McArdle has held many parliamentary party positions, including stints as a Shadow Minister for Justice, State Development & Innovation; Emergency Services; Seniors; and Local Government.
He was installed as a compromise candidate in the Leadership Contest of December 2007, after a deadlock between supporters of former leader Bruce Flegg and young challenger Tim Nicholls.
Additional to his Parliamentary Party responsibilities, McArdle assumed the role of Shadow Minister for Health in August 2008, until the LNP's emphatic victory in 2012.
After the Liberal National Party's landslide win in the 2012 Queensland state election, McArdle was appointed as Minister for Energy and Water Supply[6] by Premier Campbell Newman, overseeing long-awaited and modernising reforms in energy and water security, after a series of natural disasters and an historical drought.
[1] [8] Prior to the 2006 Election, McArdle, by then an emerging force within the Parliament, came under sustained criticism from the Labor Party and local media for his role in the collapse of mortgage schemes run by Boyce Garrick Lawyers.