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The second round of the Queensland Redistribution Commission’s consultation opened this month. The map will be finalised over the coming year and used at the 2028 state election.
What they said
Pine Rivers Labor MP Nikki Boyd made the first public criticisms of her opponent’s proposals last week in emails and a social media video.
The former minister, now opposition spokesperson for local government and water, accused the LNP of seeking a return to the state’s “dark history”.
“The LNP is proposing that our electoral boundaries be redrawn in a way that only they can win,” she said in the video. “The clock is ticking on a gerrymander.”
Boyd told supporters to share her video, sign a petition and submit formal comments to urge the commission not to heed LNP calls to cut out a key urban area while extending the seat north.
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She also reiterated Labor concerns with the appointment of Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie’s director-general John Sosso to the three-person commission, calling him “politically compromised”.
In a statement to this masthead, Driscoll added the LNP was “unashamed in their attempt to engineer electoral boundaries that advance their partisan political interests”.
“The LNP submission to remove half of the city of Bundaberg from the Bundaberg electorate is laughable, and there are many other examples of the contrived targeting of non-LNP held seats with voters caught in the crossfire.”
Another perspective
Also contacted for comment, an LNP spokesperson criticised Labor’s submission as “sloppy and unfeasible”, accusing the opposition party of not doing the work to put forward a “credible alternative”.
They said the submission was asking the commission to “breach the Electoral Act by going outside legislated quotas in five North Brisbane and Moreton Bay electorates”.
“The LNP’s submission balances those pressures with one clear objective: stable, community-focused boundaries that will endure through to the 2032 [population] projection without wholesale voter disruption.”
A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission of Queensland, through which the redistribution commission is established, would not directly respond to Boyd’s claims.
They reiterated the commission was set up as an independent body to ensure the important part of maintaining parliamentary democracy through similar voter numbers in each seat was upheld.
“All suggestions and comments will be carefully considered by the QRC as they undertake the complex mapping process,” they said.
By the numbers
Using detailed maps supplied with the LNP’s submission, electoral analyst Ben Raue has calculated the party’s proposed changes would flip six Labor-held seats to being notionally LNP.
These include Pine Rivers, Aspley and Gaven (home to Labor’s rising stars Bart Mellish and Meaghan Scanlon), Bundaberg (the only regional seat to swing to Labor) and the see-sawing Ipswich West.
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Combined with two proposed new seats to replace two suggested being abolished, this would boost the LNP’s notional majority from 11 to 25 in the 93-seat parliament – a figure not disputed by either major party.
“It would significantly increase the swing needed to change government,” Raue said on an episode of his The Tally Room podcast released on Thursday, also noting the unusually vague Labor proposal.
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