When Lord Mayor Graham Quirk was returned to City Hall in a convincing election victory in March, he promised to govern as if he had a one-seat majority.
Barely two months later, Cr Quirk delivered a huge 4.7 per cent rates rise, hitting ratepayers in the hip pocket, almost double the previous year's 2.5 per cent rates rise.
Not the approach one would take with a one-seat majority. In reality, not much has changed in his Liberal National Party administration's approach to civic governance.
But why would it? After all, 2016 saw the LNP rewarded with a fourth-straight term in the lord mayor's office, and a third-straight term with a council majority.
Fresh from increasing its majority in its victory at the March election, Cr Quirk and his LNP administration have wasted no time in spending its political capital.
The business case for the $1.54 billion Brisbane Metro – the centerpiece of the LNP campaign – is well under way, despite some very public hiccups.
A very public feud with the state government over the Go Print site culminated in the admission that the metro plan, in the form taken to the election, could never be delivered.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk went as far as to say Cr Quirk should "forget it" and ditch the metro altogether, until an intervention by the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in effect forced both the council and state back to the negotiating table.
Still, the affable and likeable Lord Mayor remains a popular figure in Brisbane, perhaps in no small part because – let's face it – he really is a bit of a dork.
Not even his political foes have bad things to say about him outside of the policy realm.
It was a point not lost on the Prime Minister during an October visit to the Queensland capital, when he was asked what he could learn from Cr Quirk's popularity.
"Well, Graham, give me some tips. Give me some tips," Mr Turnbull half-jokingly pleaded to the Lord Mayor, in the midst of a string of poor polling that showed he had become less popular than the man he ousted, Tony Abbott.
"I think it is a rhetorical question but I'll pay Graham an accolade.
"The reason Graham has been returned as mayor and the reason his LNP team have done so well is because they have got on with the job of delivering.
"They've not been driven by ideology. They've not been distracted by politics. They've not been distracted by personalities. They've not been distracted by polls.
"They've got on with the job of delivering for the people of Brisbane. That's what good governments do."
But any excursion to the City Hall for a Tuesday council meeting demonstrates just how partisan civic governance can be in Brisbane.
Aided and abetted by a hyperpartisan chair, Brisbane City Council meetings can be at times farcical in their point-scoring, with some councillors treating the stage like an audition for the floor of Parliament.
And a ridiculous slanging match with the state government over $10 million in Queens Wharf-associated intersection upgrades showed the LNP council was not above playing politics.
Still, Cr Quirk has ended 2016 with a veneer of post-election political invincibility while the Labor opposition – which had considered itself a real chance of victory – was left demoralised.
Wynnum Manly councillor Peter Cumming was elected leader of the five-strong opposition, in no small part because nobody else wanted the job.
But scratch beneath the surface and things are not so clean-cut.
On the face of it, the LNP's election victory in March was a comprehensive victory, winning the lord mayoralty and 19 of the 26 wards on offer.
The LNP's majority increased by one, while Labor's stocks decreased by two, with Northgate changing hands and Labor stronghold The Gabba falling to the Greens.
But although it may sound counter-intuitive, Labor is closer to power now than it was prior to the election.
While Cr Quirk's victory was comfortable by any standard – 59.3 per cent on a two party preferred basis – he did suffer a 9.2 per cent swing against him.
It was a similar story in the wards held by the LNP, with at least seven previously safe wards now within striking distance for Labor. The LNP saw its margins decrease in most wards:
- Bracken Ridge went from a 21.6 per cent margin to 10.6 per cent.
- Calamvale from 18.1 to 14.7 per cent.
- Central from 9.4 to 8.2 per cent.
- Chandler from 27.5 to 24.6 per cent.
- Coorparoo from 12.1 to 3 per cent.
- Enoggera 14.1 to 4.8 per cent.
- Hamilton 24.8 to 17.6 per cent.
- Holland Park 8.8 to 4.8 per cent.
- Jamboree 21.1 to 19.1 per cent.
- Macgregor 25.1 to 13.7 per cent.
- Marchant 16.5 to 8.3 per cent.
- McDowall 23.5 to 15.3 per cent.
- Paddington 11.9 to 5.8 per cent.
- Pullenvale 31 to 18.1 per cent (GRN).
- Runcorn 18.2 to 8 per cent.
- The Gap 21 to 5.7 per cent.
- Walter Taylor 20.9 to 16.5 per cent.
Doboy bucked the trend, with the LNP's margin rising from 3.5 to 4.3 per cent, while it turned around a 0.4 per cent Labor margin to claim Northgate with a 1.7 per cent majority.
Despite its majority, a fifth-straight LNP administration in 2020 will be a hard ask, particularly if Cr Quirk – who has not committed to another term – is taken out of the mix.
Even in a year set to be politically dominated by a state poll, the groundwork for that 2020 council election will start in 2017.
The onus will be on the Quirk administration to deliver.
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