The Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division), branded as Liberal Queensland, was the

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

division of the

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...

until 2008. It was initially formed in October 1943 as the Queensland People's Party (QPP), which then absorbed the disbanded Queensland branch of the

United Australia Party The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...

in 1944. In 1945, the QPP had an agreement with the newly formed Liberal Party, where in the "federal sphere", QPP would be the Queensland division of the Liberal Party and would run its candidates under the Liberal Party banner in federal elections. However, in the "state sphere", it would continue to exist individually under its own banner. In July 1949, the QPP was renamed to reflect its status as the Queensland division of the Liberal Party. Based predominantly in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

and other cities in Queensland, from 1957 it held power as the junior party in a

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

with the state Country Party, later the National Party, until 1983 when the Liberals broke away and went into opposition. The party formed another coalition with the Nationals that took power in 1996 but was defeated in 1998. After a further decade in opposition, in 2008, the two parties merged to form the

Liberal National Party of Queensland The Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) is a major political party in Queensland, Australia. It was formed in 2008 by a merger of the Queensland divisions of the Liberal Party and the National Party. At a federal level and in most other ...

History

The centre-right in Queensland has a long history of splits and mergers, with much debate over whether to have a single party aiming to cover the whole state or to have distinctive voices for the metropolitan and rural areas. The Liberal Party was formed after a period that had seen three mergers and three splits in the preceding thirty years. Throughout its history it was beset by the question of relations with the Country/National Party until the two merged.

Origins

John Beals Chandler Sir John Beals Chandler (21 February 1887 – 19 January 1962), frequently referred to as J. B. Chandler, was the Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 1940 to 1952, and the Member for the Legislative Assembly of Queensland, representing the electorate of ...

, the sitting

Lord Mayor of Brisbane The Lord Mayor of Brisbane is the chief executive of the City of Brisbane, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland, and the head of the Brisbane City Council. Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner of the Liberal National Party was sworn in on ...

, was elected to the state parliament as an independent in the

1943 Hamilton state by-election Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 – ...

on 9 October 1943. At the time the conservative forces in the parliament were united as the Country-National Organisation but this was under much pressure to split back into separate rural and urban parties which would happen the following year. Chandler disagreed with the Labor Party's collectivism, instead advocating mass capitalism and class-free politics, and this led him to found the Queensland People's Party (QPP) on 26 October 1943. The Country-National Organisation split up the following year, with the urban section reorganizing as the state branch of the

. However, by then the UAP was in terminal decline at all levels, and the Queensland UAP was soon absorbed by Chandler's party. At the 1944 state election the party won seven seats, all in Brisbane. The Queensland People's Party contested elections in

South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. T ...

Affiliation with the Liberal Party

The following year, the national UAP was folded into the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

, and by April 1945, 17 non-Labor forces in Queensland joined the Liberal Party. However, the QPP declined to dissolve itself and join the Liberal Party, leading the Liberal Party the possibility to have to organise its own Queensland division. However, in May 1945, the QPP eventually reached an agreement with the Liberal Party, where the QPP agreed to become the local apparatus of the Liberal Party for federal elections. That meant in the "federal sphere" or relating to federal matters, QPP would be the Queensland division of the Liberal Party. During federal elections, QPP candidates would run under the Liberal Party banner and were bound by the Liberal Party policy and platform. In the "state sphere", QPP would run candidates under its own banner in state elections and were bound by QPP policy and platform. All candidates would be selected by a joint executive consisting of the state provisional executive of the Liberal Party and QPP representatives. Chandler was succeeded as leader in 1946 by

Bruce Pie Arthur Bruce Pie (18 May 1902 – 30 July 1962) was an Australian politician who served in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. Early life The son of Arthur Savoi Garibaldi Pie, and Annie Gertrude Pie, née Miller, Arthur Bruce Pie was born ...

, a fellow Brisbane based businessman, who led the party to an increase to nine seats in the 1947 state election, offering a bold reform policy that at times clashed with the Country Party's aims. However both Chandler and Pie had business concerns, as well as the former's continued local government role, that meant they could not devote all their time to leading the party. Thomas Hiley took over the leadership in 1948. Since 1946, there were attempts to rename the QPP to the Liberal Party, including an unsuccessful attempt in October 1948. Hiley was also opposed to a name change. In November 1948, the party expressed its intention to merge with the Country Party, with a potential name "Liberal-Country Party League", similar to the

Liberal and Country League Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and ...

in South Australia. However, this was refused by the Country Party as mergers with other parties would violate its party constitution. On 8 July 1949, QPP delegates agreed to a name change and the QPP was renamed Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division) to be in line with other

state divisions. Relations with the Country Party remained uneasy for much of the next decade through the leaderships of Hiley and then Kenneth Morris and it was not until 1956 that they were firmly settled. Although the party polled between 20% and 30% of the vote over successive elections, it could not elect more than 11 members and was further hampered by the introduction of a

malapportionment Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...

in 1949 that strengthened both the Labor and Country parties. The party was also almost entirely limited to electoral success in Brisbane, apart from the seat of

East Toowoomba East Toowoomba is a residential locality in Toowoomba in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , East Toowoomba had a population of 5,244 people. Geography East Toowoomba is by road from the Toowoomba central business district. ...

/ Lockyer where future leader

Gordon Chalk Sir Gordon William Wesley Chalk, Gordon William (Chalkie) (1913 ...

had gained the seat in 1947 and followed the rural parts in a redistribution.

Coalition government, 1957–1983

In 1957 the Labor Party in Queensland was engulfed in the split that had been growing in the party across Australia over the influence of communism. The sitting Premier

Vince Gair Vincent Clair Gair (25 February 190111 November 1980) was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Labor Party. He was e ...

was expelled from the party and led a breakaway

Queensland Labor Party The Queensland Labor Party (QLP) was a political party of Queensland, Australia formed in 1957 by a breakaway group of the then ruling Labor Party Government after the expulsion of Premier Vince Gair. In 1962 the party became the Queensland se ...

that sought to retain office. However, when the state parliament resumed sitting, the Liberal, Country and rump Labor parties combined to block

supply Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

, bringing down the Gair government and leading to the 1957 state election at which the Country and Liberal coalition won power after a quarter of a century. The Liberals were still the smaller of the two coalition parties in the state parliament despite polling more votes, a position that was reinforced when the new government modified the malapportionment to its advantage despite some Liberal opposition. Later in 1962 the Liberals secured the reintroduction of

preferential voting {{short description, Election systems Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems: * Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of pr ...

which would allow the non-Labor vote to combine but also in the long term allowed for the two coalition parties to contest seats against one another. However, for much of the first decade in power relations between the two coalition parties held well, helped by a determination to maintain the relation by Premier and Country Party leader

Frank Nicklin Sir George Francis Reuben Nicklin, (6 August 1895 – 29 January 1978) was an Australian politician. He was the Premier of Queensland from 1957 to 1968, the first non- Labor Party premier since 1932.Kenneth Morris, Alan Munro, a brief return by Thomas Hiley and Gordon Chalk. In 1959 a Liberal convention passed a resolution to offer to merge with the Country Party "on any reasonable terms", but the latter rejected both this and a further offer in 1963. However tensions started growing on several fronts, which put pressure on the traditional allocation of seats between the two partners. Brisbane's growth was rapidly spilling onto the

Redcliffe Peninsula The Redcliffe Peninsula is a peninsula located in the Moreton Bay Region LGA in the northeast of the Brisbane metropolitan area in Queensland, Australia. The area covers the suburbs of Clontarf, Kippa-Ring, Margate, Newport, Redcliffe, ...

, and the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

was also seeing growing urbanisation. Additionally, the Liberals were setting up new branches in traditional Country Party areas. The 1966 state election saw the Country and Liberal parties stand against each other in eight seats, but none changed between the coalition partners. Relations deteriorated during the premiership of Nicklin's longterm successor,

Joh Bjelke-Petersen Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (13 January 191123 April 2005), known as Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was a conservative Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, during ...

. The parties got off to a poor start when the previous premier,

Jack Pizzey Jack Charles Allan Pizzey (2 February 1911 – 31 July 1968) was a Queensland Country Party politician. He was Premier of Queensland, in a coalition with the Liberal Party, from 17 January 1968 until his death on 31 July that year. To date, h ...

, died suddenly and Liberal leader Gordon Chalk was appointed as a temporary successor until the Country Party elected a new leader but at first tried to retain the office for himself until Bjelke-Petersen threatened to break up the coalition. Bjelke-Petersen also moved to refine the malapportionment further, now dubbed the "

Bjelkemander The Bjelkemander was the term given to a system of malapportionment in the Australian state of Queensland in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the system, electorates were allocated to zones such as rural or metropolitan and electoral boundaries drawn ...

", which reinforced the Country Party's superior position. However steady urbanisation in the state increased pressure on relations between the parties as traditional Country Party areas turned into Liberal targets. An early conflict came in the Albert by-election in 1970. The

electoral district of Albert Albert was a Legislative Assembly electorate in the state of Queensland which existed from 1887 to 1949 and 1959 to 2017. Albert was named for the Albert River, which runs through the electorate and separates Logan City from City of Gold Coa ...

, based around the Gold Coast, had been in Country Party hands since 1936 but over the 1960s saw increased electoral pressure from first independents and then the Liberals. The by-election saw the Country Party vote collapse and the Liberals take the seat, contributing to a challenge against Bjelke-Petersen though he narrowly survived a leadership challenge. There was little electoral change in the 1969 and 1972 state elections, but in the next few years the Country Party became increasingly assertive, changing its name to the "National Party" (a name adopted by its federal counterpart in 1982), standing in more urban seats and increasingly taking on the federal Whitlam government as part of greater assertiveness. The 1974 state election saw the Labor Party routed with both National and Liberal parties picking up seats. With Labor increasingly unviable as a party of government, conflict between the two coalition parties increased as they stood against each other in more and more seats. The Liberals were outpolled by the Nationals at the 1977 state election and subsequently diminished in influence in the cabinet. In government itself the two parties held together, with the Liberals suffering increasing division over tactics between the parliamentary leadership, the backbenchers and the extra-parliamentary party. Chalk had retired in 1976, succeeded by William Knox who lasted just over two years before being replaced by

Llewellyn Edwards Sir Llewellyn Roy Edwards (2 August 1935 – 26 May 2021), known as Llew Edwards, was a Queensland state politician and state Liberal Party leader. He was Chair and CEO of Brisbane's World Expo '88. Early life and education Llew Edwards st ...

. However, despite backbench demands for a stronger Liberal approach, the leadership felt unable to deliver it. At the 1980 state election the Nationals gained further seats at the expense of the Liberals, with tensions building further. The breakdown in relations spilled over in federal politics, leading to the two parties running competing Senate tickets at the 1980 federal election, costing the Coalition a seat and thus its majority. A growing group of Liberal members of parliament dubbed the " Ginger Group" increasingly challenged both their own leadership and the Nationals. In 1982

Angus Innes John Angus Mackenzie Innes (born 22 May 1939) was a Queensland politician and leader of the state Liberal Party. Biography Innes was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland in 1978 representing the Brisbane-area seat of Sherwood at ...

challenged Edwards for the leadership, despite Bjelke-Petersen declaring he would prefer a minority government to a coalition with Innes, and only narrowly lost by 12:10. Matters boiled over the following year when

Terry White Terrence Anthony "Terry" White (born 3 September 1936) is an Australian pharmacist, businessman, and former politician. White achieved notoriety when, as Queensland state leader of the Liberal Party he terminated the longstanding coalition agr ...

, the Liberal Minister for Welfare Services, voted against the government line in a debate on creating a public accounts committee to monitor public spending. This was in line with Liberal policy but against the government position, although White disputed the latter point. White was sacked from the government and successfully challenged Edwards for the leadership, with Innes elected as deputy. Bjelke-Petersen refused to appoint White as Deputy Premier, prompting White to tear up the Coalition agreement and lead the Liberals to the crossbench. The Nationals governed as a minority for a few months until the 1983 state election at which the Liberals were reduced to a mere eight seats. The Nationals were one seat short of an outright majority and soon two Liberals,

Brian Austin Brian Douglas Austin (born 22 March 1943) is an Australian politician and Minister of Health (1980–1983 and 1983 - 1986) and Minister for Finance and Minister Assisting the Premier and Treasurer (1987 - 1989) and who represented the state s ...

and

Don Lane Don Lane (born Morton Donald Isaacson, 13 November 1933 – 22 October 2009) was an American-born talk show host and singer, best known for his television career in Australia, especially for hosting ''Tonight with Don Lane'' and '' The Don Lane ...

, switched to the Nationals, supplying them with a majority to govern in their own right.

The long path to merger

Terry White was soon deposed as leader and replaced by the return of William Knox. However the Liberals were unable to recover much ground at the 1986 election which saw the Nationals consolidate their position and win an outright majority. Angus Innes became leader in 1988 as the National government was in decline, but proved unable to make any headway in the 1989 election which saw Labor take power for the first time in over thirty years. The new Labor government of

Wayne Goss Wayne Keith Goss (26 February 1951 – 10 November 2014) was Premier of Queensland from 7 December 1989 until 19 February 1996, becoming the first Labor Premier of the state in over thirty two years. Prior to entering politics, Goss was a solic ...

dismantled the "

" and as a result Brisbane now elected nearly half the state parliament. Furthermore, the preferential voting system was changed to optional preferencing, making it harder for the Nationals and Liberals to contest the same seats without risking loss to Labor. These changes would have the effect of altering the relationship between the two parties as the Nationals could no longer seek government in their own right but the Liberals initially instead sought to achieve senior status and steadily replaced the Nationals as the main conservative party on first the Sunshine Coast and then the Gold Coast. The Liberals elected their first female leader, Joan Sheldon, who was seen as less hostile to the National Party than Innes, but the parties contested the 1992 election separately and made no real advance. Two months after the election, Sheldon and Nationals leader

Rob Borbidge Robert Edward Borbidge (born 12 August 1954) is a former Australian politician who served as the 35th Premier of Queensland from 1996 to 1998. He was the leader of the Queensland branch of the National Party, and was the last member of that p ...

signed a new coalition agreement, allowing them to present a united front in the 1995 election. The initial results saw Labor retain power with a one-seat majority, but this was overturned when the result in one seat was declared void and the Liberals won the subsequent by-election. With the support of an independent, the National-Liberal coalition took power, holding it until 1998. However the coalition faced a strong threat from the rise of

Pauline Hanson's One Nation Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON or ONP), also known as One Nation or One Nation Party, is a right-wing populist political party in Australia. It is led by Pauline Hanson. One Nation had electoral success in the late 1990s, before sufferi ...

party that challenged on issues such as

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...

, gun ownership and

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

. One Nation's appeal resonated well the Nationals' heartland of rural and regional Queensland. The Coalition also suffered a backlash against the introduction of gun control laws after the Port Arthur massacre. At the 1998 election the Coalition lost much support to One Nation and fell from power. The election also saw the Liberals poll more votes than the Nationals for the first time in over a quarter of a century despite the latter winning more seats and this outcome would recur for the next decade. However they remained behind in seats and conflicting approaches to One Nation voters and transfers meant the two parties were undermining each other's approach. At the 2001 election, the Coalition only suffered a two-percent swing. However, the Liberals were all but wiped out in Brisbane, falling to only one seat there, that of leader David Watson. They only won two other seats in that election, those of Shelton and Bob Quinn, who replaced Watson as leader after the election. This was easily the worst showing for the urban non-Labor party in Queensland since it adopted the Liberal banner. The next seven years saw the Liberals in the awkward position of having been incredibly weakened by both the Nationals and Labor but also facing a potentially easier route to senior status over the Nationals, as the latter had been almost wiped out on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts with the Liberals starting to retake the seats. The party made only limited advances at the 2004 and 2006 elections. While it seemed increasingly likely the Liberals would be the larger party in any future coalition government, it also presented the awkward question of which party leader would be Premier, a question that Bruce Flegg, who replaced Quinn as leader in 2006, struggled to answer. A proposal was made in 2005 to merge the two parties but this provoked much opposition, including from the federal governing coalition. Following the federal defeat in the 2007 election and the proposal was revived, and in July 2008 under leader

Mark McArdle Mark Francis McArdle (born 21 December 1956) is an Australian politician and former Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Queensland. He was a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland between 2004 and 2020, representing the electorate of ...

the party agreed to merge with the Nationals as the Liberal National Party, with McArdle as the merged party's deputy leader. The merged party has full voting rights with the Liberal Party and observer status with the National Party, even though at the time more of its elected members were former Nationals. The merged party has so far lasted a decade, but from time to time calls are made for the parties to demerge from both Liberals and Nationals.

John-Paul Langbroek John-Paul Honoré Langbroek (born 31 January 1961) is an Australian politician who has been a member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland representing the centre-right Liberal Party and its successor, the centre-right Liberal National Part ...

, from the Liberal side of the merger, took over the leadership following the resignation of founding leader

Lawrence Springborg Lawrence James Springborg (born 17 February 1968) is an Australian politician. He led the National Party in the Queensland Parliament from 2003 to 2006 and again in 2008, before becoming the first leader of the merged Liberal National Party ...

. It was the first time in 84 years that the non-Labor side in Queensland had been led by someone aligned federally with the Liberals or their predecessors. Langbroek gave way in 2011 to another former Liberal, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, who led the party to a record landslide victory in 2012, including all but three seats in Brisbane. The LNP was rolled out of office after only one term in 2015.

Brisbane city government

As well as state elections, the Liberals also regularly contested the elections for the

City of Brisbane The City of Brisbane is a local government area (LGA) which comprises the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Its governing body is the Brisbane City Council. Unlike LGAs in the other mainlan ...

, the largest local authority in Australia. The position of

was made a directly elected one in 1982, with the Liberals first winning the post in the 1985 election with Sallyanne Atkinson. The party also won a majority on the council and held both in the 1988 election. Following Atkinson's defeat in the 1991 election, the Liberals did not win the mayoralty again until the 2004 election when Campbell Newman won the post but with a Labor majority on the council. Newman was re-elected in 2008, this time with a Liberal majority on the council.

Leaders

Election results

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Liberal Party Of Australia Queensland

Political parties established in 1943 1943 establishments in Australia Defunct political parties in Queensland Political parties disestablished in 2008 2008 disestablishments in Australia