INTRODUCTION TO QUEENSLAND ELECTION STATISTICS ==================================================================================================================== This is a work in progress. Some of the information here will change as I do more research. The area which is now the State of Queensland was from 1788 onwards part of the British colony of New South Wales. A penal settlement was established at what is now Brisbane in 1824. Transportation of convicts ended in 1839, and the area was opened up to free settlement. The areas around Moreton Bay, the Darling Downs and the Port Curtis region were soon occupied, mainly by pastoralists. Towns grew up at Ipswich, Toowoomba, Warwick and Maryborough, as well as Brisbane. In 1843 an election was held for members of the New South Legislative Council, at that time a purely advisory body. The settlement at Moreton Bay was included in the electoral district of Gloucester, Macquarie and Stanley - Stanley County, established in 1826, covered Brisbane, Ipswich and surrounding rural areas. Because the franchise was restricted to white male landowners, only 14 votes were cast at Moreton Bay. Further elections to the Council were held in 1848 and 1851. Members were elected from Stanley Boroughs (Brisbane and Ipswich), Stanley County and the pastoral districts of Burnett, Darling Downs, Maranoa, Moreton and Wide Bay. When New South Wales gained responsible government in 1856, members were elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from these districts. But the great difficulty in travelling to and from Sydney rendered this arrangement ineffective, and there was soon agitation for separation. In 1859 the British Government agreed to the creation of the colony of Queensland. Queensland was the only Australian colony which was immediately granted responsible government, despite its small White population. The first elections for the Legislative Assembly were held between April and May 1860, with a restrictive property franchise and a representation that favoured the pastoral districts. A nominee Legislative Council was also created. The Council was abolished in 1922 - Queensland is the only state which has never had an elected upper house. The property qualification for voting was abolished in 1873, but women did not gain the right to vote until 1905. Women were not eligible for election to the Legislative Assembly until 1915, and none were elected before 1929. No woman was ever appointed to the Legislative Council. The bias in favour of country electorates was maintained until 1991. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people gained the right to vote in 1965. Sources ==================================================================================================================== No official statistics exist for Queensland elections before 1909, and there are no published figures for elections before 1893. Voting figures for elections before 1893 must be taken from newspapers - mainly "The Brisbane Courier", but also country papers. I make no claim as to the completeness, accuracy or finality of these figures. Figures became more accurate with the spread of the telegraph in the 1870s. The task of finding newspaper reports of 19th century elections has been made vastly easier by the National Library's "Trove" searchable archive. I would not have undertaken this project if "Trove" did not exist. From the 1893 election onwards, figures can be found in published works. The most comprehensive of these are Colin A Hughes and B D Graham, "Voting for the Queensland Legislative Assembly 1890-1964" (ANU Press 1975), Colin Hughes, "Voting for the Australian State Lower Houses, 1965-1974" (ANU Press 1981), and Colin Hughes and Don Aitkin, "Voting for the Australian State Lower Houses 1975-1984" (AUNU Press 1987). For elections between 1896 and 1908, figures can be found in "Pugh's Almanac", a reference work edited by Theophilus Pugh and published annually from 1859 to 1927. This is avilable online via the National Library's "Trove" archive. It is clear that Pugh was the source for Hughes and Graham's figures for the 1902, 1904, 1907 and 1908 elections. However for the 1896 and 1899 elections there are significant difference between Hughes and Graham's figures and Pugh's figures. Newspaper sources generally confirm Hughes and Graham's figures. It is not clear what sources Hughes and Graham used for the 1893, 1896 and 1899 elections. The figures Hughes and Graham give for by-elections are consistently wrong, because they were obtained from incomplete newspaper reports. "Trove" has made it possible to find final figures for most by-elections. From the 1909 election onwards, detailed official election statistics were published in the Queensland Parliamentary Papers. These are available online via the John Oxley Library in Brisbane, from the 1918 election onwards, although there is no online report for 1923. The results from 1909, 1912, 1915 and 1923 can be found in the Parliamentary Papers but are not online. Detailed results for all elections since 1992 can accessed at the Electoral Commission of Queensland website. Where possible, I have used the official figures in preference to Hughes, Graham and Aitken. All the sources, however, contain errors, and cross-checking the official figures against the published figures in Hughes, Graham and Aitken and in "Pugh's Almanac" enables some of these to be eliminated. No doubt I have made many of my own. Most of the earlier published sources do not give candidates' given names, or their party affiliations. Biographies of elected members are taken from the website of the Queensland Parliament. Details of other candidates come from newspaper and other sources. Legislative Assembly elections ==================================================================================================================== Until 1902 Legislative Assembly elections took place in stages across a month, allowing candidates defeated at one electorate to stand again elsewhere. For this period electorates are shown in alphabetical order, with the dates of nomination and polling shown. In seats electing more than one member, voters could cast as many votes as there were members to be elected (ie, in a two-member seat, each voter could vote for two candidates if they chose). In 1872 Queensland shifted to a system of 42 single-member seats, but in 1878 the colony reverted to a mix of single and two-member seats. Two-member seats were finally abolished in 1910. There were no political parties early in this period. Candidates generally stood as supporters or opponents of the incumbent ministry, but allegiances were often very transient. By the 1890s there were recognised liberal and conservative parties, but these were almost entirely parliamentary followings rather than parties in the modern sense. For earlier elections, Members (and sometimes other candidates) are classified as Ministerialists or Oppositionists, according to lists published in the newspapers. This classification should be treated with caution, since the papers had loyalties of their own, and in any case ministries rose and fell with great frequency. Until 1893 a member accepting a ministerial office (technically an office of profit under the Crown) had to resign his seat and seek re-election. This, together with the greater fluidity of the political system (and the tendency of members to become insolvent), led to very frequent by-elections. Fortunately, details of writs issued and returned were published in the "Government Gazette". Ministerial positions ==================================================================================================================== All ministerial positions held by members of the Legislative Assembly are shown. These are shown for each Parliament, with the date of the opening of the new Parliament as the starting point. Details of portfolios come from tables published in the Queensland Parliamentary Papers. The section headed "Ministries" gives full details of all ministries, including portfolios held by members of the unelected Legislative Council. The head of the government was commonly called the Premier, but the ministerial lists published in the "Goverment Gazette" make it clear that this term had no legal basis in the 19th century. In that period the head of the government nearly always had another portfolio for which he was paid a salary (but Robert Herbert in his second ministry was content to be an unpaid Minister without Portfolio). Unfortunately the "Goverment Gazette" is available online only until the end of 1900, so it is not possible to determine from that source when the position of Premier was officially established. I have made an arbitrary decision to recognise the position of Premier from the date of Federation in 1901.