Queensland state election, 2015
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The 2015 Queensland state election was held on 31 January 2015 to elect all 89 members of the unicameral Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The centre-right Liberal National Party (LNP), led by
Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...
Campbell Newman Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman (born 12 August 1963) is a former Australian politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Quee ...
, attempted to win a second term but was defeated by the opposition centre-left Australian Labor Party (ALP), led by Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk. Labor formed a
minority government A minority government, minority cabinet, minority administration, or a minority parliament is a government and Cabinet (government), cabinet formed in a parliamentary system when a political party or Coalition government, coalition of parties do ...
with the support of the lone independent MP in the chamber, Peter Wellington. It is only the seventh change of government in Queensland since 1915, and only the third time since 1932 that a sitting government in the state has failed to win a second term. Furthermore, Annastacia Palaszczuk became the first woman to win government from opposition in a state election (eventual Chief Minister Clare Martin led the Labor Party to victory from opposition in
2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
at an election in the Northern Territory). The previous election saw Labor, which had governed the state for all but two years since 1989, suffer the worst defeat of a sitting government in the state's history. The LNP won 78 seats—the largest
majority government A majority government is a government by one or more governing parties that hold an absolute majority of seats in a legislature. This is as opposed to a minority government, where the largest party in a legislature only has a plurality of seats. ...
in Queensland history—compared to seven for Labor, two for Katter's Australian Party, and two won by independents. Following Labor's defeat former Premier
Anna Bligh Anna Maria Bligh (born 14 July 1960) is a lobbyist and former Australian politician who served as the 37th Premier of Queensland, in office from 2007 to 2012 as leader of the Labor Party. She was the first woman to hold either position. In 2 ...
retired from politics and was succeeded as party leader by her former Transport Minister, Palaszczuk. Months later, Ray Hopper left the LNP to lead Katter's Australian Party while two further LNP MPs became independents, resulting in a total of 75 LNP seats, seven Labor seats, three Katter seats and four independent seats. Two by-elections saw Labor defeat the LNP, reducing the LNP to 73 seats with Labor on 9 seats. Although Labor hoped to regain much of what it lost in its severe defeat of three years earlier, most polls pointed to the LNP being returned for another term with a reduced majority. On election night, the outcome of the election was inconclusive, though most political analysts projected that the LNP had lost its majority after suffering what ended up being a record 14-point two-party swing. Newman was defeated in his seat of Ashgrove to his predecessor, Kate Jones—only the second time since Federation that a sitting Queensland premier has lost their own seat. With the outcome in his own seat beyond doubt, Newman announced his retirement from politics, though remained as caretaker premier pending the final results. According to projections from both ABC News and Brisbane's '' The Courier-Mail'', Labor had taken at least 30 seats from the LNP, and was very close to picking up the 36-seat swing it needed to form government in its own right—a feat initially thought impossible when the writs were issued. On the day after the election, both outlets had Labor either two or three seats short of a majority. Political analysts opined that the balance of power was likely to rest with Katter's Australian Party and independent Wellington. Wellington announced on 5 February he would support a Palaszczuk-led Labor minority government on confidence and supply while retaining the right to vote on
conscience Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sens ...
. On 13 February, the Electoral Commission of Queensland declared the results of the election. Labor won 44 seats, one short of a majority, putting Labor in a position to form a minority government in the hung parliament. Even allowing for the LNP's previously overwhelming majority, the 37-seat swing is the second-largest shift of seats against a sitting government in Queensland since Federation, only exceeded by the 44-seat shift against Labor in 2012. Conversely, the two-party swing of 13.7 points in 2012 was exceeded by the 2015 two-party swing of 14.0 points. Palaszczuk approached Governor
Paul de Jersey Paul de Jersey, (born 21 September 1948) is an Australian jurist who served as the 26th governor of Queensland, in office from 29 July 2014 to 1 November 2021. He was Chief Justice of Queensland from 1998 to 2014. Education De Jersey was edu ...
on 11 February and advised him that she could form a minority government. Palaszczuk and de Jersey met again on 13 February. At that meeting, de Jersey formally invited Palaszczuk to form a government, an invitation that Palaszczuk accepted. On 14 February, Palaszczuk was sworn in as the 39th Premier of Queensland.


Results


Seats changing hands


Post-election pendulum

Labor regained power mainly on the strength of recovering much of what it had lost in Brisbane at the 2012 election. Brisbane had been Labor's power base for more than a quarter-century; Labor had gone into the 2012 election holding 36 of the capital's 40 seats, losing all but three at the election. In 2015, however, Labor won 28 seats in Brisbane. The LNP was still in a position to hope for a minority government primarily by sweeping the Gold Coast, albeit in most cases by somewhat smaller margins than in 2012. Although Queensland is Australia's least centralised state, since the abolition of the Bjelkemander it has been extremely difficult to form even a minority government without a strong base in Brisbane. The 2015 election underscored this. None of the LNP's safe seats (greater than 10 percent 2PP) were located in Brisbane. The LNP's safest seat,
Moggill Moggill is a suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Moggill had a population of 4,641 people. Geography Moggill is about by from the Brisbane GPO. The Brisbane River bounds the suburb to the east, south and west w ...
, only had a majority of 8.2 percent, putting it on the strong side of fairly safe. In contrast, all but two of Labor's safe seats were in the capital. Following the election, the Palmer United Party candidate for Ferny Grove, Mark Taverner, was revealed to be an undischarged bankrupt and was therefore ineligible to run. The revelation spurred speculation that there may need to be a by-election to resolve the seat. The Electoral Commission of Queensland initially released a statement on 8 February saying that it would declare the seat, and then refer the issue to the
Supreme Court of Queensland The Supreme Court of Queensland is the highest court in the Australian State of Queensland. It was formerly the Brisbane Supreme Court, in the colony of Queensland. The original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court allows its trial division to he ...
sitting as the
Court of Disputed Returns The Court of Disputed Returns is a court, tribunal, or some other body that determines disputes about elections in some common law countries. The court may be known by another name such as the Court of Disputed Elections. In countries that derive ...
. The statement raised a by-election as a possible outcome. Lawrence Springborg, who succeeded Newman as LNP leader on 7 February, called for the
caretaker government A caretaker government is a temporary ''ad hoc'' government that performs some governmental duties and functions in a country until a regular government is elected or formed. Depending on specific practice, it usually consists of either randomly se ...
to continue until after a possible Ferny Grove by-election is held, citing both the uncertainty of a hung parliament and doubt over the status of Ferny Grove. Conversely, ABC election analyst Antony Green believed that the Ferny Grove outcome and possible by-election would not affect who forms government. Professor Graeme Orr, an electoral law expert at University of Queensland, labelled the prospect of the LNP maintaining a caretaker government until a possible by-election analogous to a "constitutional coup". Orr also reasoned that the law and facts were against a Ferny Grove by-election. The Electoral Commission of Queensland declared Ferny Grove had been won by the Labor candidate
Mark Furner Mark Lionel Furner (born 11 April 1958) is an Australian politician. He was a Australian Labor Party, Labor member of Australian Senate from 2008 to 2014, representing the state of Queensland. Since the 2015 Queensland state election, he has rep ...
over LNP incumbent
Dale Shuttleworth Dale Shuttleworth (born 5 August 1964) is an Australian Liberal National politician who was the member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland for Ferny Grove from 2012 to 2015, having defeated the Minister of Health Geoff Wilson at the 2 ...
on 11 February, signalling that it would soon refer the matter to the Court of Disputed Returns. Green analysed the Ferny Grove tally and concluded that Taverner did not have an effect on the outcome of the election. Specifically, Green concluded that at most, 353 of Taverner's ballot papers had exhausted. However, Furner would have still won even if all of those votes had gone to Shuttleworth had Taverner not been on the ballot. To Green's mind, this made it extremely difficult to argue that exhausted preferences alone would be enough to demand a by-election in Ferny Grove. On 13 February the Electoral Commission of Queensland stated that, based on legal advice, they would not be referring the Ferny Grove result to the Court of Disputed Returns. This formally cleared the way for a Labor minority government, and Governor
Paul de Jersey Paul de Jersey, (born 21 September 1948) is an Australian jurist who served as the 26th governor of Queensland, in office from 29 July 2014 to 1 November 2021. He was Chief Justice of Queensland from 1998 to 2014. Education De Jersey was edu ...
invited Palaszczuk to form a government later that day. The LNP stated they were considering their legal options, with Springborg later releasing a statement where he "congratulate incoming Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her government". On 16 February the LNP announced it would not be challenging the Ferny Grove result.


Voting method

Queensland used an optional preferential version of the
instant-runoff Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...
system in single-member electorates, in 2016 compulsory preferential voting was readopted. The election was conducted by the Electoral Commission of Queensland, an independent body answerable to Parliament. In Queensland, a parliamentary term was for a maximum of three years, measured from the day set for the return of the electoral writs, as a result of the 2016 referendum in future Queensland will have fixed four-year terms. The previous state election was held on 24 March 2012.


Date

Section 80 of the Queensland Electoral Act 1992 states that an election must be held on a Saturday, and that the election campaign must run for a minimum of 26 or a maximum of 56 days following the issue of the writs including the day the writ drops and polling day. Five to seven days following the issue of the writs, the electoral roll is closed, which gives voters a final opportunity to enrol or to notify the Electoral Commission of Queensland of any changes in their place of residence. The Constitution Act Amendment Act 1890 provides that the Legislative Assembly continues for no more than three years from the day set for the return of writs for the previous election, after which time the Legislative Assembly expires. The day set for the return of writs for the 2012 election was 23 April 2012. The Electoral Act requires the Governor to issue writs for a general election no more than four days after the Legislative Assembly is dissolved or expires. The last possible day for the next election is therefore a Saturday not more than 56 days beyond four days after the expiry of the Legislative Assembly on 23 April 2015, namely, 20 June 2015. Under current election rules, the date of the election is at the discretion of the Governor under advice from the Premier, although the leaders of the two largest parties support in principle a change to fixed four-year terms. On 5 January 2015, media organisations reported that Newman intended to announce the election date the next day. On 6 January, Newman confirmed on Twitter that he had visited acting governor
Tim Carmody Timothy Francis Carmody (born 18 May 1956) is an Australian judge who was the Chief Justice of Queensland between 8 July 2014 and 1 July 2015. His previous roles include work as a police officer, barrister, Queensland Crime Commissioner, Fa ...
and writs had been issued for an election on 31 January. This was the first time in over a century that an Australian general election was held in January. The last January election was held in Tasmania in
1913 Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos (1913), Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not ven ...
and the last on the mainland was the New South Wales colonial election of 1874–75. The election was held on the same day as the
2015 Davenport state by-election A by-election for the seat of Davenport in the South Australian House of Assembly was held on 31 January 2015. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Liberal Party of Australia MP and former Liberal leader Iain Evans, who retained t ...
in South Australia.


Key dates


Contesting parties

Besides the ALP and LNP, the election was contested by The Greens, Family First, Katter's Australian Party, One Nation and the Palmer United Party.


Last election

The last state election to be held was the 2012 Queensland state election where the Australian Labor Party led by Premier Anna Bligh attempted to win a second term as Premier in her own right and a third term overall and a sixth consecutive term in office. Opposing her was the Liberal National Party led by Campbell Newman. The election was the second for Bligh who had succeeded Peter Beattie as Premier in 2007. Newman was the former Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 2004 to 2011, having resigned the position to run for Premier. As Newman did not have a seat in state parliament, he chose to contest preselection in the seat of Ashgrove for the 2012 election, and lead the party from outside of parliament until the election. Jeff Seeney served as Opposition Leader in the parliament. The Labor Party went into the election with a modest margin with 51 seats, while the Liberal National Party had 32 seats. Labor was defeated in an historic landslide, the LNP winning 78 seats to just seven for Labor, with Newman winning of Ashgrove from the former Environment Minister, Kate Jones.
Aidan McLindon Aidan Patrick McLindon (born 26 February 1980) is an Australian politician. He was first elected for the seat of Beaudesert to the Queensland State Parliament for the Liberal National Party at the 2009 state election. He resigned from that p ...
, the parliamentary leader of the Katter's Australia Party, lost his seat of Beaudesert, but the KAP won two seats. Only two of the independent members were re-elected. Three by-elections occurred after the 2012 state election. Labor candidate Yvette D'Ath won the 2014 Redcliffe by-election in February, and Labor candidate
Anthony Lynham Anthony Joseph Lynham (born 12 April 1960) is an Australian politician who was a Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland representing the electoral district of Stafford from 2014 to 2020. He was the Queensland Minister for ...
won the 2014 Stafford by-election in July. Jackie Trad held Bligh's former seat of South Brisbane of Labor in an April 2012 by-election, following Bligh's resignation from parliament.


Pre-election pendulum

Following the 2012 election, Ray Hopper left the LNP to lead Katter's Australian Party while two further LNP MPs became independents (Carl Judge in the electorate of Yeerongpilly and Dr Alex Douglas in the electorate of
Gaven Gaven is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland. It was created out of the former district of Nerang and the southern segment of Albert in the 2001 redistribution, and encompasses the northern ...
), resulting in a total of 75 LNP seats, seven Labor seats, three Katter seats and four independent seats. By-elections in Redcliffe and Stafford saw Labor defeat the LNP, reducing the LNP to 73 seats with Labor on 9 seats.


Retiring MPs

Members who were deselected or who chose not to renominate were as follows:


Labor

*
Tim Mulherin Timothy Sean Mulherin (24 August 1957 – 7 September 2020) was an Australian politician who was the Parliament of Queensland, MP for Electoral district of Mackay, Mackay in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1995 to 2015, serving as ...
(
Mackay Mackay may refer to: *Clan Mackay, the Scottish clan from which the surname "MacKay" derives Mackay may also refer to: Places Australia * Mackay Region, a local government area ** Mackay, Queensland, a city in the above region *** Mackay Airport ...
) – announced 9 January 2015 * Desley Scott ( Woodridge) – announced 11 March 2014


LNP

* Peter Dowling ( Redlands) – deselected 25 October 2014 *
Bruce Flegg Bruce Stephen Flegg (born 10 March 1954, Sydney) is a former Australian politician. He was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 2004 to 2015, representing the electorate of Moggill in south-western Brisbane for the Liberal Party ...
(
Moggill Moggill is a suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Moggill had a population of 4,641 people. Geography Moggill is about by from the Brisbane GPO. The Brisbane River bounds the suburb to the east, south and west w ...
) – deselected 7 December 2014 * David Gibson ( Gympie) – announced 2 May 2014 *
Howard Hobbs Howard William Thomas Hobbs (born 22 January 1950) is an Australian politician who represented the seat of Warrego in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1 November 1986 until his retirement at the 31 January 2015 state election. He w ...
( Warrego) – announced 5 September 2014 *
Vaughan Johnson Vaughan Monroe Johnson (March 24, 1962 – December 12, 2019) was an American professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles. He also was a member of t ...
( Gregory) – announced 2 October 2014 * Ted Malone ( Mirani) – announced 26 September 2014 *
Rosemary Menkens Rosemary Norma Menkens (born 10 September 1946) is an Australian politician. She represented the electoral district of Burdekin in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the un ...
( Burdekin) – announced 19 September 2014


Independent

*
Liz Cunningham Elizabeth Anne Cunningham is an Australian politician. She was an independent member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1995 to 2015, representing the electorate of Gladstone. A conservative MLA in a traditionally Labor district, Cu ...
(
Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
) – announced 6 January 2015


Polling


Primary vote opinion polling graph


Two-party preferred opinion polling graph


Voting intention


Better Premier


Approval ratings

Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in '' The Australian'' is conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consist of around 1100–1200 electors. The declared margin of error is ±3 percentage points.


See also

* Candidates of the 2015 Queensland state election *
Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, 2015–2018 Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...
*
Politics of Queensland One of the six founding states of Australia, Queensland has been a federated state subject to the Australian Constitution since 1 January 1901. It is sovereign, other than in the matters ceded in the Australian Constitution to the federal gover ...


References


External links


2015 State General Election – Electoral Commission Queensland2015 Queensland election – Antony Green ABC
{{Queensland elections Elections in Queensland 2015 elections in Australia 2010s in Queensland January 2015 events in Australia