Townsville City
North Queensland's unofficial capital, the City of Townsville, encompasses Townsville and surrounding rural and urban areas, including Alligator Creek, Woodstock and Reid River to the south, the Northern Beaches and Paluma to the north and the tourist/dormitory suburb of Magnetic Island. Before 2008, the new City of Townsville comprised two distinct local government entities: the former City of Townsville and the City of Thuringowa.
The City of Townsville was initially established as the Borough of Townsville under the Municipal Institutions Act 1864 in February 1866, with the surrounding rural area given the name Thuringowa as one of seventy-four divisions under the Divisional Boards Act 1879. Thuringowa Division became the Shire of Thuringowa at the end of March 1903, with Townsville granted city status under the Local Authorities Act 1902.
As Townsville's urban footprint grew, the municipality's boundaries were expanded in 1882, 1918, 1936, 1958 and 1964 to separate urban and rural administrations. However, over the years, Townsville had displayed a remarkable tendency to support radical figures, including the anarchist and socialist Alderman Ned Lowry, the Communist lawyer Fred Paterson, the pro-Soviet faction within the Labor Party and returned the most prolonged continuous Labor administration in the country, between 1976 and 2008.
Under those circumstances, since extending the city's borders might benefit the Australian Labor Party, the Bjelke-Petersen government froze the borders between the two local governments. By 1986, Thuringowa Shire had grown to a population of 27,000 and was declared a city. Following local government reform undertaken by the Queensland Government, the City of Townsville and Thuringowa amalgamated in 2008.] The amalgamation process was completed with the election of a new combined council on 15 March 2008.
