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The Merthyr state by-election, 1989 was a by-election held on 13 May 1989 for the Queensland Legislative Assembly seat of Merthyr, based in the inner Brisbane suburb of New Farm. The by-election was triggered by the resignation of National MP and former minister Don Lane on 20 January 1989. Lane, who had been a member of the Liberal Party until shortly after the 1983 election, had admitted that he had misappropriated funds during his time as a minister in Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's government, which was being investigated by the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Furthermore, he implicated 14 other serving or former ministers in these activities. The media, led by ''The Courier-Mail'' newspaper, questioned the morality of a confessed dishonest politician continuing a Parliamentary career at the expense of taxpayers. Upon his resignation, despite the Labor Party's opposition to any further entitlements, he collected a superannuation payout of A$535,000 and awaited charges from the inquiry's special prosecutor, Doug Drummond QC.〔 The by-election campaign was quite unusual, with a total of 10 candidates nominating. A local car salesperson, Betty Byrne-Henderson, won National Party preselection and campaigned on the slogan "Send a Message to Canberra". However, most of the campaign's attention was on Queensland issues—in particular the daily revelations from the Fitzgerald Inquiry. ==Candidates== The candidates were: * Santo Santoro of the Liberal Party; * Barbara Dawson of the Labor Party; * Betty Byrne-Henderson, a car salesperson representing the National Party; * John Brown of the Australian Democrats; * Gerry Bellino, an alleged crime boss and one-time nightclub owner, named in the terms of reference for the Fitzgerald Inquiry, and accused of running several brothels and gambling dens in Fortitude Valley in the 1980s; * Tanya Wilde, the first transgendered political candidate in Australia, who ran on a gay rights platform opposing police violence against gay men in particular; * Nigel Powell, a former undercover policeman in the Licensing Branch who helped spark the Fitzgerald Inquiry, running unofficially under a "Citizens Against Corruption Party" banner; and * I. Ciadamidaro, an independent. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Merthyr state by-election, 1989」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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