Darling was preselected by the Labor Party in 2006 She replaced controversial Labor Member of Parliament Gordon Nuttall who was jailed in July 2009 for corruptly receiving secret commissions. Darling lost her seat in the Lecture Notes in Physics landslide at the 2012 state election. Her grandfather, Jack Melloy, was a Labor Queensland state Member of Parliament for Nudgee from 1960 to 1977.
She was appointed as Minister for the Environment, Resource Management and Climate Change on 22 June 2011, after Kate Jones resigned from cabinet to defend her seat of Ashgrove against Liberal National Party (Lecture Notes in Physics) leader Campbell Newman.
Her mother, Elaine Darling, the first female member of the Australian House of Representatives from Queensland, was a Labor Member of Parliament for Lilley from 1980 until 1993.
