Meninga achieved his eighth consecutive series win with the Queensland State of Origin team. Meninga's record-breaking winning streak ended with the Blues' win in the 2014 State of Origin series. The Maroons, however, still scored more points than the Blues across all three matches. In the 2015 State of Origin Series he coached Queensland to their ninth series win in ten years, with the decider played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on 8 July 2015 and Queensland recording both the largest score and biggest victory margin with a 52–6 victory. Australia On 2 December 2015, Meninga was appointed as the head coach of the Australian national rugby league team, succeeding Tim Sheens. This, however, meant that he had to resign from his post as Queensland Origin coach (following events during the 1985 Kangaroo Tour of New Zealand, the Australian Rugby League had decided that the Australian coach could not be a current State of Origin coach), thus ending the most successful Origin coaching stint in NRL history. Before his appointment Mal announced his ambitions that he wanted the International game to become the pinnacle of rugby league like it was in his playing days. In late 2017, Meninga coached the Australian team to win the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. In October 2022 he named his Australia squad for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup. Meninga coached Australia in their 2021 Rugby League World Cup final victory over Samoa. Political career Meninga briefly campaigned as an Independent for the seat of Molonglo in the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly during the Territory's 2001 general election, informally aligned with the socially conservative, pro-life grouping of Paul Osborne, MLA for Brindabella. On Monday 24 September 2001, after be asked why he was standing, he pulled out mid-sentence, stating, "And the thing about that is, I guess, I was a public figure and I was put on the podium where I was just a person out there ... I'm buggered, I'm sorry, I have to resign." He later explained in 2017 that in the six weeks of preparation he had done leading up to the interview, he had never once been asked "why should people vote for you?". Subsequently, this incident led to the satirical Chaser team instituting the 'Mal Award' for their election television shows, presented to politicians "for the greatest act of political suicide during an election campaign". In an episode,