his written works as Murphy increased his teaching workload due to a lack of staff needed to support the increase in students. Bradley Bowden recounts that, during this period, Murphy was also Chair of the Departmental Assembly at UQ as well as Queensland Central Executive member and "Labor's candidate in the 1972 federal election". This summation of roles resulted in Murphy's political theses to become underdeveloped and less respected by other academics. Critics scrutinised Murphy's publications at one point due to an "absence of theory... and providing syntheses of the work of others without checking its veracity". Throughout his time as an historian, Murphy began a push for party reform within the Australian Labor Party's Queensland branch. In 1978 Murphy presented a speech for over 300 party members and critiqued the capabilities of the current Queensland Central Executive leaders. The majority ruled in favor of Murphy's recommendation for a shift in the party and he was named the leader of a new reform team. During this time Murphy led a push for a restructure in the ALP and attained a pilots license in order to fly statewide to share his message. Anthony Albanese, the 2021 Leader of the Australian Labor Party states that Murphy led reforms in "affirmative action along with a new pre-selection procedure providing branch pre-selection (which was) reviewed by a 40 person electoral college." A story in the Sydney Morning Herald stated that "Murphy believes that the reforms he is seeking are the only way future historians will be able to talk about Labor in Power''. In 1981 he was elected the President of the Queensland State Labor Party. Albanese claims that Murphy positioned the ALP to overcome the problems caused by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the conservative premier at the time. Murphy published an article titled Queensland's Image and Australian Nationalism (1978), in which he criticized the premier stating, "Mr. Bjelke Petersen... is one of the less stable and less competent Premiers the state has had". In 1980, Murphy wrote Labor in Power, which received negative responses particularly from Bede Nairn, another Labor Party Historian, "attacked the book's uncritical discussions of Labor and its affiliated unions". Despite criticisms and any negative responses to Murphy's political engagements, in 1983 he won the position of The State Seat of Stafford in the State Election. Death Not long after his election into the Liberal Seat of Stafford in 1983, Denis Murphy