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Gair Affair
The Gair Affair was an episode in Australian political life in 1974, during the government led by the Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Whitlam offered the post of Ambassador to Ireland to a non-government senator from Queensland, Vince Gair, in the hope that this would improve Labor's chance of gaining a majority in the Senate at the forthcoming general election. Whitlam's plan was foiled by the Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, during what came to be known as "The Night of the Long Prawns", but the matter was overtaken by events when Whitlam decided to call a double dissolution election. Jenny Hocking has said of the affair: "The government's attempts to effect an additional Senate vacancy through Gair's resignation was constitutionally sound, strategically brilliant and an unmitigated political disaster." Background At the 1972 election, Gough Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to its first success at the federal level in 23 years. Although another elect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vince Gair
Vincent Clair Gair (25 February 190111 November 1980) was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Labor Party. He was elected to the Australian Senate and led the Democratic Labor Party from 1965 to 1973. In 1974 he was appointed Australian Ambassador to Ireland by the Whitlam government, which caused his expulsion from the DLP. Early life Gair was born in Rockhampton to John Alexander and Catherine Mary Gair, a Scottish father and an Irish mother, and raised a Catholic. His parents were founding members of the Labor Party in Queensland in the 1890s. He began work with the Department of Railways upon the family's move to Dutton Park, Queensland. In 1916 he joined the Labor Party. He married Florence Glynn in 1924. She died in an accident five years later. State parliamentary career The Queensland state electorate of South Brisbane was held from 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1951 Australian Federal Election
The 1951 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 28 April 1951. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives and all 60 seats in the Senate were up for election, due to a double dissolution called after the Senate rejected the Commonwealth Bank Bill. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies defeated the opposition Labor Party led by Ben Chifley with a modestly reduced majority, and secured a majority in the Senate. This was the last time the Labor party ever held a Senate majority. Chifley died just over a month after the election. Issues Although the Coalition had won a comfortable majority in the House in 1949, Labor still had a four-seat majority in the Senate. Chifley thus made it his business to obstruct Menzies's agenda at every opportunity. Realizing this, Menzies sought to call a double dissolution at the first opportunity in hopes of gaining control of both houses. He thought he had his chance in 1950, when he intro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
President Of The Australian Senate
The President of the Senate is the Speaker (politics), presiding officer of the Australian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Australia. The position is provided for by Section 17 of the Constitution of Australia. The Senate elects one of its members as president at the start of each new term, or whenever the position is vacant. This is usually—though not necessarily—a member of the party or coalition that holds the most seats in the Senate. The largest party in the Senate is not always the governing party, as government is determined by the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives. The President of the Senate and the Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, Speaker of the House of Representatives may consequently be from different parties. The President of the Senate's primary task is to maintain parliamentary procedure in the chamber during legislative sessions. Unlike the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate votes a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Hasluck
Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, (1 April 1905 – 9 January 1993) was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding ministerial office continuously from 1951 to 1969. Hasluck was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, and attended Perth Modern School and the University of Western Australia. After graduation he joined the university as a faculty member, eventually becoming a reader in history. Hasluck joined the Department of External Affairs during World War II, and served as Australia's first Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1946 to 1947. He would later contribute two volumes to ''Australia in the War of 1939–1945'', the official history of Australia's involvement in the war. In 1949, Hasluck was elected to federal parliament for the Liberal Party, winning the Division of Curtin. In 1951, less than two years after entering politic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Governor-General Of Australia
The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australiaofficial website Retrieved 1 January 2015. The governor-general is appointed by the monarch on the recommendation of government ministers. The governor-general has formal presidency over the Federal Executive Council and is commander-in-chief of the Australian Defence Force. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Executive Council (Australia)
In Australia's political system, the Federal Executive Council is a body established by Section 62 of the Australian Constitution to advise the Governor-General, Text may be copied from this source, which is available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)licence. and comprises, at least notionally, all current and former Commonwealth ministers and assistant ministers. As the Governor-General is bound by convention to follow the advice of the Executive Council on almost all occasions, the Executive Council has ''de jure'' executive power. In practice, this power is used to legally enact the decisions already made by Cabinet, which according to the practices of the Westminster system has no ''de jure'' authority in its own right (it exists solely by convention and is not established by the constitution or any statute). There are some laws that specifically require decisions or actions to be made by the ‘Governor-General in Council’, which means that they must be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Court Of Australia
The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established following passage of the '' Judiciary Act 1903''. It derives its authority from Chapter III of the Australian Constitution, which vests it responsibility for the judicial power of the Commonwealth. Important legal instruments pertaining to the High Court include the ''Judiciary Act 1903'' and the ''High Court of Australia Act 1979''.. Its bench is composed of seven justices, including a Chief Justice, currently Susan Kiefel. Justices of the High Court are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister and are appointed permanently until their mandatory retirement at age 70, unless they retire earlier. The court has resided in Canberra since 1980, following the construction of a purpose-built High Court Building, located in the Parliamentary Triangle and over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Durack
Peter Drew Durack, QC (20 October 1926– 13 July 2008) was an Australian politician, representing the Liberal Party. He rose to become Attorney-General of Australia. He served in the Senate from 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1993. From 1987 to 1989, he was a joint Father of the Senate along with Arthur Gietzelt, and from 1989 until his retirement, he held that title alone. Biography Durack was educated at Aquinas College and the University of Western Australia. He was the state's 1949 Rhodes Scholar and studied law at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he later taught. From 1956 he worked as a barrister in Perth and in 1965 was elected into the Western Australian Legislative Assembly as the Member for Perth, a seat he held until 1968. He moved to federal politics by winning one of the Senate seats in the 1970 Senate election, taking office on 1 July 1971. He was Minister for Repatriation in the Fraser government from July to October 1976, when the title of the portfolio was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberal Party Of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Australia Party and has since become the most successful political party in Australia's history. The Liberal Party is the dominant partner in the Coalition with the National Party of Australia. At the federal level, the Liberal Party and its predecessors have been in coalition with the National Party since the 1920s. The Coalition was most recently in power from the 2013 federal election to the 2022 federal election, forming the Abbott (2013–2015), Turnbull (2015–2018) and Morrison (2018–2022) governments. After the Liberal Party lost the 2022 Australian federal election, Morrison announced he would step down as leader of the Liberal Party. Deputy Leader Josh Frydenberg also lost his seat, making senior Liberal MP Peter Dutton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Murphy
Lionel Keith Murphy QC (30 August 1922 – 21 October 1986) was an Australian politician, barrister, and judge. He was a Senator for New South Wales from 1962 to 1975, serving as Attorney-General in the Whitlam Government, and then sat on the High Court from 1975 until his death. Murphy was born in Sydney, and attended Sydney Boys High School before going on to the University of Sydney. He initially graduated with a degree in chemistry, but then went on to Sydney Law School and eventually became a barrister. He specialised in labour and industrial law, and took silk in 1960. Murphy was elected to the Senate at the 1961 federal election, as a member of the Labor Party. He became Leader of the Opposition in the Senate in 1967. Following Labor's victory at the 1972 federal election, Gough Whitlam appointed Murphy as Attorney-General and Minister for Customs and Excise. He oversaw a number of reforms, establishing the Family Court of Australia, the Law Reform Commission ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Justin O'Byrne
Justin Hilary O'Byrne, AO (1 June 1912 – 10 November 1993) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1947 to 1981, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He was President of the Senate from 1974 to 1975, including for the duration of the 1975 constitutional crisis that resulted in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. Early life O'Byrne was born on 1 June 1912 in Launceston, Tasmania. He was the seventh of ten children born to Mary Elizabeth (née Madden) and Patrick Augustus O'Byrne. His father, a wine and spirit merchant, was the son of Irish immigrants. O'Byrne grew up in the suburb of Trevallyn. His parents were devout Catholics and he received his schooling at St Patrick's College, Launceston. He left school at the age of 15 and found work at a textile factory. In 1929 he began working as a laboratory assistant at the Rapson Tyre & Rubber Company while studying chemistry and accounting part-time at Launceston Technical Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Australia (28 per km2). Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north and South Australia to the west, and is bounded by the Bass Strait to the south (with the exception of a small land border with Tasmania located along Boundary Islet), the Great Australian Bight portion of the Southern Ocean to the southwest, and the Tasman Sea (a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean) to the southeast. The state encompasses a range of climates and geographical features from its temperate coastal and central regions to the Victorian Alps in the northeast and the semi-arid north-west. The majority of the Victorian population is concentrated in the central-south area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, and in particular within the metropolit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
