Terms in Office
Hawke led the Australian Labor Party to a landslide victory against Malcolm Fraser's Liberal-National Coalition Government at the 1983 Australian Federal Election, with Labor seizing 75 seats in the Australian House of Representatives against the Liberal Party's 33 and the National Party 17. He went on to become Australia's longest serving Labor prime minister and remains the third longest serving Australian prime minister after Robert Menzies and John Howard.
Hawke again led the party to the 1983 Election and was returned with a reduced majority, in an expanded House of Representatives: with Labor taking 82 seats to the Coalition's 66. Labor went on to a third straight victory at the 1987 Election and increased its majority from 16 to 24 seats. Hawke fought his final election in 1990, with Labor winning a nine seat majority. Hawke retired from Parliament in February 1992, following the December 1991 leadership spill which saw him replaced as leader by Paul Keating.
Read more about this topic: Hawke Government
Famous quotes containing the words terms and/or office:
“It is not [the toddlers] job yet to consider other peoples feelings, he has to come to terms with his own first. If he hits you and you hit him back to show him what it feels like, you will have given a lesson he is not ready to learn. He will wail as if hitting was a totally new idea to him. He makes no connections between what he did to you and what you then did to him; between your feelings and his own.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“I thank those who were good enough to say something pleasant about the incoming administration, for I am glad to get it now. I heard of the man who went into office with a majority and went out with unanimity.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)