Talk:Steele Hall

First elected

When was Steele Hall first elected to the Australian Senate? 1974 or 1975? I think the answer is 1974, but internet sources are ambiguous. Rocksong 03:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, this page [1] has satisfied me it was 1974. Rocksong 03:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Weakest citation ever

In August, 1988, after the then opposition leader John Howard expressed his wish to control Asian immigration in Australia,[1] and we have to search for two lines of a long and partisan Feb 2007 press article for a source! Do us a favour! Cheers Bjenks 08:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Liberal Movement merge

At Electoral district of Goyder, we say:

• In 1976, the Liberal Movement merged back into the Liberal Party of Australia (the Liberal and Country League having changed its name to that of the federal party after the initial split), and Boundy was given Liberal endorsement to recontest the seat at the 1977 state election, defeating challenger Keith Russack for preselection.

Here we say the LM merged with the Democrats, which is why Janine Haines succeeded him. Can someone explain this apparent discrepancy? -- JackofOz 22:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

There's a thorough explanation at Liberal Movement. The short answer is that this article is incorrect. The LM did re-merge with the Liberal party. But a minority of LM members refused to merge, formed the New LM, which later merged into the Australian Democrats. Peter Ballard 23:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. My question now is (and I appreciate that not all LM members went this way, but the majority did): if the LM remerged with/renamed itself the Liberal Party, why was a member of the Liberal Party not chosen to replace Hall, rather than Haines? -- JackofOz 02:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Then-premier Don Dunstan decided that the Democrats were the true successor of the LM, so chose a Democrat. The Janine Haines article says this was "controversial", but there is no cite or further explanation. Recently there was a newspaper article by SA political commentator Dean Jaensch, commending it as a common-sense approach. Bear in mind the Democrats already had a parliamentary presence in SA (Robin Millhouse), so it's not as if Dunstan gave a leg-up to an unknown party. Still, I can understand some LM-cum-Liberal people feeling agrieved, since politically the LM were in between Liberal and Democrats, it seems. It's an interesting dilemma. Personally I think the best approach would have been to nominate whoever was #2 on the LM ticket when Hall was elected at the Australian federal election, 1975. After typing that I looked it up: according to this ref http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/1975/1975senatesa.txt it was Michael Wilson (Australian politician), a Liberal. Haines was 3rd on that ticket. Hmm, tricky. Peter Ballard 02:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it was one of the first times (if not the very first) that the change to s.15 of the Constitution made in the May 1977 referendum was invoked. Maybe this first test of it showed how difficult it is to enshrine political circumstances in legal documents. At the end of the day, however controversial it may have been, if nobody saw fit to challenge the appointment in the High Court, that means that nobody really believed it was against the letter of the law. I guess they were arguing about the spirit of the law, then. -- JackofOz 13:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Very long afterwards (though most of the participants are still on here) but I've seen it written (I think on Antony Green's blog) that Hall's vacancy was one of the last times before the amendment took effect and so although Dunstan was trying to apply the principle of the new rules there may have been no constitutional grounds for a challenge that would have explored what "party" actually means and for that matter possibly also whether a Senator comes from a state or federal party. There's also the obvious complication that the Liberal Movement had won a Senate seat in opposition to the Liberals so there was a strong view that the voters had awarded the seat against the Liberals.

IIRC at the time there was no federal register of parties (had SA introduced a state one yet?) and party splits have a tendency to produce more than one group who claim to be the legitimate continuing body even if they have to modify the name, and it can get worse if the federal and the relevant state party jump in different directions (as has happened with variously the DLP, One Nation and the Fishing Party, albeit not in states when they've had sitting Senators) or if one side merges/dissolves. A court might well find everyone has breached at least some of the party constitution and it comes down to which side's breaches are bigger to decide who actually is the heir. ISTR problems with party splits have led to some states including requirements for state registered parties to have clear internal procedures that clear up who the members are and how the party amends its rules. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Please unprotect the page

It was a Prester John sock, i'm sure contributors can revert one user easily enough if and when it happens again. Timeshift (talk) 03:21, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Date of birth

It's always been 30 November 1928 - see the Parliamentary Handbook - but now it's become 28 November 1928. There are lots of ghits for 28 Nov, but I suspect most if not all of them are mirrors of this article.

So, where does 28 November come from? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

In fact it seems to come from this unsourced edit of 3 October 2005 by User:Roisterer. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I seem to recall (and please note my memory won't be perfect on this) that I got my information on the article from a the SA parliamentary site. I would agree that 30 November would be the way to go if the parliamentary handbook says so. --Roisterer (talk) 12:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. I've made the change. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

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