Resource Sheet 3
Extract of speech by Mr Leahy, Bulloo
Let us take, for instance, the Central division at the present time. It has 11,000 electors. The Northern division has 17,000, while the Southern division has nearly 60,000. The hon. member for Rockhampton proposes to give the 28,000 electors of Central and Northern Queensland the same number of representatives as the 60,000 electors of Southern Queensland.
Extract of speech by Mr Thorn, Fassifern
I can tell this House and the Government that if there are three electorates—Southern, Central, and Northern—it will be playing into the hands of the separationists…I disagree strongly to three electorates; I am in favour of one electorate, the same as in all the other colonies where the people were appealed to…the whole colony should be one electorate, because by that means they would get one man one vote.
Extract of speech by Mr Curtis, Rockhampton
I believe that if this Bill were enacted, and the colony constituted into one electorate, the electors of Central and Northern Queensland would probably for the most part not take the trouble to go to the poll. They would feel that it would be perfectly useless for them to do so, because the electors of Southern Queensland would outvote them by more than two to one.
Extract of speech by Mr Kidston, Rockhampton
I hold that it is very important that each of the three great divisions of the colony should have the power to choose their own representatives…My belief is that it would be better to have ten electorates; and I believe that the result would be a better and truer representation of the colony as a whole if there were three electorates in the North, two in the Central district, and five in the South.
Official Record of the Debates of the Legislative Council and of the Legislative Assembly during the Second Session of the Twelfth Parliament [Hansard], Brisbane, 1897.