The Mungana Affair involved the selling of some mining properties in the Chillagoe

Chillagoe, Queensland

Chillagoe in northern Queensland, Australia, was once a thriving mining town for a range of minerals, but is now reduced to a small zinc mine and some marble quarries. At the 2006 census, Chillagoe had a population of 227....

-Mungana

Mungana, Queensland

Mungana, 15 km from Chillagoe, in north Queensland, Australia, was once the site of copper mines that featured in the Mungana Affair.-External links:*...

 districts of northern Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 to the Queensland government, at a grossly inflated price. In 1929 a Royal Commission

Royal Commission

In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...

 was held into the affair and found that two prominent politicians: Ted Theodore

Ted Theodore

Edward Granville Theodore was an Australian politician. He was Premier of Queensland 1919–25, a federal politician representing a New South Wales seat 1927–31, and Federal Treasurer 1929–30.-Early life:...

 Premier of Queensland (1919–1925) and William McCormack

William McCormack

William McCormack , was Premier of Queensland, Australia, from 1925 to 1929.He was born in Purnam, Queensland and died in Brisbane on 21 November 1947....

Premier of Queensland (1925–1929) each secretly held 25% ownership of the properties sold.

Further reading

• K. H. Kennedy. The Mungana Affair: State Mining and Political Corruption in the 1920s, University of Queensland Press, 1978
• Trevor Sykes. Two Centuries of Panic, Allen and Unwin, 1988. (Chapter 11: "Theodore's scandal")