Flinders by-election, 1982

A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Flinders on 4 December 1982. It was triggered by the resignation of the sitting member and former Liberal Party deputy leader, Sir Phillip Lynch.

The by-election was won by Liberal Party candidate Peter Reith. Parliament was in session until 15 December,[1] but Reith chose not to attend to be sworn in then. On 3 February 1983, before Parliament could meet following the by-election, the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, called a double dissolution election for 5 March. Reith lost his seat but was re-elected at the December 1984 election.

Opponents of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania (which was eventually vetoed by the incoming Hawke Government in 1983) used the Flinders by-election as an informal referendum. 41% of voters wrote "No Dams" on their ballot-papers [2] This had no legal effect but did not invalidate their votes.

Results

Flinders by-election, 1982[3]
Party Candidate Votes % ±
Liberal Peter Reith 34,765 45.7 -4.6
Labor Rogan Ward 31,052 40.8 +1.6
Democrats Harold Fraser 6,785 8.9 -1.6
Democratic Labor Peter Ferwerda 1,271 1.7 +1.7
Deadly Serious Paul Crossley 1,211 1.6 +1.6
Republican Peter Consandine 607 0.8 +0.8
Australia Gail Farrell 389 0.5 +0.5
Total formal votes 76,080 97.4 -0.7
Informal votes 1,991 2.6 +0.7
Turnout 78,071 92.1 -3.0
Two-party-preferred result
Liberal Peter Reith 39,804 52.3 -2.3
Labor Rogan Ward 36,276 47.7 +2.3
Liberal hold Swing -2.3

See also

References

  1. ↑ House of Reps Hansard
  2. ↑ Hunter, Helen; Bailey, Richard (1988). "Lessons from the Franklin Dam: How Labor was forced to act". Socialist Worker. p. 7.
  3. ↑ "By-Elections 1980-1983". Psephos.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.