Talk:North Queensland Labor Party

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How was it succeeded by the North Queensland Party in 1974? The NQP had already been around for decades, with its lone MP in the parliament, Tom Aikens. Rebecca 12:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Rebecca, thanks for following me around and giving me some guidance with all these things, I found this source on Google books, and am just going by it, do a google book search of "North Queensland Labor Party" and go to page 73, that is where I got the info from, will do some further research into Tom Aikens who I suspect ran under a few party banners. Thanks, WikiTownsvillian 13:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * According to this source Thomas Aikens was the North Queensland Labor Party Member for Mundingburra from 15.04.1944 to 28.05.1960 and the North Queensland Party Member for Townsville South from 28.05.1960 to 12.11.1977. Will keep looking.  WikiTownsvillian 13:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This book will probably help us out if we can find it: Moles, Ian. (1979). A Majority of One: Tom Aikens and Independent Politics in Townsville. WikiTownsvillian 14:00, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing that bit of digging - it clarifies things quite a bit. I get back to Canberra next week, so I'd be happy to get the Moles book from the National Library if no one's found it before then. There are a few other potentially useful suggestions on Google Books which seem to have a bit about the party's founding - "Labor in Power: the Labor Party and governments in Queensland, 1915-57" by Colin Anfield Hughes, Roger Bilbrough Joyce, Denis Joseph Murphy, was one, but there seemed to be a couple of others too. Rebecca 10:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It was all one party with three names over time. Tom Aikens was the Labor deputy mayor of Townsville in 1942, when he and most of his branch were expelled by the ALP. They formed the Hermit Park Labor Party, which won the council elections in a landslide in 1943.  Then Aikens stood for the State Legislative Assembly as a Hermit Park Labor Party candidate, and won the seat of Mundingburra in 1944 (the seat was renamed Townsville South in 1960).  Aikens represented the seat as Hermit Park Labor until 1949 when he changed the name to North Queensland Labour Party, and then dropped Labour to become the North Queensland Party in 1974.  So three names = one party, and it was mostly Tom anyway.  He lost the seat in 1977.  Anyone feel like writing an article on Tom Aikens?  All this is in an article by Doug Hunt in the Australian Dictionary of Biography - you can read it on the web at  Peter Bell (talk) 05:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)