History
The electoral district of Warrego was created by the Additional Members Act of 1864 which introduced six new single-member electorates. [1] A by-election was held to fill the seat. The nomination date was 18 March 1865 and the election was held on 25 March 1865. [2]
Warrego was, as with the rest of the state, held by independents and loose groupings of members around the government of the day until the first years of the twentieth century, when the partisan system took hold. It then became a stronghold of the centre-left Labor Party, which held it without interruption from 1908 to 1974. The decline of the rural working class gradually changed the demographics of the electorate, however, and in 1974 it was swept up in a massive landslide for the National Party.
It remained a marginal National seat for the next two decades, even at the height of the popularity of the Bjelke-Petersen government. However, it stayed in National hands even after Labor ended the long National run in government. The "one vote one value" reforms ahead of the 1992 election gave the Nationals a 13 percent notional majority, making the seat safe National on paper. The Nationals significantly increased their hold on the electorate thereafter, and it was now one of the most conservative seats in Queensland. Since then, the National hold on the seat has been only remotely threatened once, in 2001. It remained a conservative stronghold after the LNP was formed from a merger with the Liberals in 2009. The current member, Ann Leahy, has held the seat since 2015.
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