Politics of Queensland

The politics of Queensland has several unique features with respect to other states in Australia including a unicameral legislature.

Like the other Australian states, Queensland is a dual-level constitutional monarchy. Thus the Queen of Australia is head of state of the Commonwealth and of Queensland. The Queen is represented in the state by the governor, currently Paul de Jersey. The governor appoints the premier (currently Annastacia Palaszczuk) and members of cabinet from the majority party in the Legislative Assembly.

Queensland is the only Australian state to have a unicameral parliament. The Legislative Assembly has 89 members and sits in Parliament House, Brisbane. The result of the Queensland state election, 2015 was ALP 44 seats, with the LNP 42 seats, Katter's Australian Party two seats, and independents one.

The Supreme Court of Queensland, Trial Division, is the highest original jurisdiction, and the Court of Appeal is the highest appellate jurisdiction within Queensland. The current chief justice is Catherine Holmes. The High Court of Australia hears appeals from the Court of Appeal.

There are several factors that differentiate Queensland's government from other Australian states. The legislature has no upper house. For a large portion of its history, the state was under a gerrymander that heavily favoured rural electorates. This, combined with the already decentralised nature of Queensland, meant that politics has been dominated by regional interests. Queensland, along with New South Wales, formerly operated a balloting system known as Optional Preferential Voting for state elections. This is different from the predominant Australian electoral system, the instant-runoff voting system, and in practice is closer to a first past the post ballot (similar to the ballot used in the UK), which some say is to the detriment of minor parties. The next Queensland election will use instant-runoff voting.

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