The Queensland Liberal Party, officially known as the Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division), was the Queensland division of the centre-right to right-wing Liberal Party of Australia 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 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 and other cities in Queensland, from 1957 it held power as the junior party in a coalition 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.
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, the sitting Lord Mayor of Brisbane, was elected to the state parliament as an independent in the 1943 Hamilton state by-election 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 United Australia Party. However, by then the UAP was in terminal decline at all levels, and the Queensland UAP was soon absorbed by Chandler's party.John Laverty, 'Chandler, Sir John Beals (1887–1962)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chandler-sir-john-beals-9724/text17171 , published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 22 June 2018. At the 1944 state election the party won seven seats, all in Brisbane. The Queensland People's Party contested elections in South East Queensland.
Affiliation with the Liberal Party The following year, the national UAP was folded into the Liberal Party, 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 its candidates 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, 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.Paul D. Williams, 'Pie, Arthur Bruce (1902–1962)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pie-arthur-bruce-11392/text20355, published first in hardcopy 2000, accessed online 22 June 2018. 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.Manfred Cross, 'Hiley, Sir Thomas Alfred (Tom) (1905–1990)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hiley-sir-thomas-alfred-tom-12634/text22763, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 22 June 2018.
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 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 Liberal Party 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.Stevenson, Brian "Frank Nicklin and the Coalition Government, 1957-1968", in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland volume 13 issue 11: page 404 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 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/Lockyer where future leader Gordon Chalk 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 was expelled from the party and led a breakaway Queensland Labor Party that sought to retain office.B. J. Costar, 'Gair, Vincent Clare (Vince) (1901–1980)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gair-vincent-clare-vince-10267/text18159, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 20 June 2018. However, when the state parliament resumed sitting, the Liberal, Country and rump Labor parties combined to block supply, 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.Stevenson, Brian "Frank Nicklin and the Coalition Government, 1957-1968", in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland volume 13 issue 11: page 405 Later in 1962 the Liberals secured the reintroduction of preferential voting 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.Stevenson, Brian "Frank Nicklin and the Coalition Government, 1957-1968", in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland volume 13 issue 11: page 408 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 and a succession of Liberal leaders including 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, and the Gold Coast was also seeing growing urbanisation. Additionally, the Liberals were setting up new branches in traditional Country Party areas.Stevenson, Brian "Frank Nicklin and the Coalition Government, 1957-1968", in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland volume 13 issue 11: pages 407-408 The 1966 state election saw the Country and Liberal parties stand against each other in eight seats, but none changed between the coalition partners.Stevenson, Brian "Frank Nicklin and the Coalition Government, 1957-1968", in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland volume 13 issue 11: pages 409-411
Relations deteriorated during the premiership of Nicklin's longterm successor, Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The parties got off to a poor start when the previous premier, Jack Pizzey, 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.Rae Wear, 'Chalk, Gordon William (Chalkie) (1913–1991)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chalk-sir-gordon-william-chalkie-15168/text26356, published online 2014, accessed online 20 June 2018. Bjelke-Petersen also moved to refine the malapportionment further, now dubbed the "Bjelkemander", 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, 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. Bjelke-Petersen barely survived an ensuing 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.