Queensland state election, 1944

Last updated
Queensland state election, 1944

Flag of Queensland.svg

←  1941 15 April 1944 (1944-04-15) 1947  →
All 62 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
32 Assembly seats were needed for a majority

 First partySecond party
  Frank Cooper, circa 1949.jpg Frank Nicklin.jpg
Leader Frank Cooper Frank Nicklin
Party Labor Country/QPP coalition
Leader since16 September 1942 (1942-09-16)21 May 1941
Leader's seat Bremer Murrumba
Last election41 seats18 seats
Seats won37 seats19 seats
Seat changeDecrease2.svg4Increase2.svg1
Percentage44.67%42.32%
SwingDecrease2.svg6.74Increase2.svg5.82
Premier before election

Frank Cooper
Labor

Elected Premier

Frank Cooper
Labor

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 15 April 1944 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

Australia Country in Oceania

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

States and territories of Australia first-level subdivision of Australia

The states and territories are the first-level administrative divisions of the Commonwealth of Australia. They are the second level of government in Australia, located between the federal and local government tiers.

Queensland North-east state of Australia

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland. The state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres (715,309 sq mi).

Contents

The election was the first that Labor had contested under Premier Frank Cooper, who had been in office for 19 months by the time of the poll.

From this election, the voting method was changed from contingency voting to First past the post voting. Queensland retained this method for state elections until Preferential Voting was restored by the Country/Liberal Coalition at the 1963 state election.

Contingent vote

The contingent vote is an electoral system used to elect a single winner. It is a variation of instant-runoff voting, in which the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference.

The election resulted in Labor receiving a fifth term in office, albeit with a reduced majority.

Key dates

DateEvent
23 February 1944The Parliament was dissolved. [1]
24 February 1944Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election. [2]
3 March 1944Close of nominations.
15 April 1944Polling day, between the hours of 8am and 6pm.
27 April 1944The Cooper Ministry was reconstituted. [3]
29 May 1944The writ was returned and the results formally declared.
1 August 1944Parliament resumed for business. [4]

Parties and independents

Some ructions had developed between some sections of the Labor Party and the party's AWU-dominated executive, resulting in tiny splinter movements which were, however, locally effective. The Hermit Park branch in Townsville, which had dominated the Townsville City Council since 1939, was expelled from the ALP for alleged disloyalty in 1942, [5] possibly due to association with Communists. Tom Aikens won the seat of Mundingburra at the election. Similar forces saw sitting left-wing members George Taylor (Enoggera) and George Marriott (Bulimba) expelled from the party; the former lost his seat to a QPP candidate, while the latter retained his at the 1944 and 1947 elections. Frank Barnes, a colourful identity who supported social credit theories popular since the Great Depression and declared himself opposed to the Labor government, retained his seat of Bundaberg.

Australian Workers Union trade union

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s and currently has approximately 100,000 members. It has exercised an influence on the Australian trade union movement and on the Australian Labor Party throughout its history.

Hermit Park, Queensland Suburb of Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Hermit Park is a suburb of Townsville in the City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

Tom Aikens (politician) Australian politician

Thomas Aikens was a politician in Queensland, Australia. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

Various changes were taking place in conservative politics as well, with the dissolution of the United Australia Party and the formation of the Queensland People's Party (QPP), led by the mayor of Brisbane and member for Hamilton, John Beals Chandler. The two independent conservatives elected in 1941 were both out of parliament by the election — Bruce Pie had resigned to contest the 1943 federal election, whilst William Deacon had died. One of the former United Australia Party members, Louis Luckins (Maree), did not join the QPP originally and retained his seat in 1944 as an independent.

The United Australia Party was the short-lived Queensland branch of the national United Australia Party in the 1930s and 1940s. Based around Brisbane, it spent the entire of its history in opposition, merging in 1941 into the Country-National Organisation. When that party separated in 1944, the remnants of the UAP joined the Queensland People's Party which in 1949 became the Liberal Party of Australia

The Queensland People's Party was a conservative political party in Queensland, Australia.

City of Brisbane Local government area in Queensland, Australia

The City of Brisbane is a local government area that has jurisdiction over the inner portion of the metropolitan area of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia. Brisbane is located in the county of Stanley and is the largest city followed by Ipswich with bounds in part of the county. Unlike LGAs in the other mainland state capitals, which are generally responsible only for the central business districts and inner neighbourhoods of those cities, the City of Brisbane administers a significant portion of the Brisbane metropolitan area, serving almost half of the population of the Brisbane Greater Capital City Statistical Area. As such, it has a larger population than any other local government area in Australia. The City of Brisbane was the first Australian LGA to reach a population of more than one million. Its population is roughly equivalent to the populations of Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory combined. In 2016–2017, the council administers a budget of over $3 billion, by far the largest budget of any LGA in Australia.

Apart from the above, numerous independent candidates contested with a range of banners, including Democrat, Christian Socialist, Servicemen's Association, People's Party and Independent Country Party, none of them achieving more than a few hundred votes.

Fred Paterson was elected in Bowen, the only member of the Communist Party of Australia to be elected to an Australian parliament.

Fred Paterson Australian politician

Frederick Woolnough Paterson was an Australian politician, activist, unionist and lawyer. He is the only representative of the Communist Party of Australia to be elected to an Australian parliament.

Bowen was an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland from 1873 to 1950 and at various times until 1992.

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991. The CPA achieved its greatest political strength in the 1940s and faced an attempted ban in 1951. Though it never presented a major challenge to the established order in Australia, it did have significant influence on the trade unions, social movements, and the national culture.

Results

The election saw a swing away from Labor based on the 1941 election, as indicated in the table below. In net terms, Labor lost four seats, although it still had a healthy working majority.

Queensland state election, 15 April 1944 [6]
Legislative Assembly
<< 1941–1947 >>

Enrolled voters585,727 [1]
Votes cast512,767 Turnout 87.54–2.75
Informal votes9,352Informal1.82+0.02
Summary of votes by party
PartyPrimary votes%SwingSeatsChange
  Labor 224,88844.67–6.7437– 4
  People's Party 124,43724.72+9.117+ 3
  Country 88,60817.60–3.2912– 2
  Communist 12,4672.48–0.611+ 1
  Independent Labor 12,1542.41+0.671+ 1
  Frank Barnes Labor 9,9701.98+0.932+ 1
  Hermit Park Labor 5,5211.10+1.101+ 1
  Independent Country 1,6540.33–0.450± 0
  Independent 23,7164.71+1.291– 1
Total503,415  62 
1 655,984 electors were enrolled to vote at the election, but 7 seats (11.3% of the total) were uncontested—6 Labor seats (2 more than in 1941) representing 58,561 enrolled voters and one Country seat representing 11,696 enrolled voters.

See also

Related Research Articles

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 12 November 1977 to elect the 82 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1932 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 11 June 1932 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1935 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 11 May 1935 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government of Premier William Forgan Smith was seeking a second term after having defeated the Country and Progressive National Party in the 1932 election.

1938 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 2 April 1938 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government of Premier William Forgan Smith was seeking a third term in office. During the previous term, the Country and United Australia parties had emerged from the united Country and Progressive National Party, which had represented conservative forces for over a decade.

1941 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 29 March 1941 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government of Premier William Forgan Smith was seeking a fourth term in office.

1947 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 3 May 1947 to elect the 62 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1950 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 29 April 1950 to elect the 75 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its seventh continuous term in office since the 1932 election; it would be Premier Ned Hanlon's second election.

1929 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 11 May 1929 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. In this election, Irene Longman became the first woman to both stand and be elected into the Queensland Parliament.

1915 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 22 May 1915 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1956 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 19 May 1956 to elect the 75 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its ninth continuous term in office since the 1932 election; it would be Vince Gair's second election as Premier.

1953 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 7 March 1953 to elect the 75 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its eighth continuous term in office since the 1932 election. It was the first electoral test for Vince Gair, who had become Premier of Queensland 14 months earlier after the death of Ned Hanlon.

1957 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 3 August 1957 to elect the 75 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The major parties contesting the election were the Queensland Labor Party led by Premier Vince Gair, the Labor Party led by former Deputy Premier Jack Duggan, and the Country-Liberal coalition led by Frank Nicklin.

1923 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 12 May 1923 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its fourth continuous term in office since the 1915 election; it would be Premier Ted Theodore's second election.

1960 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 28 May 1960 to elect the 78 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The election followed the enactment of the Electoral Districts Act 1958 which increased the Assembly from 75 to 78 seats and modified the zonal system first established by Labor ahead of the 1950 election.

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 18 May 1907 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The election was the first one in which women had a right to vote.

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 5 February 1908 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1926 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 8 May 1926 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its fifth continuous term in office since the 1915 election. William McCormack was contesting his first election as Premier.

1963 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 1 June 1963 to elect the 78 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.

1920 Queensland state election

Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 9 October 1920 to elect the 72 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. The Labor government was seeking its third term in office since the 1915 election. It was Premier Ted Theodore's first election.

1944 New South Wales state election

The 1944 New South Wales state election was held on 27 May 1944. It was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting and was held on boundaries created at a 1940 redistribution. The election was for all of the 90 seats in the Legislative Assembly.

References

  1. ↑ "A Proclamation". Queensland Government Gazette . 23 February 1944. p. 162:489.
  2. ↑ Queensland Government Gazette . 24 February 1944. p. 162:493.Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ↑ Queensland Government Gazette . 27 April 1944. p. 162:830.Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ Queensland Government Gazette . 6 July 1944. p. 163:33.Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ↑ "JCU Library Archives - A.D. Murgatroyd Collection" . Retrieved 20 December 2009.
  6. ↑ Australian Government and Politics Database. "Parliament of Queensland, Assembly election, 15 April 1944" . Retrieved 20 December 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.