Electoral District of Maylands - History

History

Maylands was created at the 1929 redistribution, at which five new metropolitan electorates were created to replace former Goldfields seats in Parliament. Its first member was elected at the 1930 election, giving an eighth and final term in Parliament to former Premier John Scaddan, sitting as a Nationalist member. He was defeated at the 1933 election by a Labor candidate, but it reverted to an Independent Nationalist (later Liberal), Harry Shearn, who held the seat until his death on 25 January 1951. A redistribution in 1955 brought in suburbs in the Bayswater area, making the seat notionally Labor, and Merv Toms won the seat for Labor at the 1956 election, while Edward Oldfield, the previous member, resigned from the Liberal Party and held neighbouring Mount Lawley as an independent. After the 1961 redistribution, Toms elected to contest the new seat of Bayswater at the 1962 election, whilst Oldfield, who had since joined the Labor party, won Maylands, but narrowly lost it three years later. Another redistribution in 1966 changed the seat's status from marginal Liberal to safe Labor, and since John Harman's win at the 1968 election, it has been held by the Labor Party. Harman ended his 18-year political career with a three-year stint as Speaker of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, and on his retirement, North Province MLC Peter Dowding moved from the Upper House into the seat. He became Premier of Western Australia on 25 February 1988 upon Brian Burke's retirement from politics. As the WA Inc scandal that came to be synonymous with his predecessor first became public knowledge then came to dominate political discourse in the State, Carmen Lawrence became Premier on 12 February 1990, and he resigned from parliament two months later. At the resulting by-election, Judy Edwards, who later served as Environment Minister in the Gallop Cabinet, was successful in retaining the seat for Labor.