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The Mundingburra state by-election, 1996 was a by-election held on 3 February 1996 for the Queensland Legislative Assembly seat of Mundingburra, located in the southern suburbs of Townsville. It was brought on by the Court of Disputed Returns declaring void the close result of the July 1995 election in the normally safe Labor seat, and resulted in the end of the Goss Ministry headed by Labor Premier Wayne Goss, and the swearing in of a minority government led by Nationals leader Rob Borbidge. ==Background== The state election was held on 15 July 1995, with the Labor Party under Premier Wayne Goss hoping to win a third term in office. About ten seats were too close to call in early counting, and it was some days before the result was declared—a nine-seat loss for Labor, giving it 45 of 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly, and a two-party-preferred swing against it of 7.15%. The last seat to be declared on 25 July was the Townsville-based seat of Mundingburra, which Labor's Ken Davies won by just 16 votes in a three-candidate race against Liberal candidate Frank Tanti. This represented an 8% swing against Davies based on the 1992 result. On 31 July 1995, Goss elevated Davies to the lowest-ranking position in the ministry, assigning him the portfolios of Emergency Services and Consumer Affairs. On 4 August, the Liberal Party decided to challenge the result on several counts. The Liberals claimed multiple voting had occurred and that 165 people were not at the addresses they had provided. Most seriously, they claimed 22 overseas military personnel did not get to vote, as a plane carrying about 100 votes from Rwanda arrived too late for the votes to be counted. The challenge was heard concurrently with a Labor challenge to the result in Greenslopes, which the Liberals had won by 41 votes, by Justice Brian Ambrose. On 8 December 1995, Ambrose determined that no breach of the Electoral Act had occurred, but the closeness of the result together with the issue of the 22 military votes meant that the election should be voided and re-run. The Greenslopes result was maintained on the basis of the larger margin between the parties despite a finding that the Electoral Act had not been entirely observed. The result was that Labor had 44 seats, the Coalition 43, and Gladstone independent Liz Cunningham held the remaining seat. If Labor were to win the seat, they would regain their one-seat majority, but if they lost it and the House was equally divided, then Cunningham would be able to select the government. She refused to indicate which way she would lean, arguing that Mundingburra electors should cast their vote first without undue pressure. On 12 December 1995, Goss called the poll for 3 February 1996, pleading with voters in the electorate to end the political instability "bedevilling" the state. He said the date would give voters the "shortest campaign possible and the earliest opportunity" to make their choice, acknowledging that the 1995 result was "a kick in the pants", but insisting the Government had learned its lesson. Both the Coalition and Labor campaigns asked their parties' Federal leaders to stay away from the campaign in order that state and federal issues not become conflated. Goss told the ''Sunday'' program that he felt "there's a bit of an 'It's Time' factor developing" for Prime Minister Paul Keating, and that if he was to lose the poll, "I'll accept the responsibility for that and it won't be any southern politician who's been here." Meanwhile, Liberal campaign director Jim Barron believed federal Opposition Leader John Howard had "got enough on his plate anyway" and that there was "() necessity to bring in other key political figures from outside the State." 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「Mundingburra state by-election, 1996」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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