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.

1953 Queensland state election

7 March 1953 (1953-03-07)
All 75 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland 38 Assembly seats were needed for a majority
Turnout	93.80 ( 1.29 pp)
First party Second party   Leader Vince Gair Frank Nicklin Party Labor Country/Liberal coalition Leader since 17 January 1952 (1952-01-17) 21 May 1941 Leader's seat South Brisbane Landsborough Last election 42 seats 31 seats Seats won 50 seats 23 seats Seat change 8 8 Percentage 53.21% 40.05% Swing 6.34 9.11
Premier before election Vince Gair Labor Elected Premier Vince Gair Labor

Key dates

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.
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.[3]

Results

The result was a considerable swing to the Labor government.

Queensland state election, 7 March 1953[4] Legislative Assembly << 1950–1956 >>
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

This 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 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

• Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, 1950–1953
• Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, 1953–1956
• Candidates of the Queensland state election, 1953
• Gair Ministry

References

1. "A Proclamation". Queensland Government Gazette. 6 February 1953. p. 182:469.
2. "Untitled". Queensland Government Gazette. 6 February 1953. p. 172:471.
3. "A Proclamation". Queensland Government Gazette. 2 July 1953. p. 183:1151.
4. Australian Government and Politics Database. "Parliament of Queensland, Assembly election, 7 March 1953". Retrieved 25 January 2010.