Thursday, July 4, 2013

The Centre Party(Australian political party)


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formed by Kevin Lyons in 1969, which held the balance of power in the Tasmanian House of Assembly following the 1969 state election in Tasmania. The party formed a minority government with the Liberal Party, with Lyons acting as Deputy Premier to Angus Bethune from 1969 to 1972.

Kevin Lyons, the son of Tasmanian politician Joseph Lyons, was originally a member of the Liberal Party. In 1966, a dispute arose over preselection and Lyons resigned from the Liberals on 7 September.[1] Lyons remained in the House of Assembly as an independent, until the 1969 election when he ran for the newly formed Centre Party, a repackaged version of the Country Party which had never performed well in Tasmania.[2] Lyons was elected to the House of Assembly as the party's only MHA, after substantial numbers of preferences were transferred to him from Liberal voters in the electorate of Darwin.[3] Labor and the Liberals both won 17 seats in the House, resulting in a hung parliament, with the Centre Party's one seat giving Lyons the balance of power. In negotiations with Bethune, Lyons agreed to form a coalition government with the Liberals, and became Bethune's deputy premier. The Liberal-Centre coalition lasted until 1972, with Lyons resigning as Deputy Premier after a dispute with Bethune, effectively dissolving the party and the coalition. The resulting instability triggered the 1972 election, which was won by the Labor Party's Eric Reece.

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