Luke Richmond is an Australian Labor Party politician and lawyer who has represented the district of Stafford in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since winning the Stafford state by-election on 16 May 2026. He is a lifelong northside Brisbane local who grew up in the Stafford electorate, attended primary and secondary school there, and has settled in Stafford Heights with his wife Maddie.
His career before Parliament moved through the Australian Workers’ Union, the chief of staff offices of senior Queensland Labor figures, and the role of assistant state secretary of Queensland Labor before he stood for the by-election that gave him the seat. This biography covers his career, the by-election context, and his background as a health policy lawyer who helped deliver the Prince Charles Hospital expansion.
Quick Facts About Luke Richmond
| Full Name | Luke Richmond |
| Date of Birth | Not publicly confirmed |
| Age | Not publicly confirmed; appears to be in his 30s |
| Place of Birth/Hometown | Stafford electorate, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for Stafford (Labor) |
| Net Worth | Not publicly disclosed |
| Wife | Maddie Richmond |
| Education | Law degree (institution not publicly confirmed) |
| Faction | Right faction, Queensland Labor |
| Social Media | @LukeRichmondMP on X (Twitter) |
Growing Up in Stafford: A Lifelong Northside Local
Luke Richmond grew up in the Stafford electorate in Brisbane’s northern suburbs, attending primary and secondary school in the district he would later be elected to represent. That local rootedness is not incidental to his political identity: it runs through his campaign messaging, his policy focus on northside health services, and his decision to settle in Stafford Heights with his wife Maddie rather than relocate to a more politically fashionable part of Brisbane.
He has spoken about the cost of living pressure that is pricing long-term northside locals out of the communities where they grew up, and has positioned himself as someone who understands that pressure not as a policy abstraction but as a personal reality he has seen in his own network. That framing — the local who stayed and is fighting to keep the suburb accessible to the people it belongs to — was central to his campaign and his identity as the new member for Stafford.
Career Before Parliament: Law, Labour and Labor
Luke Richmond is a lawyer with a background in health policy. His professional career before entering the Legislative Assembly moved through three distinct but interconnected tracks: trade union work, senior political staff roles, and party organisation.
He worked as coordinator for campaign and strategy at the Australian Workers’ Union, one of Australia’s oldest and most significant blue-collar unions with membership across construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and resources. His role there gave him organising experience, an understanding of industrial relations, and a network inside the Queensland labour movement that would later prove valuable in his political career.
He subsequently moved into senior staff roles at the heart of Queensland Labor. He served as chief of staff to Shannon Fentiman, a senior Queensland Labor minister who held portfolios including Health, Attorney-General, and Industrial Relations. Working as a minister’s chief of staff is one of the most demanding and politically sensitive roles available to a party staffer: it requires managing the minister’s office, coordinating with departments and the Premier’s office, navigating media pressure, and ensuring that the minister’s legislative and policy programme delivers results. His time in Fentiman’s office gave him deep familiarity with Queensland’s health system in particular, experience that directly shaped his policy platform and his role in the Prince Charles Hospital expansion.
In advance of the 2024 Queensland state election, he was appointed deputy chief of staff to Premier and Labor leader Steven Miles, placing him at the very centre of the Queensland Labor government during an election campaign. In late 2025, following Labor’s defeat at the 2024 state election, Richmond was made assistant state secretary of Queensland Labor at the party’s state conference. The assistant secretary role is one of the most senior positions in a state branch’s professional staff structure, responsible for campaign management, candidate support, and organisational administration. He was serving in this role when the Stafford by-election was called.
The Stafford By-Election: The Seat and the Context
The 2026 Stafford state by-election was held on 16 May 2026. It was triggered by the death of independent MP Jimmy Sullivan, who had died in his home on 9 April 2026 at the age of 48, with his death treated as not suspicious. Sullivan had been the member for Stafford since 2020, originally elected as a Labor MP. He was expelled from the Labor caucus in May 2025 after failing to adhere to a safe return-to-work plan while facing allegations of a domestic incident. He had served the remainder of his term as an independent on the crossbench.
The district of Stafford is located in Brisbane’s northern suburbs, covering Stafford, Gordon Park, Grange, Kedron, Stafford Heights, and parts of several neighbouring suburbs. It has been a broadly safe Labor seat at state level since its reincarnation in 2001, with the exception of the LNP landslide at the 2012 state election. Richmond was selected as the Labor candidate as the Right faction’s choice. He was also, at the time of his selection, the coordinator for campaign and strategy at the AWU. He faced a field that included LNP candidate Fiona Hammond, a former councillor; Queensland Greens candidate Jess Lane, a school teacher who had contested the seat in 2024; and candidates from Queensland Socialists and Gerard Rennick People First, who stood as independents due to their parties lacking state registration. One Nation did not run a candidate.
Richmond won the seat for Labor, conceding approximately a four percent swing against the party on the two-party preferred vote relative to Sullivan’s 2020 result, but holding the district comfortably. Like David Farley, who won the federal Farrer by-election for One Nation on 9 May 2026, just one week before Richmond’s own win, he navigated a by-election field complicated by a predecessor’s controversy and came through with the seat in hand.
Policy Focus: Health, Housing and the Northside
Luke Richmond’s stated priorities in Parliament centre on three areas: healthcare, housing affordability, and education. His health policy background, developed through his work in Shannon Fentiman’s office and through his professional experience as a health policy lawyer, gives him genuine depth in the first area. He has cited the Prince Charles Hospital expansion as a cause he worked on personally and that is personal to him, given the hospital’s significance to the northside Brisbane communities he grew up in and represents.
On housing, he has spoken about the difficulty facing northside residents who are being priced out of suburbs they have lived in for generations, a concern that resonates across Brisbane’s inner-north where property prices have risen significantly. On education, he supports universal access to quality schooling, a standard Labor position that carries particular local resonance in a district that includes multiple primary and secondary schools serving working and middle-class families.
Personal Life
Luke Richmond is married to Maddie Richmond. The couple has settled in Stafford Heights, within his electorate. He is known locally as someone who is visibly present in the community, participating in the events and conversations of the suburb rather than managing his public persona from a distance. His Queensland Labor profile describes him as someone who knows “firsthand that with the cost of living continuing to skyrocket too many locals are being priced out of the community they grew up in,” language that connects his professional advocacy to his personal experience of living in the district he represents.
Conclusion
Luke Richmond came to the Stafford by-election with a CV that would be the envy of most aspiring Labor politicians: union organising, ministerial chief of staff to a senior Labor figure, deputy chief of staff to a Premier, and assistant state secretary of a major state branch. He did all of it in Queensland, for Queensland Labor, and in a political tradition he has been part of since before his career began. He also grew up in the seat he now holds, went to school in it, and has settled there with his family. The combination of deep institutional experience and genuine local roots is unusual and politically valuable. What he builds with the seat from here is the next chapter of a career that has been pointed in this direction for a long time.
Leave a Reply