Legislative Assembly of Queensland

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Legislative Assembly
57th Parliament
Coat of arms or logo
Type
Type
  • (1860–1922)
  • since 1922
    Unicameral
of the
Manager of Opposition Business
Andrew Powell, Liberal National
since 14 March 2022 (2022-03-14)
Structure
Seats93
Political groups
Government (51)
  •  
    Labor
    (51)

Opposition (35)

Crossbench
(7)

Length of term
4 years
Elections
Instant-runoff voting
First election
27 April – 11 May 1860
Last election
31 October 2020
Next election
26 October 2024
Meeting place
Legislative Assembly Chamber,
Parliament House, Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia
Website
parliament.qld.gov.au

The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the

MP after their names since 2000 (previously they were styled MLAs
).

There is approximately the same population in each

gerrymander - dubbed the Bjelkemander was in effect during the 1970s and 1980s). The Assembly first sat in May 1860 and produced Australia's first Hansard
in April 1864.

Following the outcome of the

full-preferential voting, and moving from unfixed three-year terms to fixed four-year terms.[1]

History

1860–1948

Initially, the Legislative Assembly was the lower house of a

Legislative Council, its members appointed for life by the government of the day. The first sitting, in May 1860, was held in the old converted convict barracks in Queen Street.[2] It consisted of 26 members from 16 electorates, nearly half of whom were pastoralists or squatters. Early sessions dealt with issues of land, labour, railways, public works, immigration, education and gold discoveries.[2]

In April 1864, Australia's first Hansard was produced. That year also saw member numbers increased to 32, and by 1868—as more redistributions occurred—the number grew to 42. Members were not paid until 1886, effectively excluding the working class from state politics.[2]

The Assembly was elected under the

first-past-the-post (plurality) system 1860 to 1892. From then until 1942 an unusual form of preferential voting called the contingent vote was used. This was introduced by a conservative government to hinder the emerging Labor Party from gaining seats with minority support.[3]

In 1942 the plurality system was reintroduced. The Labor government then in power had seen its vote decline in the 1940s and sought to divide the opposition. In 1962, it was replaced with full preferential voting, as the governing conservatives wanted to take advantage of a split in Labor. In 1992, this was changed to the optional preferential system which was used until full preferential voting was reinstated in 2016.[3]

After 1912, electorates elected only a single member to the Assembly.

unicameral
parliament—currently the only Australian state with this arrangement.

Queensland's gerrymander 1948–1989

From 1948 until the reforms following the end of the

electoral malapportionment
. In a classic gerrymander, electoral boundaries are drawn to take advantage of known pockets of supporters and to isolate areas of opposition voters so as to maximise the number of seats for the government for a given number of votes and to cause opposition support to be "wasted" by concentrating their supporters in relatively fewer electorates.

The Queensland "gerrymander", first introduced by the

Labor Party (ALP) government of Ned Hanlon
in 1949 used a series of electoral zones based on their distance from Brisbane.

Initially Queensland was divided into three zones—the metropolitan zone (Brisbane), the provincial cities zone (which also included rural areas around provincial cities) and the rural zone. While the number of electors in each seat in a zone was roughly equal, there was considerable variation in the number of electors between zones. Thus an electorate in the remote zone might have as few as 5,000 electors, while a seat in the metropolitan zone might have as many as 25,000. Using this system the Labor government was able to maximise its vote, particularly in its power base of the provincial city zone.

With the split in the party in the late 1950s the ALP lost office and a conservative

came to power, which, as discussed above, initially modified the voting system to introduce preferential voting, to take advantage of Labor's split. It also separated the provincial cities from their hinterlands. The hinterlands were added to the rural zone, where new Country Party seats were created.

As the divisions in the ALP abated in the early 1970s, and tensions in the conservative coalition grew, (thus reducing the advantage to be gained by the use of preferential voting), the conservative government, now led by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, modified the zoning system to add a fourth zone—a remote zone, comprising seats with even fewer electors. Thus the conservative government was able to isolate Labor support in provincial cities and maximise its own rural power base. On average, the Country Party needed only 7,000 votes to win a seat, compared with 12,800 for a typical Labor seat.

The entrenchment of a Coalition government was also caused by

demographic
changes associated with mechanisation of farms and urbanisation which led to a drift of working class population from rural and remote electorates to the cities.

By the late 1980s the decline in the political fortunes of the National Party, together with rapid growth in south east Queensland meant that the zonal system was no longer able to guarantee a conservative victory.

In addition, in 1988 the Federal Labor Government held

one of which
was for the adoption of fair electoral systems around Australia. Although the referendum did not succeed, it heightened public awareness of the issue. A large public interest non-partisan organisation, the Citizens for Democracy, lobbied extensively the Liberal and Labor parties to abolish the gerrymander and to make it a major issue in the lead up to the landmark 1989 Queensland election.

Despite the malapportionment, Labor was rarely able to garner a higher percentage of the vote than the Coalition for most of this period.

1989–present

In 1989 Labor won government, promising to implement the recommendations of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption, including the establishment of an Electoral and Administrative Reform Commission (EARC). EARC recommended the abolition of the zonal system in favour of a "modified one vote, one value" system. Under this proposal, subsequently adopted, most electorates consisted of approximately the same number of electors, but with a greater tolerance for fewer electors allowed in a limited number of remote electorates. This plan is still in use today. Presently, 42 seats are contested in Greater Brisbane and 47 in the rest of the state.

The youngest person ever elected to Queensland's Legislative Assembly was Lawrence Springborg, former Minister for Natural Resources and Leader of the Opposition.[4] In 1989, he entered parliament aged 21.

Parliament House

The Queensland Legislative Assembly sits in Parliament House in the Brisbane central business district. The building was completed in 1891. The lower house chamber is decorated dark green in the traditional Westminster style. The chamber once featured central tables which divided two rows of elevated benches on each side. The room is now configured in a U-shape away from the Speaker's chair with three rows of benches that have their own desks and microphones.[5]

Distribution of seats

As of 17 March 2024, the composition of Parliament is:

Party Seats
Current Assembly (Total 93 Seats)
Labor
51 51
 
Liberal National 35 35
 
Katter's Australian 3 3
 
Greens 2 2
 
One Nation 1 1
 
Independent 1 1
 
  • 47 votes as a majority are required to pass legislation.

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ "Electoral Law Ructions in the Queensland Parliament". Antony Green's Election Blog. 21 April 2016. Archived from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  2. ^
  3. ^ from the original on 2 January 2016.
  4. ^ "Bligh calls early Queensland election". The Courier-Mail. News Limited. 22 February 2009. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
  5. from the original on 21 March 2018.

External links