There are places in Brisbane where you can still see the tide mark; parts of the city where business remain closed and where temporary fences still surround kids’ playgrounds.
“Given that people here are visibly, physically witnessing and experiencing what are most likely the effects of man-made climate change, it would bring it to the forefront of people’s minds when they go to vote,” says John Pittendreigh, a bike shop owner from Rosalie in Brisbane’s northern suburbs.
Two months ago, floodwater about 1.2m high came through the shop, which sits at the western end of the electorate of Brisbane. The seat takes in the CBD and the inner-northern suburbs, including several areas which were badly affected by the March “rain bomb” downpour.
John Pittendreigh in his bike shop. Photograph: Dan Peled/Guardian Australia
Pittendreigh says he won’t vote for either of the major parties over their inaction, or lack of ambition, to deal with climate change.
“I get a bit tired of hearing the powers that be say that we can’t afford to go to net zero. Because can we afford to cope with floods like this, fires like we’ve had every few years?” he says.
“It’s kind of like, what all those people have been saying for the last 20, 30, 40 years, it’s manifesting right now. And of course it’s going to make a difference to how people vote.”
Brisbane has changed hands a few times in recent decades, but since 2010 has been held by the Liberal National party. Incumbent Trevor Evans, the former National Retail Association boss and a relatively moderate Liberal, was first elected in 2016.
The seat feels harder to pigeon-hole than inner-city electorates in other major capitals. Brisbane brings together apartment-dwellers in the CBD and Fortitude Valley; trendy and leafy areas like New Farm and Paddington; and a few affluent Liberal-leaning suburbs like Clayfield, Ascot and Hendra.
Evans holds the seat by 4.9%, but it has become a key target for both Labor, which has preselected local businesswoman Madonna Jarrett, and the Greens’ candidate, the sales assistant and social science graduate Stephen Bates.
Harrison Munday and Alisa Enomoto moved to Brisbane from the Gold Coast last year. They say the cost of living was a key concern that could win their vote.
“Every time we’ve moved into a new apartment we end up in a smaller place, but paying way more,” Enomoto says.
“I’d like to see more chances for younger people to buy houses, we’re renting and we’re looking to buy but it’s hard.”
Munday, who works in construction, says petrol prices were a worry.
“It’s getting harder and harder to move closer in to the city and still have an alright lifestyle.”
Mini Compton lives in a sharehouse in the inner-north suburb of Red Hill. She says she was leaning towards the Greens, but was considering Labor because she liked the party’s shared home-ownership scheme.
“I love the area, but the way property prices have gone up I couldn’t afford to buy here,” she says.
Since the onset of the pandemic, people are moving to Queensland in droves – interstate migration is at its highest level in decades – and in some cases, bringing their politics with them.
Markus Hofer and Kamon Miancharoen recently sold their home and business in Byron Bay and moved to New Farm.
“I certainly wouldn’t vote for either Morrison or Albanese,” Hofer says.
“Neither one of them are useful.
“I will always vote for the Greens, not that we agree with all of their policies, which you never do, of course. But I think most of the major parties fail to recognise the pressing issues, like climate change, which will affect our children.”
Ray O’Brien had an artery in his neck removed a few weeks ago; doctors have him a 40% chance of pulling through, he says. But a few weeks before election day the Fortitude Valley resident was back at the New Farm neighbourhood centre, where he comes for a toasted sandwich and a chat.
He’d voted for Evans last time around, but this time he wasn’t sure.
“I’d have to have a big think about it, you don’t want to jump,” he says.
“I think Morrison, he’s always going to do something but never gets around to it.”
Cindy Riches says she’s met Evans before and likes him, but won’t vote for the LNP because of environmental concerns.
“I like him personally, but maybe not his politics,” she says.
“I’ve pretty much always known who I was going to vote for, but I think it could change. I’ve changed my mind quite a few times already.
“I think Morrison did some good things. We’ve never had a pandemic before and there was a while where everyone was having a go at him and I didn’t like that, because he was going the best he can. But then it felt like he really dropped the ball.”
Daniel Lightfoot, a former business owner, says he’s happy with the government and will vote for the LNP.
“I think the momentum that we’ve got up, we’ve got a world war on, everything we’ve got on, it’s too much, we can’t afford too much change.
“You can’t be happy all the time, nobody’s perfect, but I think Morrison is having a fair crack.
“I quite like the way he operates. They say he tells lies, but who doesn’t tell white fibs?”
