The 2020 Queensland local elections were held on 28 March 2020 to elect the mayors and councils of the 77 local government areas in Queensland, Australia.
The elections were held in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the same day as the state by-elections in Bundamba and Currumbin.
Electoral systems Mayors and single-member wards All 77 councils use optional preferential voting (OPV) for mayoral elections. Under OPV, voters are only required to vote for one candidates, although they can choose to preference other candidates.
In the 22 councils that use single-member wards (including Brisbane and the Gold Coast) OPV is also used.
Multi-member wards
In July 2019, it was announced that the 10 single-member wards on Ipswich City Council would be replaced by four two-member wards, reducing the total amount of councillors to eight.
No form of preferential voting is in place, with plurality block voting (also referred to as first-past-the-post by the Electoral Commission) is instead used, where voters are only required to mark the same amount of candidates as there are positions to be elected − in the case of Ipswich, two candidates.
Undivided councils 54 councils are undivided, meaning they do not use any forms of wards and all councillors are elected in a single area representing the entire LGA.
Plurality block voting is used for these councils.
Party changes before elections A number of councillors joined or left parties before the 2024 elections. Council Ward Councillor Former party New party Date Rockhampton Mayor Margaret Strelow Independent Labor Independent 6 November 2017 Ipswich Mayor Andrew Antoniolli Independent Labor Independent 3 May 2018 Ipswich Division 4 Kylie Stoneman Independent Labor Independent 1 August 2018 Redland Division 9 Paul Gleeson Independent Better Families 28 March 2019 Townsville Division 2 Paul Jacob Team Jenny Hill Independent 2019 Maranoa Mayor Tyson Golder Independent Unity Maranoa 22 February 2020 Gympie Division 2 Glen Hartwig Katter's Australian Independent 3 March 2020 Brisbane Pullenvale Kate Richards Liberal National Independent 2020
Political parties Queensland councils are largely non-partisan. Most wards are not contested by political parties and are rarely successful when they do. The sole exception to this is Brisbane, which is contested by the Liberal National Party, Labor and the Greens. The Greens also contested several seats in other LGAs, though none of their candidates outside Brisbane were elected. There are also a number of councillors and candidates who are members of political parties but ran as independents.
Minor parties including the Animal Justice Party and the Liberal Democrats also contested the elections. There are also a number of local parties that operate exclusively within a single LGA.
The North Queensland State Alliance, which advocates for the creation of the State of North Queensland, ran two separate party tickets − Cairns N.Q.S.A. Team (5,775 votes) and TSV Team NQ State Alliance (6,694 votes). No candidates from either ticket were elected.
Results
+ Party Votes % Swing Seats Change Independents954,30741.72 424 Liberal National 279,79312.23 19 Greg Williamson Alliance 272,69111.92 6 Labor 200,428 8.76 5 Independent Liberal National 169,3647.40 15 5 Greens 141,0066.16 1 Independent Labor 79,6063.48 7 2 Team Jenny Hill 44,7151.95 9 Christensen & Keioskie 43,7811.91 0 Cairns Unity 26,395 1.15 6 Future Noosa 25,2801.11 1 Our Team 4 Your Shire 24,9731.09 3 Progress Mount Isa 20,1550.88 5 5 Your Voice Of Experience 18,9170.83 2 Unity Maranoa 16,5460.72 4 Mount Isa Community Team 15,5710.68 0 North Queensland State Alliance 12,4690.55 0 It's Time for Townsville 12,3750.54 0 Animal Justice10,6650.47 0 Our Voice 10,5870.46 0 Team WORK 7,4830.33 0 Liberal Democrats7,4330.32 0 Locals United - Back to Basics 5,1280.22 0 Independent Socialist 4,428 0.19 1 1 Logan Needs Moore 4,3620.19 0 Independent One Nation 3,9280.17 1 Better Families 2,3950.10 0 Whig 1,8250.08 0 Independent United Australia 1,3520.06 0 Civil Liberties & Motorists 5860.03 0 Team Josh Weazel 4100.02 2 Independent Katter's Australian 4090.02 1 1 Total 2,287,588 94.55 512 Invalid/blank votes 131,775 5.45 –– Turnout 2,419,363 77.28 –– Registered voters 3,130,716 ––––
Mayoral elections
See also 2020 Brisbane City Council election 2020 Gold Coast City Council election 2020 Townsville City Council election
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