Steele Hall

Steele Hall
36th Premier of South Australia Elections: 1968, 1970
In office April 17, 1968 – June 2, 1970
Preceded by	Don Dunstan
Succeeded by	Don Dunstan
Personal details
Political party	Liberal and Country League

Raymond Steele Hall (born 28 November 1928) was, from 1968 to 1970, the 36th premier of South Australia, senator for South Australia from 1974 to 1977 and federal member for the Division of Boothby from 1981 to 1996.

Hall was originally a farmer from Owen, seventy kilometres north of Adelaide, before gaining election to the South Australian Legislative Assembly as the Liberal and Country League (LCL) member for Gouger (later renamed Goyder) in 1959. Quickly gaining a reputation for his independence and strength of his views, Hall rose through the LCL parliamentary ranks to assume party leadership following Sir Thomas Playford's retirement in July 1966. Playford, who had earlier served as premier for 26 years, a Commonwealth of Nations record, preferred Hall as his successor, partly because they shared a background as small farmers, rather than a member of the rural elite or the prestigious Adelaide establishment.

Hall served as leader of the opposition for two years before becoming premier at the 1968 election. Considered young and handsome, Steele was also the first Australian state premier to sport sideburns. Indeed, the 1968 election, fought between Hall and his Labor opponent Don Dunstan, was described by the Democratic Labor Party as the battle of "the matinee idols". Hall entered office on April 17 1968 and immediately set out to deal with the issue of electoral reform. Deliberately inequitable electoral boundaries had advantaged the LCL over the past forty years and, embarrassed by the LCL win in the election after receiving 43.8% of the first preference vote compared to the ALP's 52%, and concerned by the level of publicity and public protest about the issue, Hall was committed to the principle of a fairer electoral system.

Whatever the public outcry over the electoral inequalities, Hall's political bravery in introducing legislation to reform the House of Assembly to a more equitable system of representation and therefore virtually guaranteeing the LCL's defeat at the next election, should not be underestimated and ranks as one of the few instances in Australian political history when a politician initiated a reform knowing that it would expressly disadvantage him or her. In addition to electoral reform, Hall demonstrated his progressive credentials by introducing improvements in social welfare, Aboriginal affairs and abortion reform.

The LCL had gained office in 1968 only with the support of the long serving independent Tom Stott. Stott, a good friend of former Premier Playford and no friend of the ALP, could be relied upon to cast his vote in favour of the LCL. However, Hall and Stott fell out over the location of a dam. Stott wanted the dam built in his electorate while Hall thought it more use to locate it elsewhere. Constitutent anger forced Stott to vote against the Hall government, leading to an early election.

Following the expected loss to the Dunstan-led ALP in the 2 June 1970 election, Hall remained leader of the opposition for two years before resigning from the LCL, claiming that the party had 'lost its idealism [and] forgotten...its purpose for existence'. He founded the Liberal Movement, a progressive liberal party that included about 200 former LCL members.

Hall won a federal Senate seat for the Liberal Movement at the 1974 election and was re-elected in 1975. He joined the Liberal Party in June 1976. He resigned from the Senate on 16 November 1977 . Premier Dunstan appointed Janine Haines of the Australian Democrats to replace him.

Hall returned to national politics as the Liberal member for the Adelaide metropolitan electorate of Boothby in 1981.

Hall held the federal seat of Boothby until his retirement in 1996.

His wife, Joan Hall, was a Liberal politician representing the electoral district of Morialta (known as Coles pre-2002) in the South Australian parliament from 1993 to 2006.

External links

• Parliament profile

References

• Felicia: The Political Memoirs of Don Dunstan, D. Dunstan (1981), MacMillan, South Melbourne. ISBN 0-333-33815-4
• The Flinders history of South Australia. Political history, ed. D. Jaensch, 1986, Wakefield Press, Netley, South Australia. ISBN 1-86254-003-9
• Playford's South Australia : essays on the history of South Australia, 1933-1968, ed. B. O'Neil, J. Raftery & K. Round. 1996, Association of Professional Historians, Adelaide. ISBN 0-646-29092-4