Queensland’s political landscape has been left reeling after a tight and high-stakes by-election in the northern Brisbane seat of Stafford, where the state opposition Labor party has claimed a narrow victory despite a substantial swing toward the incumbent Liberal National Party (LNP) government.
The contest, triggered by the sudden passing of former member Jimmy Sullivan in April 2024, was widely framed as an early test of leadership for new Labor opposition leader Steven Miles, coming just months after Labor suffered a bruising defeat at the 2024 Queensland state election. Sullivan, a 44-year-old who had been sitting on the crossbench after expulsion from Labor’s caucus over personal scrutiny, died of non-suspicious causes at his Brisbane home earlier this year, vacating the seat that Labor has held almost continuously since 2015.
Latest official data from the Queensland Electoral Commission shows Labor candidate Luke Richmond holds a slim two-party-preferred lead of 51.2 per cent over LNP challenger Fiona Hammond, a former Brisbane City Councillor, who trails on 48.8 per cent. After all preferences are distributed, just over 700 votes separate the two front-running candidates. While the result still leaves Richmond ahead, the LNP secured a 4.1 per cent swing away from Labor in the historically safe Labor seat, which only fell to the LNP once before, during the party’s 2012 state landslide victory.
Despite the narrow margin, LNP Premier David Crisafulli publicly conceded defeat to a gathering of party supporters in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley on Saturday night. Acknowledging the result would leave the government “agonisingly short”, Crisafulli nonetheless celebrated the swing his party achieved, noting the outcome exceeded internal party expectations. “If you had said to me at the start of this that we will be here with a result like this, I think it is probably beyond all of our dreams,” he told attendees.
For Labor, however, the narrow win is being framed as a sign of growing momentum ahead of the 2028 state election. In a victory statement Saturday night, Miles drew clear battle lines for the next statewide poll, pointing to the massive grassroots campaign Labor ran to hold the seat. “We have seen that momentum right here on the ground in Stafford, and tonight has drawn the battle lines for the 2028 election,” Miles said. He went on to note that the campaign marked the largest grassroots organising effort in Queensland Labor history, with volunteers knocking on more than 34,000 doors and making more than 27,000 direct voter calls.
Miles also highlighted unusual context that benefited the LNP in the by-election, noting the party gained its modest swing after the government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds on political advertising, and struck a deal with One Nation that saw the right-wing party avoid running a candidate and openly endorse Hammond. Miles also praised Hammond for running what he called a respectful campaign.
The seat of Stafford covers Brisbane’s inner-northern suburbs including Stafford, Chermside and Kedron, and has been held by Labor continuously since Anthony Lynham reclaimed it for the party in the 2015 state election. Sullivan succeeded Lynham as the member in 2020, before his expulsion from the Labor caucus and subsequent death earlier this year. While official formal declaration of the result is still pending, both major parties have already positioned the razor-thin outcome as a sign of shifting political tides in Queensland ahead of the next state poll.