They returned to power at the 2024 Queensland state election, unseating the three-term Labor government led by then-Premier Steven Miles.

Unlike the rest of Australia, a larger portion of Queensland's population is distributed either in regional cities like Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Townsville, Mackay, Gladstone and Cairns, or in rural areas.

This division into urban, regional and rural areas was, for most of the twentieth century, reflected in a system of malapportionment that made it easier for rural-based parties to win more seats in Parliament.

This party won government in 1929 under former Queensland Country leader Arthur Edward Moore, but was defeated in 1932 and split apart in 1936.

[13] During the 1970s, the Country Party began running candidates in the more urbanised south-east corner of the state, including the Brisbane area, in direct competition with the Liberals.

The other change in 1992 was the end of the old zonal electoral system for the Legislative Assembly, the sole chamber of the state's parliament.

The Liberals and Nationals signed a renewed Coalition agreement in November 1992, two months after Labor easily won a second term.

However, it was all but impossible to win a majority government without a substantial base in Brisbane, something that was difficult for the Coalition to do since the Nationals were the senior partner.

The Labor majority was lost altogether a few months later in a by-election, but the Coalition was only able to form a minority government by a margin of one seat with the support of independent Liz Cunningham.

This underscored how difficult the 1992 reforms made it to form even a minority government without a substantial base in Brisbane.

The situation became worse with the emergence of other forces on the right such as Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the City Country Alliance, and the advocacy by the Labor Party under Peter Beattie starting in 2001 of a "just vote 1" strategy that caused non-Labor preferences to exhaust instead of leaking to other non-Labor candidates.

By the turn of the millennium, many members of both parties felt that a merger would reduce harmful competition between non-Labor candidates and to increase the chances of winning seats in Brisbane from Labor.

McIver's time as National Party president coincided with the demotion of members who did not share his socially conservative views.

[20] This led to speculation in the Courier Mail that the Queensland Nationals had been "hijacked by the Christian Right", drawing parallels to similar developments in certain parts of the United States.

The LNP appeared to be positioned to win a second term at the 31 January 2015 state election, albeit with a reduced majority.

However, in a shock result that had not been foreseen by any commentators, let alone either party, the LNP suffered a 12 percent swing and lost its majority.

On 6 May 2016, Tim Nicholls, who is from the Liberal side of the merger, successfully challenged Springborg for the leadership of the party, winning the ballot 22 votes to 19.

[24] Frecklington was elevated to the leadership position at a party-room meeting on 12 December 2017, with Tim Mander selected as deputy leader.

[25] Under Frecklington's leadership, the LNP was heavily defeated at the 2020 state election, in which it only managed to win five seats in Brisbane.

Frecklington initially planned to stay on as leader, but on 2 November announced that she would call a leadership spill which she would not contest.

The eight LNP MPs and Senators who sat with the Nationals were: The affiliation of newly elected members is covered by the following informal agreement: In practice, most LNP MPs from Brisbane and the Gold Coast sit with the Liberals, while those from country seats usually sit with the Nationals.

He has since opted to sit within the Coalition party room, but not with the Nationals or Liberals, following his call for a leadership spill against Michael McCormack the week before.