Electoral district of Warrego

Warrego Queensland—Legislative Assembly
Warrego (2008—)
State	Queensland
MP	Ann Leahy
Party	Liberal National
Namesake	Warrego River
Electors	26,619 (2015)
Area	279,546 km^2 (107,933.3 sq mi)
Coordinates	26°52′S 146°9′E / 26.867°S 146.150°ECoordinates: 26°52′S 146°9′E / 26.867°S 146.150°E

Warrego is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland.

The electorate lies in the extreme southwest of Queensland, running along the western part of the border with New South Wales. It includes a number of rural centres, including the towns of Roma, St George and Cunnamulla.

History

The electoral district of Warrego was created by the Additional Members Act of 1864 which introduced six new single-member electorates.^[1] A by-election was held to fill the seat. The nomination date was 18 March 1865 and the election was held on 25 March 1865.^[2]

Warrego was, as with the rest of the state, held by independents and loose groupings of members around the government of the day until the first years of the twentieth century, when the partisan system took hold. It then became a stronghold of the centre-left Australian Labor Party, who held it without interruption from 1908 to 1974. The decline of the rural working class changed the demographics of the electorate drastically, however, and it fell to the conservative National Party of Australia at the height of the popularity of the Bjelke-Petersen government in 1974. The National Party strongly increased their hold on the seat thereafter, and it is today one of their safest seats. The current member, Howard Hobbs, has held the seat since 1985, and was re-elected with 62% of the vote at the 2006 state election.

Members for Warrego

Member		Party	Term
	Frederick Forbes	Unaligned	1865–1867
	Graham Mylne	Unaligned	1867–1868
	Sir Arthur Hodgson	Unaligned	1868–1869
	Sir Thomas McIlwraith	Ministerialist	1870–1871
	Archibald Buchanan	Ministerialist	1871–1873
	William Henry Walsh	Ministerialist	1873–1878
	Ernest James Stevens	Independent	1878–1883
	John Donaldson	Independent/Ministerialist	1883–1888
	Richard Casey	Unaligned	1888–1893
	James Crombie	Ministerialist	1893–1898
	William Hood	Ministerialist	1898–1899
	David Bowman	Labour	1899–1902
	Patrick Leahy	Ministerialist/Opposition	1902–1907
	George Barber	Labour	1907 (elected but his nomination was later declared invalid)[3]
	Patrick Leahy	Ministerialist/Opposition	1907–1908 (not elected but on the disqualification of George Barber was the only remaining candidate)[3]
	Harry Coyne	Labor	1908–1923
	Randolph Bedford	Labor	1923–1941
	Harry O'Shea	Labor	1941–1950
	John Dufficy	Labor	1951–1969
	Jack Aiken	Labor	1969–1974
	Neil Turner	Country	1974–1975
		National Country	1975–1982
		National	1982–1986
	Howard Hobbs	National	1986–2008
		Liberal National	2008–2015
	Ann Leahy	Liberal National	2015–present

Election results

Queensland state election, 2015: Warrego[4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal National	Ann Leahy	13,285	54.96	−3.17
	Labor	Mark O'Brien	6,398	26.47	+13.82
	Palmer United	Guy Sara	2,179	9.01	+9.01
	Independent	Ruth Golden	1,663	6.88	−6.31
	Greens	Sandra Bayley	649	2.68	+0.70
Total formal votes			24,174	97.93	−0.47
Informal votes			510	2.07	+0.47
Turnout			24,684	91.45	−0.32
Two-party-preferred result
	Liberal National	Ann Leahy	14,255	65.43	−9.63
	Labor	Mark O'Brien	7,531	34.57	+34.57
	Liberal National hold		Swing	−9.63

References

1. "Representatives of Queensland State Electorates 1860-2012" (PDF). Queensland Parliament. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
2. "NON-INFECTIOUSNESS OF PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.". The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser (Toowoomba, Qld.: National Library of Australia). 1 February 1865. p. 4. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
3. "THE WARREGO ELECTION.". Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld.: National Library of Australia). 24 September 1907. p. 6. Retrieved 30 August 2013. Download
4. 2015 State General Election – Warrego – District Summary, ECQ.

External links

• Electorate Profile (Antony Green, ABC)