Queensland Parliament Brisbane: Parliament House and the Pineapple Rebellion

Queensland Parliament Brisbane is housed in Parliament House, the meeting place of the Parliament of Queensland. The building contains Queensland’s only parliamentary chamber, the Legislative Assembly, and was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

What is Queensland Parliament Brisbane?

Parliament House Brisbane is the building where the Parliament of Queensland meets and where the Legislative Assembly operates. Its role gives the building a direct connection to Queensland’s state government, while its heritage-register listing recognises its importance as part of the state’s history.

Where is Parliament House Brisbane?

Parliament House is on the corner of George Street and Alice Street at Gardens Point in Brisbane’s CBD. Its immediate surroundings include Queensland University of Technology and the City Botanic Gardens, placing Queensland’s parliamentary building beside both a university campus and one of the city’s established garden spaces.

This corner location also makes the building’s position unusually precise: Parliament House is not simply in central Brisbane, but at the meeting of George Street and Alice Street, at the Gardens Point end of the CBD.

What happened at Queensland Parliament House in 1939?

On 4 August 1939, Queensland Parliament House became the setting for the confrontation known as the Pineapple Rebellion. During a State Labor Caucus meeting, 37 farmers entered the building carrying items including batons, barbed wire, hammers and knuckledusters.

The group called itself the Social Justice League. Its demands included a 40-hour workweek, lower taxes, unemployment relief, cooperative control of primary industries and fixed prices for farmers. Premier William Forgan Smith described the action as “a display of Fascism” and refused to countenance it.

One minister summoned police after quietly leaving the room. The farmers were removed from Parliament House and arrested. A photograph taken as they were charged showed the men wearing suits, with some smiling and posing. You can explore this episode as one of the place-based stories in Mayhem, Mystery & Murder: A Dark Historic Tour of Brisbane, without giving away the route’s quest.

What can you notice at Queensland Parliament?

The front of Parliament House is identified as the place for a photo or selfie on the Brisbane route. That simple action connects the building’s present role as the meeting place of Queensland’s Parliament with the unusual 1939 confrontation that took place inside it.

At Queensland Parliament Brisbane, the corner of George and Alice streets marks more than a civic address: it identifies a heritage-listed building whose Legislative Assembly remains central to Queensland government, and whose history includes the farmers’ dramatic Pineapple Rebellion.