2015 Queensland state election

The last state election to be held was the 2012 Queensland state election where the Australian Labor Party led by Premier Anna Bligh attempted to win a second term as Premier in her own right and a third term overall and a sixth consecutive term in office. Opposing her was the Liberal National Party led by Campbell Newman. The election was the second for Bligh who had succeeded Peter Beattie as Premier in 2007. Newman was the former Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 2004 to 2011, having resigned the position to run for Premier.

As Newman did not have a seat in state parliament, he chose to contest preselection in the seat of Ashgrove for the 2012 election, and lead the party from outside of parliament until the election. Jeff Seeney served as Opposition Leader in the parliament.

The Labor Party went into the election with a modest margin with 51 seats, while the Liberal National Party had 32 seats. Labor was defeated in an historic landslide, the LNP winning 78 seats to just seven for Labor, with Newman winning of Ashgrove from the former Environment Minister, Kate Jones.

Aidan McLindon, the parliamentary leader of the Katter's Australia Party, lost his seat of Beaudesert, but the KAP won two seats. Only two of the independent members were re-elected.

Three by-elections occurred after the 2012 state election. Labor candidate Yvette D'Ath won the 2014 Redcliffe by-election in February, and Labor candidate Anthony Lynham won the 2014 Stafford by-election in July. Jackie Trad held Bligh's former seat of South Brisbane of Labor in an April 2012 by-election, following Bligh's resignation from parliament.

On 5 January 2015, media organisations reported that Newman intended to announce the election date the next day.^[11][12] On 6 January, Newman confirmed on Twitter that he had visited acting governor Tim Carmody and writs had been issued for an election on 31 January.^[13][14] This was the first time in over a century that an Australian general election was held in January. The last January election was held in Tasmania in 1913 and the last on the mainland was the New South Wales colonial election of 1874–75.^[15]

The election was held on the same day as the 2015 Davenport state by-election in South Australia.

• Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.
• ¹ Carl Judge was elected as a member of the Liberal National Party, but resigned and contested the election as an Independent.
• The Liberal National Party also retained the seat of Condamine, where the sitting member had resigned from the Liberal National Party, but contested Nanango as a member of Katter's Australian Party.
• The Liberal National Party also retained the seat of Gaven, where the sitting member had resigned from the Liberal National Party and contested the election as an Independent.

• On 31 March 2015, Billy Gordon (Cook) was expelled from the Labor Party and sat as an Independent.
• On 8 March 2016, Rob Pyne (Cairns) resigned from the Labor Party and sat as an Independent.
• On 29 April 2016, John McVeigh (Toowoomba South) resigned. At the by-election on 16 July 2016, David Janetzki retained the seat for the Liberal National Party.
• On 14 January 2017, Steve Dickson (Buderim) resigned from the Liberal National Party and joined the One Nation Party.
• On 29 October 2017, Rick Williams (Pumicestone) resigned from the Labor Party and sat as an Independent.

Labor regained power mainly on the strength of recovering much of what it had lost in Brisbane at the 2012 election. Brisbane had been Labor's power base for more than a quarter-century; Labor had gone into the 2012 election holding 36 of the capital's 40 seats, losing all but three at the election. In 2015, however, Labor won 28 seats in Brisbane. The LNP was still in a position to hope for a minority government primarily by sweeping the Gold Coast, albeit in most cases by somewhat smaller margins than in 2012.

Although Queensland is Australia's least centralised state, since the abolition of the Bjelkemander it has been extremely difficult to form even a minority government without a strong base in Brisbane. The 2015 election underscored this. None of the LNP's safe seats (greater than 10 percent 2PP) were located in Brisbane. The LNP's safest seat, Moggill, only had a majority of 8.2 percent, putting it on the strong side of fairly safe. In contrast, all but two of Labor's safe seats were in the capital.

Following the election, the Palmer United Party candidate for Ferny Grove, Mark Taverner, was revealed to be an undischarged bankrupt and was therefore ineligible to run. The revelation spurred speculation that there may need to be a by-election to resolve the seat.^[18] The Electoral Commission of Queensland initially released a statement on 8 February saying that it would declare the seat, and then refer the issue to the Supreme Court of Queensland sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns. The statement raised a by-election as a possible outcome.^[19]

Lawrence Springborg, who succeeded Newman as LNP leader on 7 February, called for the caretaker government to continue until after a possible Ferny Grove by-election is held, citing both the uncertainty of a hung parliament and doubt over the status of Ferny Grove.^[20] Conversely, ABC election analyst Antony Green believed that the Ferny Grove outcome and possible by-election would not affect who forms government.^[21] Professor Graeme Orr, an electoral law expert at University of Queensland, labelled the prospect of the LNP maintaining a caretaker government until a possible by-election analogous to a "constitutional coup". Orr also reasoned that the law and facts were against a Ferny Grove by-election.^[22] The Electoral Commission of Queensland declared Ferny Grove had been won by the Labor candidate Mark Furner over LNP incumbent Dale Shuttleworth on 11 February, signalling that it would soon refer the matter to the Court of Disputed Returns.^[23] Green analysed the Ferny Grove tally and concluded that Taverner did not have an effect on the outcome of the election. Specifically, Green concluded that at most, 353 of Taverner's ballot papers had exhausted. However, Furner would have still won even if all of those votes had gone to Shuttleworth had Taverner not been on the ballot. To Green's mind, this made it extremely difficult to argue that exhausted preferences alone would be enough to demand a by-election in Ferny Grove.^[24]

On 13 February the Electoral Commission of Queensland stated that, based on legal advice, they would not be referring the Ferny Grove result to the Court of Disputed Returns. This formally cleared the way for a Labor minority government, and Governor Paul de Jersey invited Palaszczuk to form a government later that day. The LNP stated they were considering their legal options, with Springborg later releasing a statement where he "congratulate[d] incoming Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her government".^[25][26] On 16 February the LNP announced it would not be challenging the Ferny Grove result.^[27]

Members who were deselected or who chose not to renominate were as follows:

• Tim Mulherin (Mackay) – announced 9 January 2015^[28]
• Desley Scott (Woodridge) – announced 11 March 2014^[29]

• Peter Dowling (Redlands) – deselected 25 October 2014^[30]
• Bruce Flegg (Moggill) – deselected 7 December 2014^[31]
• David Gibson (Gympie) – announced 2 May 2014^[32]
• Howard Hobbs (Warrego) – announced 5 September 2014^[33]
• Vaughan Johnson (Gregory) – announced 2 October 2014^[34]
• Ted Malone (Mirani) – announced 26 September 2014^[35]
• Rosemary Menkens (Burdekin) – announced 19 September 2014^[36]

• Liz Cunningham (Gladstone) – announced 6 January 2015^[37]

Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian is conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consist of around 1100–1200 electors. The declared margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

Polling conducted by Newspoll and published in The Australian is conducted via random telephone number selection in city and country areas. Sampling sizes usually consist of around 1100–1200 electors. The declared margin of error is ±3 percentage points.

• Candidates of the 2015 Queensland state election
• Members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, 2015–2018
• Politics of Queensland

• 2015 State General Election – Electoral Commission Queensland
• 2015 Queensland election – Antony Green ABC
• Queensland State Election Photographs 2015, State Library of Queensland