Flinders by-election, 1982
A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Flinders on 4 December 1982. This was triggered by the resignation of the sitting member and former Liberal Party Deputy Leader Sir Phillip Lynch.
The by-election was won by Liberal Party candidate Peter Reith. Parliament was in session until 15 December[1] but Reith chose not to attend to be sworn in at that time. On 3 February 1983, before Parliament could meet following the by-election, the Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called a double dissolution election for 5 March. Reith lost his seat. He was re-elected at the December 1984 election.
Opponents of the Franklin Dam in Tasmania (which was eventually vetoed by the incoming Hawke Government in 1983) used the Flinders by-election as an informal referendum. 41% of voters wrote "No Dams" on their ballot-papers (Helen Hunter and Richard Bailey, "Lessons from the Franklin Dam: How Labor was forced to act," Socialist Worker (14 August 1998), p 7.) This had no legal effect but did not invalidate their votes.
Results
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ± | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | Peter Reith | 34,765 | 45.7 | -4.6 | |
| Labor | Rogan Ward | 31,052 | 40.8 | +1.6 | |
| Democrats | Harold Fraser | 6,785 | 8.9 | -1.6 | |
| Democratic Labor | Peter Ferwerda | 1,271 | 1.7 | +1.7 | |
| Deadly Serious | Paul Crossley | 1,211 | 1.6 | +1.6 | |
| Republican | Peter Consandine | 607 | 0.8 | +0.8 | |
| Australia Party | Gail Farrell | 389 | 0.5 | +0.5 | |
| Total formal votes | 76,080 | 97.4 | -0.7 | ||
| Informal votes | 1,991 | 2.6 | +0.7 | ||
| Turnout | 78,071 | 92.1 | -3.0 | ||
| Two-party-preferred result | |||||
| Liberal | Peter Reith | 39,804 | 52.3 | -2.3 | |
| Labor | Rogan Ward | 36,276 | 47.7 | +2.3 | |
| Liberal hold | Swing | -2.3 | |||