use for attack against Quirk, Questions on Notice, key Committee Reports etc, quotes by Quirk or LNP Chairpersons. 3rd party criticisms, community petitions in non-held wards, press clippings, costings reference material etc." (Councillors Shayne Sutton, Milton Dick and Kim Flesser were able to provide background information, reports and some media clips from their own data bases which proved invaluable and it would be useful to ensure this information is filed centrally and updated and easily accessible for a central campaign.) This meant central campaign resources and staff had to be directed to establishing this information and sourcing evidence to use in responding to LNP announcements. Labor negative advertising, local commitments.

11.1 Set up and maintain a good data base of local issues and local commitments that the opposition and potential candidates in non-held wards can still run on this term.

Recommendations

35.

It was clear that some candidates did not understand how or why postal vote campaigns had evolved over recent years thanks to better databases that are based on voter behaviour and the reduced effectiveness of electorate-wide mailouts. At a national and state level it is now common practice to use smaller targeted lists to more accurately provide postal votes to those who are more likely to use them or have used them in the past. One candidate thought the LNP Postal Vote information sent out (at great expense) across the whole electorate was a more effective technique, without acknowledging the expense and waste involved.

Another campaign wrote "The new Postal Vote system the party has adopted, utilising targeted lists, rather than vastly more expensive and wasteful electorate­wide PVAs, worked well for some campaigns. But it needs to be refined. Some campaigns did not understand how to manage it or were unaware of the affordability and value of the "buy in”. It would be worth reviewing the PV results in each Ward to measure the effect of the "buy in” where it occurred and also to ascertain any effects of timing and additional phone calls to PV applicants where they took place.”

12.1 Explain the purpose and effect of running targeted postal vote campaigns to all Councillors and campaigners. Some teams will require more training and support than others.The central campaign chose a very strategic focus

regarding postal vote campaigning, with limited resources focussed on persuading more voters and minimising opportunity costs. This strategic approach maximised the return on investment in direct mail and ensured less money was wasted trying to convince the whole electorate to lodge a postal vote.

12.2 Provide regular annual training in using Campaign Central to run targeted campaigns with limited resources.

Formal campaign and early votingRegular campaign bulletins and Tuesday candidate phone hook-ups were clear and regular and provided an opportunity for key campaign support staff to be involved in communications as well as the candidate.

Final week

36,

The 72 hour campaign’ tactic in the final week also saw a less strategic use of campaign resources and staff in

It is well known that it is very hard to announce new substantive policies in the last week of any campaign. This campaign made it even harder to shift undecided voters, particularly in the final week, as this was not an

One submission was very critical about the administration of institutional voting and suggested a "long overdue investigation by the ECQ into the practices and behaviours within institutions". There were reports that “some institutions were inviting LNP candidates to meet residents prior to voting but refusing the same access to Labor candidates”. There were also reports of addressed letters from Labor candidates not being received by residents.

Although there was a consensus, that overall the Labor campaign was as good as has been ever run before and certainly better than the last effort, several submissions wrote that some Ward campaigns could have been improved.

One submission wrote "The central media messaging was distracted by certain 72 Hour campaign 'events’ and not focused on delivering key campaign messages aimed at undecided voters.”

The administration of some local polling booths was questioned by one submission. No system is perfect but there should be clear and transparent guidelines to ensure publicly advertised, merit-based appointments of even casual staff to avoid any future accusations of nepotism or political bias in such an important institutional process.

key Wards that we needed to sandbag. It also meant key campaign organisers were locked into delivering on this tactic for the Lord Mayoral campaign and were not as available to ensure planning for election day in key wards. A case in point is the Northgate Campaign. It is now clear that the local campaign was not organized enough to manage the distribution of Green second preference cards. Kim Flesser acknowledges this in his submission: "The number one problem is that The Greens distributed almost zero HTV cards (which preferenced Labor) on election day”. This should have been picked up earlier and full coverage of all booths ensured prior to election day.

Pre-poll voting is a critical aspect of modern election campaigns. All indications are that most of the Wards conducted very good pre-poll rosters and covered nearly all voting points.

Polling indicated in the last week that our Lord Mayoral Candidate would poll around 48% of the vote. It’s clear he fell substantially short of that. With the wisdom of hindsight, it would have helped to hose down expectations throughout the final two weeks once pre­poll has started. It’s possible (although hard to prove) that the combination of a protest and zero expectations of a Labor win in the previous State election had helped get Labor over the line. Although the protest element certainly did not exist in the BCC campaign, it would have been more strategic to maintain an underdog status and hose down expectations.

One submission suggested "We tried to do too much in the final three days by taking the mayoral candidate to every ward. Those type of tours do well in state and federal contests where there is a captive media contingent, but they don’t work in local government campaigns.” Although there was a conscious decision to focus on one media event per day targeted at a TV and radio audience, it may not have been necessary to include so many of the candidates and instead let more of them remain focussed on direct voter contact at the individual ward level.

One submission wrote: "the last week, the LNP use of robo-calls and push-poll-style questionnaires had a dramatic effect. They worked. Many people hate robo­calls but the LNP camouflaged theirs well to make it look like genuine polling. It was not uncommon for voters in The Gap Ward to be polled by the LNP twice in one night or receive four to five calls in the final week. The questions began innocuously but voters who identified as soft or swinging or Labor then received further questions along the lines of “Are you concerned about an inexperienced Labor Administration” or variations of “Do you still agree that Brisbane is on the right track with Quirk?” One written submission observed "Although we

capitalised well on media opportunities and Rod performed well in the final week, I thought we lost momentum. Perhaps our quick embrace of tactical opportunities may have been at the expense of a clearer, simpler message.”

Recommendations

37.

It is important to note that "bad development" was a second-tier issue and worked best when it was targeted at Wards where it was more' relevant.

13.1 Labor should continue to utilise the first and final72 hours of any campaign to frame the key themes and differentiate the two parties. Labor should continue to plan to use this time to remind voters about key issues and maintain campaign momentum through media events and voter contact at the local level.

One submission wrote “Labor losing two Wards is partly explained by Greens votes exhausting with rates as high as 50 or 60 per cent. Where Green How to Votes Cards were distributed made no difference. Northgate was knocked out by Green exhaustion. This is what optional preferential means for many sitting members.” However, there were substantial swings in many wards with Labor now in a position to win back many wards at the next election.

The second negative story was a two-page spread on pages 12 and 13 on the resignation of a Labor MP from the State government “Pressure building for early election”. This helped feed into the LNP’s messaging of Quirk being a ‘safe pair of hands' and the need for certainty and political stability - at least at a council level.

election with a mood for change as is often the case in local government elections against incumbents who are well known. One submission wrote “we needed to have more focus on delivering key campaign messages in key Wards and incorporate a greater emphasis on Labor’s costings and allow us to prosecute our case on debt/rate increases under the LNP because of their ‘wrong’ plan and funding model. This was a missed opportunity to create the 'perfect storm' in the final week - the wrong plan for solving traffic congestion and rate increases under Quirk and to highlight Rod Harding’s strengths - sound financial management, professional experience to run a big budget and council and use this to counter the LNP’s "Labor is a risk” message. It also meant the City Hall debate on Friday was a very dull affair and no clear contrasts were established or reported for the evening news or following morning media on Saturday 19th. In fact, the coverage in the Courier Mail on Saturday 19th highlights the challenge we faced in creating a clear message about choice. As a result of Labor disclosing donations prior to the election, local government election summary stories on pages 6 and 7 included one article about Labor’s ‘war chest’ of donations, a colour picture of the LNP’s new last week message corflute (that was displayed at polling booths) - Labor; is it worth the risk?”

Election Day

Recommendations

14.1 An unprecedented level of training, support and information was provided in this BCC campaign and the Party should continue to look for more ways of sharing best practice between campaign teams and continue to provide support to any inexperienced or new campaigners in preparation for election day.

Unfortunately, the voter turnout was low in many traditional Labor areas, dampening the primary vote in a close contest and exacerbating the result in the two wards which we lost. The LNP bunting was deemed to be more effective “Just vote 1 Team Quirk” as opposed to “Don’t forget to number every square”.

There was evidence that despite a promise to deliver preferences to Labor there were very few, and

sometimes, none at all. Green How-To-Votes being handed out apart from in the Wards they targeted themselves. It's very important that local Labor campaigns speak to local Green campaigns and try to ascertain whether or not this important activity is being planned and is undertaken at pre-poll and on Election Day. Some signage or leaflets for prospective Green and independent voters might help in the future "If you’re thinking of voting Green, make sure you preference Labor in both ballots”.

14.2 Consideration should be given to distributing more material which targets preferences before and during election day.

The overall average swing in LNP held wards was approximately 6.9% to the ALP. The primary vote for the ALP, only increased by an overall average of approximately 3.9% in LNP held wards. This is skewed mostly due to the very strong turnout for the Greens candidates and the Greens having candidates in all Wards. Marchant Ward achieved an 8.2% swing towards the ALP. What was considered a safe LNP seat is now a winnable Ward in the 2020 election.

It is important to note the LNP went from having only 3 Wards with a margin of less than 10% prior to the election, to having 10 Wards with a margin of less than 10% afterwards. A repeat of a 6.9% swing in 2020 could conceivably lead to a gain of 8 seats to the ALP bringing them to a 13 seat split council. Although a special effort will be required to regain recently lost Wards that will be defended vigorously by the Liberals and Greens.

Outcome

Wards listed in order of ALP TPP swinga Winner

II

CRNGUMALPLNPGRNALPALPALPLNP

alpALPALPALPALPALP ALPLNPALPALPALPALPLNP

LNPALPAlPLNP

LNP

LNP

IND

5RN

LNP

LNP

LNP LNP

ALP

LNP LNP

LNP LNP

LNP

LNP LNPALP

LNPLNPLNPLNPALPALP

LNPLNP ALP

2.1 AS2.2284,1322.9781,S$41.498

1,323I.M1

9431,214

1.7342.1451.1841.6231.4141.431

1,5739S4

1,5781.136I, 829J. OS91,3581,4801,7221,460

Incumbency worked well for the Lord Mayor and his Councillors. Although there was no entrenched

Although Labor improved its standing in many wards and chipped away at the Mayoral result, the result was still very disappointing to many. One experienced campaigner lamented, "any honest assessment would have to conclude that we were not all that effective.

The LNP has held on to all of their wards. Labor lost its marginal Ward of Northgate to the Liberal National Party, and Labor lost The Gabba Ward to the Greens in a tight race.

Overall this leaves the LNP with 19 wards (up from 18), the ALP with five (down from seven), independent Nicole Johnston with her Ward of Tennyson, and the Greens with their first Brisbane council seat.

One Councillor wrote after the campaign "During the campaign I thought we were running a good campaign and would go close. The outcome of the loss at the Mayoralty surprised me. the ward results shocked me and are a long time disaster for Labor at City Hall.”

Overall, there was a substantial swing to the ALP in the Mayoral race, with nearly a 7% primary swing achieved and an almost a double digit 2PP swing. This wasn’t, however, reflected in the ward results with Labor losing two Wards.

On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor gained big swings in many LNP Wards, but not in the ones that mattered, (see figures on next page).

Over the past 4 years The Mayor obviously lost some skin. A dull boring old man's vote came back by 10% and yet we lost 2 more Wards. But BCC elections are unlike State and Federal campaigns, where the tide goes out or comes in and it is only a matter of how far. (that is what the campaigns decide). Swings are never uniform and Ward Councillors are able to dig in at the local level and are hard to dig out.”

enthusiasm for the Lord Mayor there was no compelling reason for change. Many factors influenced the outcome and there is strong speculation some were not Brisbane City Council related. One recurring impression provided during the Review was that voters didn’t want to risk change or see a split Council. It was no so much a pro-Liberal or an anti-Labor vote, but a pro-unity vote.

The LNP primary vote dropped from 57.1% to 49.7%, however Labor’s vote only increased from 32% to33.8%, with the bulk of the swing going to the Greens, who increased their vote from 8.5% to 13.9%. This is partially explained by the fact the Greens only ran in 18 Wards in 2012, and ran in 26 in 2016.

MATiC, Peter RICHARDS, Kite

JOHNSTON, Nicole

SRI, JonathanSIMMONDS, JulianTOOMEY, Steve

KING, Fiona COOPER. Amanda

CUMMING, Peter

WYNDHAM, Norm WINES, Andrew

MCKENZIE, IanMARX, KimMCLACHLAN, OwW

ADAMS, Krista O WEN-TAYLOR. Angela

GRIFFITHS, Steve

SCHRINNER, Adrian

HUANG, Steven BDURKE, Matthew HOWARD. Vicki SUTTON, Shayne STRUNK, Charles MURPHY, RyanALLAN, Adam

CASSIDY, Jared

PaddingtonPullenvale

TennysonThe Gibtsa

Walter Taylor The Gap Marchant Bracken Ridge

Wynnum Manly McOowallEnc^era

CoorparooRuncorn

HarniltonHolland Park Calamvale

Moorooka Chandler

Macgregor Jamboree Central Morningside

Forest take OoboyNorthgateDcagon

11,73615,79414,150

10,19414,57413,356

13,260 13.989

14,13815,35012,563

11,117 1X47114,03711,89714,05113,035 15,86713,39215,47610,87813,00612.235 11,559

11,79612,092

9,2837,391 4,404

8.1367.136

10,6399,496 9,1018,827

8,19310,378

9,875 9,0406,7149,8207,6537,4695,390 7,6266,9237,8039,9939,8869,737

11.018 10,406

1,2274,2024,873

9291,619

1,3591,882X444

X6563,579

1,093621

1,716

1,6621,039 1,199X80S

5,2392,8834,2771,5351,5071,175

911389843

44.2%31.9% 23.7%

45.0%

33,5%

44.3% 41.7%

39.4%38.4% 34,8%45.2%47,0%

42.0%

32.4%45.2%

35.3%36.3%25,4%36.3%

30.9%

41.8%43,5% 44.7%

45.7%48,3%46,3%

5,8%

18.1%26-3%

5.0%16.5%

5.7% 8.3%

10.6%

U,6%15.2% 4.8%3.0%8.0%

17.6% 4.8%

14.7%

13.7%24.6%13.7%

19.1%

8,2%6.6%5.3% 4.3%1.7%3-8%

Ea

na

na

nana

15.3% 15.2%

10.9%

9.9% 921% 9.l%i

8.3%

7.2%, 4,I3%1

3.4%'

3.0% 2.9% 2.8%

2.0%

0.6%j0,0%^

-0.8%

-1.3%

■1.5%,

39.

40.

B 8™^ P B aip prim swing[ward

The figures for raw primary swing numbers (below) also show there was a significant shift away from the LNP, both from Labor's resurgence but also from the appearance of green candidates in an additional eight wards compared to 2012.

B tonnai B*M> Til

The Gap 25,493 8,670 12,903 3,920 34% 51% 15% 0% 15.4%

Wynnum Manly 23,908 13,344 8,574 1,990 56% 36% 3% 0% 10.9%

Bracken Ridge 24,141 8,352 13,669 2,120 35% 57% 9% 0% 9.3%

Macgregor 22,596 6,748 13,017 2,831 30% 58% 13% 0% 9.0%

Runcorn 22,695 8,281 12,210 2,204 36% 54% 10% 0% 7.2% 1

Enoggera 24,675 8,568 12,235 3,872 35% 50% 16% 0% 6.8%

Pullen vale 25,413 4,628 15,356 5,419 18% 60% 21% 0% 6.2%

Marchant 24,079 8,121 12,851 3,107 34% 53% 13% 0% 5.5%

Hamilton

Coorparoo

22,37423,137

5/1618,157

13,69710,774

2-2163,567 639

24%35%

61%47%

14%15%

0%3%’ 4.W

McDowall 24,761 7,337 15,104 2.320 30% 61% 9% 0% 3.3%

Tennyson 22,®6 3,335 3,794 2,985 12,572 15% 17% 13% 55% 2.4%

Holland Park 23,131 8,246 11,476 3,409 36% 50% 15% 0% 0.9%

Walter Taylor 23,464 3,920 14,190 5,354 17% 60% 23% 0% 0.9%

Chandler 22,211 4,755 15,591 1,865 21% 70% 8% 0% -0.5%

Paddingtorr 23,164 5.510 11,326 6,328 24% 49% 27% 0% -1.3%

Jamboree 23,535 5,763 15,088 2,684 24% 64% 11% 0%

Ca! am vale 23,135 7,004 13,799 2,332 30% 60% 10% 0% -1.6%

Moorooka 22,127 11,463 7,218 3,446 52% 33% 16% £«6 -2.2%

Central 20,515 5,471 10,430 4,614 27% 51% 22% 0% ■2.9%

Deagon 23,958 10,504 10.095 3,359 44% 42% 14% ... -4.9%

Forest Lake 23,479 11,533 9,560 2,386 49% 41% 10% 0% ■6-2%

Morrtingside 24,058 11,748 9,740 2.570 49% 40% 11% 0% -7.1%

Ooboy 22,776 8,858 11,180 1,788 950 39% 49% 8% 4% -7.6%

Northgate 24,536 9,581 11,456 3,499 39% 47% 14% 0% -11.3%

The Gabba 21,508 e/t57 7,712 6,823 516 30% 36% 32% 2% -15.1%,

needs of our growing City and its residents."

Recommendations

41.

One candidate wrote “In The Gabba Ward, the 2016 election result is nothing short of heartbreaking. The final count saw a 14.02 per cent swing to The Greens - 366 votes ahead of Labor. For our small, but dedicated, campaign team the loss still hurts. We love the Labor Party and we love our local community - we strongly believe Labor remains the best party to represent the

One submission wrote “It was terrible that we lost two Wards. It is very hard to win Wards due to the advantages of incumbency at a local level, where you can actually speak to most of your constituents on an annual basis. It is telling that the two Wards we lost both had Labor incumbents who could have done what the LNP does and retire older Councillors earlier and allow newly energised successors to build their support in the electorate. There has to be a similar strategy by Labor in the future so we don’t lose more wards."

Marchant Ward candidate Stephanie Serhan said "It was a pleasure and honour to stand as the candidate for Marchant. With 6 months of campaigning against an incumbent who has been there 8 years, I know we did all we could to win the Ward for Labor. Although we didn’t achieve the win we were hoping for, I am proud of the local campaign we ran and the margin we gained. The result also didn’t mirror the 2015 State swing numbers because people in that instance didn’t vote FOR the ALP as much as they voted AGAINST Newman. Therefore, achieving a swing of 8% was in hindsight a great result for the Council election. We door knocked over 15,000 homes, consistently called 100s of residents on a weekly basis and letter boxed the whole Ward with the help of many volunteers. A special thank you to my campaign director Stella Rey. Her experience, mobilising volunteers and attention to detail gave our campaign the professionalism and momentum to achieve the local result we did. Thank you to Jon Persley for the consistent communication and answering all my questions. To Party Office, Evan Moorhead and our Organiser Lucy Collier who hit the ground running after taking over from Tom Kenny, your support and dedication to ALP is invaluable.”

One experienced campaigner explained that "it was unrealistic to expect to win when everyone knew the LNP had more money, they preselected earlier, they had more incumbents. Their brand was better, their message was simpler and more effective, they bought more advertising and earlier advertising than we did and they targeted their resources more intensively. We did very well in the circumstances but we were never going to win."

15.1 Labor should adopt as a standard operating procedure the LNP tactic of replacing retiringCouncillors at the 12-month mark to enable adequate succession planning and engagement with the community by new Councillors.

15.2 Succession planning must be taken seriously and potential candidates in each key ward should be spoken to early and assisted in developing a community profile before being endorsed as candidates.

One submission lamented "Optional preferential voting probably cost us 3%-5% in most wards and the campaign seemed to put the problem it caused us in the too-hard basket,"

It is ironic too that despite increasingly volatility in voting patterns and significant swings in recent elections, voters seem to repeatedly crave stability. As a progressive party the Labor Party will continue to be faced with the challenge of balancing reform with the need to build and maintain public confidence in the stability of the team and its leadership.

It was apparent after the campaign that the LNP had targeted Northgate with significant resources. There was also rumours that the Liberals were running a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) style campaign in inner city seats which targeted and identified LNP voters and encouraged and reminded them to vote.

The Gabba local campaign team knew there was the strong potential for a significant swing to the Greens. The Greens candidate continued his 2015 South Brisbane State campaign into The Gabba campaign.

As stated previously, the results in The Gabba and Northgate Wards were particularly disappointing, not least for the losing candidates, the retiring Labor members, each of their teams, family and supporters but also for many others at Party office and others who care about the Labor Party. Both Wards deserve a closer study than this review can provide, given the close results and possibility lessons from these seats will apply at the next election. Some consideration needs to be given to establishing ongoing campaign teams or MECs in these Wards to maintain pressure on the new Councillors and deprive them of confidence of incumbency and give the next Labor candidates a good chance of retaking these seats.

Unsurprisingly, there was a large variation in individual explanations of the factors involved in these particular results. However, a large majority of party submissions mentioned these seats specifically and also specifically mentioned the need to ensure earlier transitions and succession plans for new candidates, in the same way that the LNP have effectively transitioned to new candidates once a Councillor has indicated they are not contesting the next election. .

An experienced campaigner in Northgate Ward explained how “it was easy to pick fault in hindsight, however at no stage in the campaign did I think that our general strategy was wrong and that we were making any significant mistakes. I have never before witnessed the Party machine, State Secretary, Assistant State Secretary and officials put as much effort and resources into a BCC election campaign. Rod Harding was a great Lord Mayoral Candidate. The Party has clearly invested a considerable amount of financial and profile building effort into Rod and I believe he would make an excellent candidate in 2020.

One Labor campaigner wrote “If the local Greens’ vote continues to run around 14-15%, Optional Preferential Voting will make it difficult to win back Northgate Ward from the LNP. If 50% of Greens preferences continue to exhaust: Labor needs to increase its primary vote from 39% in 2016 to 45% to ensure victory. The 2020 campaign will face the challenge of an incumbent Councillor.

Analysis of past and present optional and compulsory preference data forwarded to the review indicates that optional preferential voting affected the results In both Northgate and Coorparoo, both of which are now LNP seats but would be ALP seats if the same preference allocation had taken place as normally takes place In Federal elections.

The result in the Northgate Ward is partially explained by the very narrow margin from the previous campaign in 2012, when only two candidates ran. The LNP received 49% of the primary vote in 2012, however they won with a smaller primary in 2016. In 2012 there was no Green candidate but in 2016 the Greens achieved a primary of over 14%, most of which exhausted without allocating preferences. It was observed that the Greens did not hand out HTVs at many booths and although about 90% of preferences did go to Labor, there were far from enough to save the seat. It is possible that a compulsory preference scenario may have prevented the LNP from winning this seat.

The Greens also publicly announced that they were focusing all their resources on only three wards - The Gabba, Paddington and Central.

Another factor, as explained by an adjoining Councillor was “The LNP candidate in Northgate was doorknocking like crazy about 12 months out, well before Labor’s candidate was preselected." This head start on an opponent with a personalised interactive campaign technique like doorknocking is hard to counter. There is nothing particularly special about his message or material but it clearly had an impact, most likely through the vehicle of direct voter contact over a relatively longer period of time.

42.

The Gabba and Northgate results and localised issues

Recommendations

43.

As the Councillor for The Gabba, Councillor Abrahams had built a strong personal following. Cr Abrahams strong profile in the local media denied Labor’s Nicole Lessio opportunity to establish her local credentials.

The Greens polled ahead of Labor in two of those wards and received 22.42% of the vote in the third. Incidentally, all three of those wards had the lowest voter turnouts - below 80%.

There was also an evident lack of coordination, with media events from Cr Abrahams not including Labor’s candidate and sometimes coming as a surprise to the campaign team. ■

As noted above, a failure to plan for succession has cost Labor a number of wards in the last 15 years. There have been some cases of good succession planning, including Cr Jared Cassidy replacing Victoria Newton in Deagon ward, Cr Griffiths replacing Mark Bailey in Moorooka ward and Cr Abrahams replacing Tim Quinn in the then Kurilpa Ward.

16.1 The results in the two Wards which Labor lost can be explained partially by localised factors and would require a targeted and localised strategy to regain in future elections.

16.2 Local MECs assisted by other party units should be maintained in all Wards and in particular both The Gabba and Northgate Wards.

With the wisdom of hindsight there was also a very big difference between the Reachtel polling for the Gabba and the final results, indicating a serious problem with the polling, or a significant turn in the final few weeks of the campaign towards the Greens. The result in Northgate suggests it was a problem primarily with the polling.

One submission wrote “It was clear that no part of the Ward could be taken for granted. On polling day. West End State School booth was a disaster for Labor with the Greens receiving 44.3% of this booth, the largest in The Gabba.’’

Labor’s failure to provide an orderly succession exacerbated the advantage of a Green candidate with a high profile and more resources than the Labor candidate due to this recent candidacy in the 2015 State election. Ms Abrahams agreed in her written submission “In a change of opinion, I support the appointment of the new Councillor prior to the election, subject to checking there are no local reasons not to do so, This worked successfully in Deagon and The Gap wards.

The emerging Green vote

44.

The issue of how to deal with the growing Green vote was touched on in various submissions, in particular those with an inner-city focus. There are plenty of examples from around Australia of how the ALP is dealing with this issue at various levels of government. Unsurprisingly in larger wealthier cities the Greens have developed an entrenched following in wealthier inner- city areas, but they also have reached into traditional Labor strongholds via gentrification and where they recruit capable and effective local candidates. Many people in the Labor Party see this growth in the Green vote as a direct threat from the left flank of politics

and in many cases it is, with Green representatives openly criticising Labor governments, oppositions and candidates and directly appealing to Labor voters to reject their traditional party.

In parts of Australia where there is a relatively surprising harmony between local Labor and Green representatives and campaigns, the Labor team has adopted a philosophy of focussing on their own strategy and avoiding getting into public slanging matches with the Greens. If left alone the Greens are often forced to attack the LNP to maintain relevance with progressive voters who all, in the end, want a progressive government that delivers for working people.

Labor also came third in Paddington, pointing to a continuing challenge in inner city wards. Inner city Wards also suggested that some of the city-wide policy announcements needed some more nuance to work effectively in the inner city, where issues like parking and bus services sometimes trumped public transport infrastructure like Light Rail. Many people who rented did not perceive there were serious problems with bad development, which was largely a concern of owner-residents. The Liberals also utilised anti-State­Labor-government messages on polling booths such as "Vote for Vicki and vote against Labor's lock-out laws”, creating the false impression that Labor was opposed to local entertainment venues.

A couple of submissions made specific mention of the continuing threat from an emerging Green presence in several wards, despite a minimal Green vote in the Mayoral contest and low support for the Greens in the majority of Brisbane suburbs. Overall there has been little increase in the Green vote across Brisbane in 15 years. However, there was general disappointment that Labor lost a Ward to the Greens and finished in third spot behind the Greens in another Ward, The focus should never be just about getting Green preferences, although that does matter in close contests. We should be studying and adopting best practice from similar Green and Labor contests in other jurisdictions including Sydney, The ACT, Melbourne and Tasmania. This issue will become increasingly critical in state and federal seats as well. ■

The Green campaign in Central Ward was typical in its focus and message. The candidate Kirsten Lovejoy is a perpetual candidate as she has run at the Local, State and now Federal levels, slowly increasing her profile in each step. In the last eight weeks of the campaign, the Greens started doing street stalls, door knocking and leaflets. Before then, Kirsten used the “Spring Hill Neighbourhood Group” as an effective way to campaign against planning laws and raise her profile in the community. Kirsten Lovejoy did not campaign on local government issues, she campaigned against the Labor State Government. She blamed all Council issues regarding development on the State Government and the State Government planning laws, as did the LNP, despite the irony. Despite promises to preference Labor, over 1000 Green votes exhausted in the Central Ward. This is despite the Greens including Labor as No. 2 on their HTVs. The ‘Number Every Box’ message did not seem to get through.

Recommendations

45.

The table below lists the wards in order of Green primary votes and shows the large number of Green votes that simply exhausted. Where votes did not. exhaust and preferences were distributed, the ALP did get most of them, but a combination of lower turnouts and exhaustion meant the effect of Green preferences is diminishing each year.

17.1 Old Labor should work closely with other Labor campaigners in jurisdictions with strong or emerging Green Party votes to ascertain which localised strategy will be most suited in the various BCC Wards and during the Mayoral campaign in 2020.

Dropping turnout will be an increasing challenge for Labor campaigners all over Australia. Despite our compulsory voting rules, more and more Australians are becoming less engaged in politics and less loyal to individual parties and candidates.

The inner city also suffered from a historically lower turnout than in recent elections. This could be caused by a combination of factors such as younger, less engaged voters as well as more mobile populations with less interest in local issues.

ward Dgrn prim® grn exhastQ flow to alpSJl

TheGabba 6,823Paddington 6,328Pullenvale 5,419Walter Taylor 5,354Central 4,614 39.6% 83.9%The Gap 3,920 38.2% 81.3%Enoggera 3,872 44.8% 84.7%Coorparoo 3,567 48.8% 84.8%Northgate 3,499 49.2% 80.9%Moorooka 3,446 45.7% 86.6%Holland Park 3,409 41.5% 78.9%Deagon 3,359 43.5% 83.6%Hamilton 3,216 50.5% 78.7%Marchant 3,107 42,6% 77.1%Tennyson 2,985 39.6% 5.7%Macgregor 2,831 55.7% 70.1%Jamboree 2,684 42.3% 74.9%Morningside 2,570 41.2% 83.3%Forest Lake 2,386 56.9% 68.3%Calamvale 2,332 61.4% 72.0%McDowall 2,320 52.4% 77.7%Runcorn 2,204 53.7% 74,4%Bracken Ridge 2,120 49.6% 70.1%Wynnum Manly 1,990 47.4% 75.8%Chandler 1,865 51.2% 69.7%Doboy 1,788 50.2% 75.3%,

ward B gtn prim H gtn exhast B flow to alp BlThe Gabba 6,823Paddington 5,328Pullenvale 5,419Walter Taylor 5,354Central 4,614 39.6% 83.9%The Gap 3,920 38.2% 81.3%Enoggera 3,872 44.8% 84.7%Coorparoo 3,567 48.8% 84.8%Northgate 3,499 49.2% 80.9%Moorooka 3,446 45.7% 86.6%Holland Park 3,409 41.5% 78.9%Deagon 3,359 43.5% 83.6%Hamilton 3,216 50.5% 78.7%Marchant 3,107 42.6% 77.1%Tennyson 2,985 39.5% 5.7%Macgregor 2,831 55.7% 70.1%Jamboree 2,684 42.3% 74.9%Morningside 2,570 41.2% 83.3%Forest Lake 2,386 56.9% 68.3%Calamvale 2,332 61.4% 72.0%McDowall 2,320 52.4% 77.7%Runcorn 2,204 53.7% 74.4%Bracken Ridge 2,120 49.5% 70.1%Wynnum Manly 1,990 47.4% 75.8%Chandler 1,865 51.2% 69.7%Doboy 1,788 50.2% 75.3%^

The Mayoral Campaign

Recommendations

Another explained “Rod Harding's profile gathered momentum after August, particularly after theKingsford Smith Drive announcement, which engaged media attention and voter interest."

An experienced campaigner wrote “This campaign was more professional than the 2008 and 2012 campaigns as evident by the policy development, the attention to costing of projects, and the outputs of the media team. Rod Harding was a strong candidate and worked with a high level of commitment. It was great to see his confidence grow during the campaign. The team worked to Rod Harding's strengths as is their role. We know that a different flow of Green preference would have changed the outcome in some Wards."

One submission reflected the opinion of several interviewees “The biggest challenge we had wasQuirk seems to most people an inoffensive bloke who deserved another run."

Despite the poor LNP brand the public image of Quirk was largely benign and the LNP were able to use that vehicle to run the line that “Brisbane was on the right track” and “don't risk Labor”, which they effectively did in the last two weeks.

One submission suggested "we were trying to do too many things. Maybe we should have been less focussed on getting Rod on the news every night with a different announcement, and more focussed on hammering and hammering 2 or 3 core issues?"

In any BCC contest, particularly one in which Labor now has a reduced minority, the main focus of effort must be the Mayoral campaign. The Ward campaigns are essential as well but with limited time and resources from Party office it must be recognised that the potential of the Mayoral campaign to drive positive results in the Wards is much greater than the other way around. The Mayoral campaign also excites the media and drives earned media opportunities.

By and large most submissions concluded the Mayoral Campaign's media management was very good.Things never go exactly to plan, but Rod’s appearances on TV were almost always ‘on message’ and he always looked energetic Labor's election commitments were generally well targeted.

As previously stated, the Party should conduct preselections between 18 and 12 months prior to elections as a matter of course unless there are exceptional circumstances. (3.1)

One submission explained that our greatest failing was the error of judgement around the polling, but “this was compounded further by Labor's failure to lay a glove on Quirk. Well before the formal campaign began it was clear Quirk's greatest asset was that he was innocuous. Most people didn't know or care enough about him to have a strong opinion and because they didn't see a problem they were not inclined towards change."

One submission wrote: "I've always heard that a successful campaign has to be based on some truth and the truth for us during this campaign was that Quirk and the LNP hadn’t really had any major stuff ups over the last term. It’s the nature of local government that it’s the level of government where you can get things done and keep people relatively happy. That seemed to be the case for us and it proved difficulty to mount a case for change when people didn’t feel a major need for it. It’s also the case that bringing in an ‘outsider’ as a Lord Mayoral candidate means they have to fight for relevance and reinvent an opposition under their leadership.”

Conclusions

47.

Several submissions stated many in the Party would strongly support Rod Harding to again run as the Lord Mayoral Candidate. There are no perceptible negative views in the Party or in the community about Rod.

“But it’s also important to remember that there were some very hopeful things to take away from the result: Close to a double digit swing in the Mayoral vote - we changed the vote of more than 45,000 people: In the wards - there are now 6 non held wards with a margin of less than 5% (after 2012 there was 1): There are now 11 non held wards with a margin of less than 10% (after 2012 there was 3): So there were some

important positives. But the more important reason for my addressing you tonight is to simply express my personal thanks to everyone on the admin committee. It is a rare honour that you get to run for public office for the Australian Labor Party. I feel privileged to have had that opportunity and I want to thank you for the trust you placed in me. Thank you.”

With the right support he could lead a long-term strategy of policy development to help build Labor’s BCC effort for 2020. The next year could be focussed on party campaign-capacity building and recruiting volunteers, MECs and local campaigners around important policy issues. Year 2 could be focussed on community engagement and policy development with stakeholders and residential groups. Community action networks could be set up in each word similar to the successful Labor CANs in other states like Victoria and WA. They could be given a generic title for their local campaign work, such as "Labor supporters for a better Brisbane” or similar. Work could be done identifying and recruiting potential Ward candidates with community experience. Year 3 could be focussed on preselections and public engagement, effectively acting as a springboard into the final year of campaigning.

In 2020 there will have been 16 years of continuous LNP BCC Administration. At the last BCC election the LNP had controlled the Mayoralty for 12 years - longer than Howard was Prime Minister. By the next election 18 year old first time voters will have been two years old when the LNP first assumed control of the Mayoralty. Labor should run an "its time campaign” in 2020.

At the April Administrative Committee meeting of the Queensland Branch Rod Harding made the following statement:

Rod is also willing to take a lead role in the party’s post­campaign renewal and reform process, to give local government campaigning a higher priority and value within the ALP,

Conservatives like Turnbull will more than likely continue to position themselves as the only hope for long term stability and a long term policy program, with this being opposed by Labor on the left and Abbott on the right, then he may be the beneficiary of a similar outcome. For Labor, this means that we have to put more effort into positioning ourselves as the only party with long term plans for the future.

It is widely speculated that Graham Quirk will retire 12 months before the 2020 election and the LNP will appoint a replacement Lord Mayor. It would advantage Labor in that situation to have a Lord Mayoral Candidate ‘in the field' before Quirk retires to take advantage of any 'unelected Mayor’ sentiments and views that the LNP had 'gamed’ the system.

It was clear that the LNP significantly outspent Labor in the 2016 BCC Mayoral campaign, in city-wide advertising, as well as in most Ward campaigns. Some campaigns mentioned being outspent 10 to 1. In such circumstances serious consideration should be given to adopting expenditure caps, similar to those which exist in other jurisdictions such as NSW state elections and ACT Assembly elections, in order to create a more level playing field and improve democratic competition.

“Thank you for the chance to speak tonight, I’m here for two reasons: First to briefly address the Brisbane City Council election result. We clearly did not get the result we wanted and that was a huge disappointment to me and to everyone involved but I can stand in front of you tonight and say hand on heart that everything we could have done, we did. It’s a good thing that there is a thorough process underway to examine the reasons why we did not win.”

Brisbane WardsBrisbane City Council after 2016 election

1

ALP Gains Majority

LNP Loses Majority

GRN Vote Flow

LNP & Others LABOR

KiMZ'’jl'eohysSffiOehnston) ■'3

Chandler (Schrinner)24.6

Jamboree (Bourke)19.0

Pullenvale (Richards)18.1

Hamilton (McLachlan)17.6

Walter Taylor (Simmonds)16.5

McDowall (Wyndham)15.2

Calamvale (Owen-Taylor)14.7

Macgregor (Huang)13.7

Wynnum Manly (Cumming) 11.5610.5

Runcorn (Marx)7.9

8.28.2

11%42%45%

LNP ALPINDGRN

Bracken Ridge (Cooper)

Marchant (King)Central (Howard)

Moorooka (Griffiths) 13.6

1951[

26LNPALPExhaust

T

20162PPLNPALP

55.7%44.3%

2016 1st PrefLNP 49.3%ALP 33.1%GRN 14.6%IND 3.1%