The impact of the Greens on federal politics was on full display this week as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed hundreds of Labor faithful in the river city of Brisbane.

“The Greens political party are not interested in solving the problem at all, they just want the issue, the campaign, the social media content,” he told the crowd at the ALP’s national conference.

Mr Albanese was taking a jab at the Greens for making memes on social media about housing affordability in Australia.

The housing crisis is a hot-button issue that intensified again this week as national cabinet met in Brisbane to consider the rental market and housing supply.

The meeting was largely forced due to pressure from the Greens, who won’t support the federal government’s housing fund legislation without meaningful action on rent freezes.

Queensland helped deliver the Greens a historic result and more power in Canberra at the federal election last year.

Stephen Bates won the seat of Brisbane from the LNP, Max Chandler-Mather took the traditional Labor seat of Griffith and Elizabeth Watson-Brown toppled the LNP in the once-safe seat of Ryan.

The central-Queensland-based Penny Allman-Payne was elected as the state’s second Greens senator.

It was interesting timing then that on the same day the prime minister and state and territory leaders sat around the national cabinet table, the man largely credited with kick-starting the Greens’ growing electoral success in Queensland announced his bid for Brisbane lord mayor.

People-powered political campaign

That man is the colourful and controversial former Brisbane city councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan.

In 2016 he became the first Greens councillor ever elected in the state and represented the Gabba Ward until this year when he stepped down.

At the time, only senator Larissa Waters represented the party federally for Queensland.

Mr Sriranganathan is up against incumbent LNP Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and Labor’s lord mayoral candidate, Tracey Price.

This election is shaping up to be quite the battle, given the dominance of the LNP at a council level in a city that has now been called “Greens heartland”.

The Brisbane City Council is an LNP stronghold — the chamber is made up of 19 LNP councillors, five Labor councillors, one Greens councillor and one independent councillor.

The LNP has held City Hall since Campbell Newman defeated Labor’s Tim Quinn in 2004, meaning the party will have been in power for 20 years by next year’s council election.

While Mr Sriranganathan has conceded the party does not have a realistic chance of achieving an outright majority, the Greens could gain more seats than Labor.

Mr Chandler-Mather was Mr Sriranganathan’s original campaign manager in 2016 and predicts the Greens can pick up eight to 10 council seats.

“After the federal election, a large portion of metropolitan Brisbane is represented now by the Greens,” he said.

“There’s about 900,000 voters or thereabouts in Brisbane and 400,000 are represented by a Greens federal representative.

“If you look at the federal votes and you apply it to council, we’re in the running to win eight to 10 council seats.”

Those seats include Walter Taylor, Paddington, Brisbane Central and Coorparoo, which are all currently held by the LNP.

Analysis by the ABC’s Antony Green after the 2020 council election showed since 2004, the Greens’ party vote across the wards increased from 10.2 per cent to 17.8 per cent.

Labor’s party vote across the wards slipped from 42 per cent to 32.9 per cent.

This could mean trouble for the LNP which prides itself on the party’s long-lasting success and stability in local government in Brisbane.

At the LNP’s state convention in July, Mr Schrinner labelled the Greens the “most destructive and divisive force in Australian politics” and said Labor had “ceded ground”.

“They’ve created a vacuum on the left, and the Greens have filled the void,” he said.

State election

It also presents a challenge for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government at next year’s state election, with the Greens setting their sights on a number of inner-city seats.

The party is targeting McConnel, Cooper, Greenslopes, Miller and Bulimba — which are seats held by state Labor MPs and some are represented by the Greens at a federal level.

The Greens hold two state seats in Queensland — Michael Berkman was the first Greens MP elected to parliament in the seat of Maiwar in 2017 and Amy MacMahon won South Brisbane in 2020 from former deputy premier Jackie Trad.

Mr Chandler-Mather said in 2020 many voters wanted to reward Ms Palaszczuk’s government for the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that effect had worn off.

“The Queensland Labor Party are really on the back foot, so I think this coming state election is probably our best shot we’ve ever had of getting into the balance of power,” he said.

Former Queensland Labor speaker and QUT Adjunct Associate Professor John Mickel said it was too hard to predict the outcome of the state election more than 12 months out, but the Greens’ success wouldn’t be as easy as translating the success on a federal level.

“Come the next state election it will depend on what people are voting on,” he said.

“If it’s a vote against the government then all sorts of things come into play there — to what extent do people want to make an emphatic change or do people want to park their vote because they’re uncertain of the opposition,” he said.

“If it’s a park-the-vote then minor parties do very well in that and even in the last poll (Resolve Strategic), what it showed is that 30 per cent of people are not opting for the major parties.

“In terms of the Greens at the moment, the Greens won the seat of South Brisbane last time because the LNP directed their preferences to the Greens … and another issue is at a state level the Greens don’t have any obvious leader for the public to coalesce around.”

But the Greens aren’t Labor’s biggest problem.

This week Ms Palaszczuk was dealt another blow in the polls after a Resolve Strategic poll conducted for the Brisbane Times showed the LNP’s primary increasing to 38 per cent ahead of Labor on 32 per cent, and LNP Leader David Crisafulli as preferred premier.

It’s the third poll this year to reflect a similar result.

Either way, next year will bring two elections in Queensland that have the potential to further change Australia’s political landscape.