 He finished a distant third on the primary vote, with 22.8 percent behind former Liberal and Country League Premier Richard Layton Butler and Labor challenger Sydney McHugh.However, on the second count, almost 83 percent of his preferences flowed to McHugh, enough for McHugh to decisively defeat Butler with 56 percent of the two-party vote.Quirke later won the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Stanley, serving from 1941 to 1956 as a Labor member, He left Labor in 1956 and won the seat of Burra as an independent.