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Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 1 November 1986 to elect the 89 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. It followed a redistribution which increased by seven the number of seats in the Assembly.
The election resulted in a seventh consecutive term for the National Party under Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. It was the 11th consecutive term for the National Party in Queensland since it first came to office in 1957.
To date this is the last time that a non-Labor government was elected in Queensland (although the Coalition did later ruled between 1996 and 1998 as a direct result of the 1996 Mundingburra by-election).
Contents |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 30 September 1986 | Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election.[1] |
| 9 October 1986 | Close of nominations. |
| 1 November 1986 | Polling day, between the hours of 8am and 6pm. |
| 1 December 1986 | The Bjelke-Petersen Ministry was reconstituted. |
| 8 January 1987 | The writ was returned and the results formally declared. |
All three parties had high hopes for the election. The Nationals knew that they needed to increase their number of seats in order to hang onto Government (they had held a majority of one in the last Parliament, which had been increased from 82 seats to 89 for the 1986 election). The Liberals desperately needed to win back some of their losses from their disastrous performance in 1983, and Labor hoped to exploit disunity between the conservative parties to make gains.
The election was held under malapportionment boundaries, which had been redrawn earlier in the year in a manner which further advantaged the National Party.[2]
The Bjelke-Petersen Government won a commanding victory, winning an extra eight seats and thus increasing its majority. The Liberals gained two seats, but were still nowhere near making up for their 1983 losses. Labor lost two seats.
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Queensland state election, 1 November 1986[3][4] |
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| Enrolled Voters | 1,563,294 | |||||
| Votes Cast | 1,426,478 | Turnout | 91.25% | –0.44% | ||
| Informal Votes | 30,903 | Informal | 2.17% | +0.70% | ||
| Summary of votes by party | ||||||
| Party | Primary Votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | |
| Labor | 577,062 | 41.35% | –2.63% | 30 | – 2 | |
| National | 553,197 | 39.64% | +0.71% | 49 | + 8 | |
| Liberal | 230,310 | 16.50% | +1.62% | 10 | + 2 | |
| Democrats | 8,747 | 0.63% | –0.20% | 0 | ± 0 | |
| Independent | 26,259 | 1.88% | +0.59% | 0 | – 1 | |
| Total | 1,395,575 | 89 | ||||
The 1986 election is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it saw the National Party retain a majority of seats in the Parliament. This was only the second election in Australian history (the other being the 1983 Queensland election) in which the National Party won enough seats to form Government in its own right.
More importantly, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s victory gave him the confidence to launch the ‘Joh for PM’ campaign, which would play a major part in the 1987 federal election, and would later be a major factor in his undoing.
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