Protectionist Party in the context of "1901 Australian federal election"

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👉 Protectionist Party in the context of 1901 Australian federal election

The 1901 Australian federal election for the inaugural Parliament of Australia was held in Australia on Friday 29 March and Saturday 30 March 1901. The elections followed Federation and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. All 75 seats in the Australian House of Representatives, six of which were uncontested, as well as all 36 seats in the Australian Senate, were up for election.

After the initial confusion of the Hopetoun Blunder, the first Prime Minister of Australia, Edmund Barton, went into the inaugural 1901 federal election as the appointed head of a Protectionist Party caretaker government. While the Protectionists came first on seats, they fell short of a majority. The incumbent government remained in office with the parliamentary support of the Labour Party, who held the balance of power, while the Free Trade Party formed the opposition. A few months prior to the 1903 election, Barton resigned to become a founding member of the High Court of Australia, and was replaced by Alfred Deakin.

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Protectionist Party in the context of 1910 Australian federal election

The 1910 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 13 April 1910. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party (formed by the fusion of the Protectionist Party and the Anti-Socialist Party in 1909) led by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin was defeated by the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) led by Andrew Fisher.

The election represented a number of landmarks: it was Australia's first elected federal majority government; Australia's first elected Senate majority; the world's first labour party majority government at a national level; after the 1904 Chris Watson minority and Fisher's former minority government the world's third labour party government at a national level; the first time it controlled both houses of a bicameral legislature; and the first time that a prime minister, in this case Deakin, was defeated at an election. It also remains the only election in Australia's federal history to have occurred following expiration of a full three-year parliamentary term by the "effluxion of time". This was the first time the Labor Party won a federal election.

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