The next Brisbane City Council elections are set to be held on Saturday, 16 March 2024 to elect councillors representing each of the local government area's 26 wards, along with the direct election of the Lord Mayor of Brisbane. The current Lord Mayor, former Deputy Adrian Schrinner (Liberal National), has served since 8 April 2019, having succeeded Graham Quirk, with the Liberal National Party having been in power for almost 20 years after defeating Labor's Tim Quinn in 2004. Brisbane City Council elections are significant in the scope of Australian local government politics, as the council is the largest in the country by population, area and managing budget.
Background
In April 2023, new legislation passed by the Parliament of Queensland would have an effect on all of Queensland's local government areas (LGAs) in future elections. The bill, Local Government Electoral and Other Legislation (Expenditure Caps) Amendment Bill 2022, sets caps on electoral expenditure for all local governments across the state. The main takeaways vis-à-vis the Brisbane City Council elections are: The caps are tiered to take into consideration the number of electors in local government areas For Mayoral candidates, caps range from $30,000 in council areas with 30,000 or fewer electors through to $1.3 million for the Brisbane City Council Expenditure caps for Councillor candidates range from $15,000 for council areas with 20,000 or fewer electors up to $55,000 for Brisbane City Council wards The scheme applies for the seven months prior to a quadrennial election, and from the day a by-election notice is published, through to polling day
Mayoral candidates
Liberal National
As incumbent Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner was the Liberal National candidate, confirming in February 2023 that he would seek re-election.
Labor
In November 2022, speculation surrounded the Labor Party as to whom their mayoral candidate would be for Brisbane. Kate Jones, former Queensland MLA for Ashgrove and cabinet minister, was the main individual of speculation. After declining to comment to ABC News in June ( later), another potential candidate was touted as a possibility: North Brisbane lawyer Tracey Price. On 4 August 2023, out from the election, Labor confirmed Price would be their candidate for Lord Mayor.
Greens
After resigning his seat in March 2023 to give way to another Greens councillor, Jonathan Sriranganathan was speculated to run for Lord Mayor for the Greens. He was confirmed as the Queensland Greens' candidate for Lord Mayor in July 2023.
Pendulum
Candidates
Sitting councillors are shown in bold text.