The Mundingburra electoral district attracted national attention and headlines in early 1996 with a by-election called after the Court of Disputed Returns declared the result in the seat from July 1995 election void. The result had taken over a week to determine and ended up with the incumbent member, Ken Davies of the Labor Party, winning by 16 votes. This gave the Goss government a one-seat majority in Parliament - 45 seats to the Coalition's 43 and one conservative-leaning independent, Liz Cunningham. Davies was subsequently appointed as Minister for Emergency Services and Consumer Affairs.