1990 Australian federal election



The 1990 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 24 March 1990. All 148 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party, led by Bob Hawke, defeated the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led by Andrew Peacock, with its coalition partner, the National Party of Australia, led by Charles Blunt, despite losing the nationwide popular and two-party-preferred vote. The result saw the re-election of the Hawke government for a fourth successive term.

It was the first and, to date, only time the Labor party won four consecutive elections. it is the most recent federal election in which leaders of both the largest parties represented divisions outside New South Wales, the last to have both major party leaders from the same city other than Sydney, the last to have a rematch just six years earlier and until 2001, thus was the last for the 20th century, which unlike 13 years earlier in 1977 when it's the last rematch with the same major party leaders appeared consecutively after the previous federal election in the 20th century just 2 years earlier, and the last to have both major party leaders born prior to World War II.

Background
After John Howard lost the 1987 election to Hawke, Andrew Peacock was elected Deputy Leader in a show of party unity. In May 1989, Peacock's supporters mounted a party room coup which returned Peacock to the leadership. Hawke's Treasurer, Keating, ridiculed Peacock by asking: "Can the soufflé rise twice?" and calling him "all feathers and no meat".

Hawke's government was in political trouble, with high interest rates and a financial crisis in Victoria. The controversy over the Multifunction Polis boiled over during the federal election campaign. Peacock, declared that a future Coalition Government would abandon the project. He shared the Asian "enclave" fears of RSL president Alf Garland and others. The following day, The Australian newspaper ran a headline "Peacock a 'danger in the Lodge.

House of Representatives results
Australian House of Representatives elected members, 1990.svg (78)'''

Labor (78)

Opposition (69)

Coalition

Liberal (55)

National (14)

Crossbench (1)

Independent (1) ]]

Senate results
Australian Senate elected members, 1990.svg (32)'''

Labor (32)

Opposition (34)

Coalition

Liberal (29)

National (4)

CLP (1)

Crossbench (10)

Democrats (8)

WA Greens (1)

Independent (1)

]]

Seats changing hands
Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election. Where redistributions occurred, the pre-1990 margin represents the redistributed margin.

Outcome


The 1990 election resulted in a modest swing to the opposition Coalition. Though Labor had to contend with the late 80s/early 90s recession, they won a record fourth successive election and a record 10 years in government with Bob Hawke as leader, a level of political success not previously seen by federal Labor. The election was to be Hawke's last as Prime Minister and Labor leader, he was replaced by Paul Keating on 20 December 1991 who would go on to lead Labor to win a record fifth successive election and a record 13 years (to the day) in government resulting from the 1993 election.

At the election, the Coalition won a slim majority of the two-party vote, and slashed Labor's majority from 24 seats to nine, most of the gains made in Victoria. However, it only managed a two-party swing of 0.9 percent, which was not nearly enough to deliver the additional seven seats the Coalition needed to make Peacock Prime Minister. Despite having regained much of what the non-Labor forces had lost three years earlier, Peacock was forced to resign after the election.

This election saw the peak of the Australian Democrats' popularity under Janine Haines, and a WA Greens candidate won a seat in the Australian Senate for the first time – although the successful candidate, Jo Vallentine, was already a two-term senator, having previously won a seat for the Nuclear Disarmament Party at the 1984 election, and the Vallentine Peace Group at the 1987 election. Until 2010, this was the only post-war election where a third party (excluding splinter state parties and the Nationals) has won more than 10% of the primary vote for elections to the Australian House of Representatives.

After the 1918 Swan by-election, which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote, a predecessor of the Liberals, the Nationalist Party of Australia, changed the federal lower house voting system from first-past-the-post to full-preference preferential voting for the subsequent 1919 election, and it has remained in place since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats. Full-preference preferential voting re-elected the Hawke government, the first time in federal history that Labor had obtained a net benefit from preferential voting.

It also saw the Nationals' leader, Charles Blunt, defeated in his own seat of Richmond by Labor challenger Neville Newell—only the second time that a major party leader had lost his own seat. Newell benefited from the presence of independent and anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott. Her preferences flowed overwhelmingly to Newell on the third count, allowing Newell to win despite having been second on the primary vote.