Marshall Bruce Perron (born 5 February 1942) is a former Australian politician, who was a

Country Liberal Party The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP) is a centre-right political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In local politics it operates in a two-party system with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It also contests federal ...

member of the Legislative Assembly in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

from the formation of the Assembly in 1974 until his resignation in 1995. For the last 20 years, save for an 11-month break in 1986 and 1987, he served as a cabinet minister or its equivalent. From 1988 to 1995, Perron was the

Chief Minister of the Northern Territory The chief minister of the Northern Territory is the head of government of the Northern Territory. The office is the equivalent of a state premier. When the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly was created in 1974, the head of government was ...

.Members of the Legislative Assembly

Northern Territory Legislative Assembly The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory is the unicameral legislature of the Northern Territory of Australia. The Legislative Assembly has 25 members, each elected in single-member electorates for four-year terms. The voting method f ...

, 2009.

Early life

Perron was born in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, Western Australia in 1942. His family was from Darwin, but had been evacuated to Perth due to the threat of Japanese attack during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Perron was born on 5 February, two weeks before the

bombing of Darwin The Bombing of Darwin, also known as the Battle of Darwin, on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, attacked the town, ships in ...

, and he would later jokingly blame "the Japanese for denying him his birthright as a Territorian."Green, Antony
2005 Northern Territory Election – Fannie Bay electorate profile
28 June 2005.

Political career

Perron entered politics in 1974, when he was elected as a member of the first

, which replaced the partly elected Legislative Council. He represented the division of Stuart Park for the

. A year later, Perron was promoted to cabinet. As

self-government __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...

was not granted to the Northern Territory until 1978, until then the ministers under Majority Leaders

Goff Letts Godfrey Alan "Goff" Letts (born 18 January 1928) is the former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Majority Leader of the Northern Territory of Australia from 1974 to 1977. Born in Donald, Victoria, Letts attended Melbourne Grammar Sc ...

and

Paul Everingham Paul Anthony Edward Everingham (born 4 February 1943) is a former Australian politician who was the head of government of the Northern Territory of Australia from 1977 to 1984, serving as the second and last Majority Leader (1977–1978) and ...

were known as Executive Members. Perron joined Letts'

executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...

in December 1975 as Executive Member for Municipal and Consumer Affairs and Cabinet Member for Education and Planning from 1976 to 1977. After the 1977 election, Perron was named deputy leader of the CLP under Everingham, and hence became Deputy Majority Leader (deputy premier), also taking the Finance and Planning portfolio. From 1 July 1978, when self-government came into effect, Perron became Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Lands and Housing until 1980 when he took the Industrial Development and Community Development portfolios instead of Lands and Housing, although he regained that position in 1982. In 1982, Stuart Park was abolished in a redistribution, even as the size of the Assembly was increased from 19 to 25 seats. In the 1983 election, Perron stood for election in the division of Fannie Bay, which had absorbed most of Stuart Park in the redistribution. He won the seat from the incumbent Labor Party candidate

Pam O'Neil Pamela Frances O'Neil (born 20 September 1945) is a former Australian politician. She was the Labor member for Fannie Bay in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 1983. In 1984, she was appointed Australia's first Sex Di ...

. In December 1984, Chief Minister

Ian Tuxworth Ian Lindsay Tuxworth (18 June 1942 – 21 January 2020) was an Australian politician, who was Chief Minister of the Northern Territory of Australia from 17 October 1984 until his resignation on 10 May 1986. Early life Tuxworth was born on 18 J ...

took on Perron's role as Treasurer, with Perron taking the position of Attorney-General and Minister for Mines and Energy. Perron was Attorney-General when the discovery of a matinee jacket near Ayers Rock (

Uluru Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, southwest of Alice Spring ...

) raised doubts about the conviction of

Lindy Chamberlain Alice Lynne "Lindy" Chamberlain-Creighton (née Murchison; born 4 March 1948) is a New Zealand–born Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in one of Australia's most publicised murder trials. Accused of killing her nine-week-old daught ...

for the alleged murder of her infant daughter Azaria. Perron announced Chamberlain's immediate release from prison, and the establishment of a Royal Commission into the convictions of Lindy and her husband Michael. Perron returned to the backbench in May 1986, but returned in 1987 as Minister for Industries and Development under

Stephen Hatton Stephen Paul Hatton (born 28 January 1948) is an Australian politician, who was Chief Minister of the Northern Territory of Australia from 1986 to 1988. From 1983 until his retirement in 2001, he was MLA for the seat of Nightcliff. He first bec ...

. Perron became Chief Minister on 14 July 1988, after having rejected previous offers for the position. He also served as his own Treasurer, and was Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services from September 1989 until July 1994. He stayed in office for just under seven years, longer than any head of government in the Territory except Everingham. He restored a measure of stability to the government, which had seen three Chief Ministers in four years. Perron faced his first electoral test at the 1990 Territory election. Although independent polls suggested that

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...

had its first realistic chance of winning power since the granting of self-government, the election saw the CLP win its sixth term in government with a healthy nine-percent primary vote swing. CLP-commissioned polls conducted by social researcher Mark Textor predicted the CLP would win comfortably. He was reelected almost as easily in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

. An advocate for

voluntary euthanasia Voluntary euthanasia (VE) is the ending of a person's life at their request in order to relieve them of suffering. Voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) have been the focus of intense debate in recent years. Some forms of ...

, Perron was instrumental in devising the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill which he introduced to Parliament on 22 February 1995. The bill was passed on 25 May, becoming the

Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 The ''Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995'' (NT) was a controversial law legalising euthanasia in the Northern Territory of Australia, which was passed by the territory's Parliament in 1995. The Act was passed by the Northern Territory L ...

and was enacted into law on 1 July 1996. Perron resigned as Chief Minister and retired from politics on the morning of the debate over the bill, maintaining that he did not want his position to influence the debate.

References

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Perron, Marshall 1942 births Living people Country Liberal Party members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Chief Ministers of the Northern Territory Deputy Chief Ministers of the Northern Territory Members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Attorneys-General of the Northern Territory Treasurers of the Northern Territory Euthanasia activists

Early life

Political career

See also

References