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.
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All 75 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland 38 Assembly seats were needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 93.80 ( 1.29 pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Key dates
edit| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 6 February 1953 | The Parliament was dissolved.[1] |
| 6 February 1953 | Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.[2] |
| 13 February 1953 | Close of nominations. |
| 7 March 1953 | Polling day, between the hours of 8am and 6pm.[3] |
| 16 March 1953 | The Gair Ministry was reconstituted. |
| 5 June 1953 | The writ was returned and the results formally declared. |
| 4 August 1953 | Parliament was summoned for business.[4] |
Results
editThe result was a considerable swing to the Labor government.
|
Queensland state election, 7 March 1953[5] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrolled voters | 657,349[1] | |||||
| Votes cast | 616,611 | Turnout | 93.80 | +1.29 | ||
| Informal votes | 7,912 | Informal | 1.28 | +0.17 | ||
| Summary of votes by party | ||||||
| Party | Primary votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | |
| Labor | 323,882 | 53.21% | +6.34 | 50 | + 8 | |
| Liberal | 129,633 | 21.30% | –8.61 | 8 | – 3 | |
| Country | 114,124 | 18.75% | –0.50 | 15 | – 5 | |
| NQ Labor | 6,680 | 1.10% | –0.12 | 1 | ± 0 | |
| Social Credit | 4,103 | 0.67% | +0.67 | 0 | ± 0 | |
| Communist | 3,948 | 0.65% | +0.28 | 0 | ± 0 | |
| Independent Labor | 824 | 0.13% | –0.42 | 0 | ± 0 | |
| Independent | 25,505 | 4.19% | +2.90 | 1 | ± 0 | |
| Total | 608,699 | 75 | ||||
- 1 737,579 electors were enrolled to vote at the election; however, 11 seats (14.7% of the total) were uncontested, eight of them Labor-held seats representing 49,466 enrolled voters, as well as two Country seats representing 20,053 voters and one Liberal seat representing 10,711 voters.
Seats changing party representation
editThis table lists changes in party representation at the 1953 election.
| Seat | Incumbent member | Party | New member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Condamine | Eric Allpass | Country | Les Diplock | Labor | ||
| Cook | Carlisle Wordsworth | Country | Bunny Adair | Labor | ||
| Mulgrave | Bob Watson | Country | Charles English | Labor | ||
| Norman | Louis Luckins | Liberal | Bill Baxter | Labor | ||
| Roma | William Ewan | Country | Alfred Dohring | Labor | ||
| Sandgate | Eric Decker | Liberal | Herbert Robinson | Labor | ||
| Somerset | Duncan MacDonald | Country | Alexander Skinner | Labor | ||
- Members listed in italics did not recontest their seats.
- In addition, Labor retained the seat of Kedron, which it had won from the Liberals at the 1951 by-election.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "A Proclamation". Queensland Government Gazette. 6 February 1953. p. 182:469.
- ^ "Untitled". Queensland Government Gazette. 6 February 1953. p. 172:471.
- ^ "Put a '1' in that square". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane. 6 March 1953. p. 3. Retrieved 19 December 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "A Proclamation". Queensland Government Gazette. 2 July 1953. p. 183:1151.
- ^ Australian Government and Politics Database. "Parliament of Queensland, Assembly election, 7 March 1953". Retrieved 25 January 2010.