The Queensland Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (State of Queensland) and commonly referred to simply as Queensland Labor, is the state branch of the Australian Labor Party in the state of Queensland. It has functioned in the state since the 1880s. The Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was the first Labour Party to win government in the world, when, in December 1899, following the resignation of the Dickson ministry, Labour Leader Anderson Dawson accepted to form a ministry by Lieutenant-Governor Samuel Griffith.
History
Trade unionists in Queensland had begun attempting to secure parliamentary representation as early as the mid-1880s. William McNaughton Galloway, the president of the Seamen's Union, mounted an unsuccessful campaign as an independent in an 1886 by-election. A Workers' Political Reform Association was founded to nominate candidates for the 1888 election, at which the Brisbane Trades and Labor Council endorsed six candidates. Thomas Glassey won the seat of Bundamba at that election, becoming the first self-identified "labor" MP in Queensland. The Queensland Provincial Council of the Australian Labor Federation was formed in 1889 in an attempt to unite Labor campaign efforts. Tommy Ryan won the seat of Barcoo for the labour movement-run People's Parliamentary Association in 1892, and the Labor Party was formally established in Queensland following the first Labor-in-Politics Convention later that year.
The Queensland branch subsequently formed the first Labor government in Australia, albeit briefly, when Anderson Dawson took office for a week in 1899 after a falling out between the non-Labor forces.
Since 1989, when the party came back to power after thirty-two years in Opposition, all its leaders have become Premiers despite two spells in Opposition in 1996–98 and 2012–2015.
As of 2020, the Queensland branch has three factions: the right, headed by Annastacia Palaszczuk, the left, headed by Steven Miles, and the centralist faction, the Old Guard. Discounting Speaker Curtis Pitt, of the 47 Labor MPs, 24 belong to the Left, 16 to the Right, and 7 to the Old Guard.
Leaders
Leader
The full list below is the official record of parliamentary leaders: