Charles Blunt

For other people named Charles Blunt, see Charles Blunt (disambiguation).

Charles Blunt
Member of the Australian Parliament for Richmond
In office 18 February 1984 – 24 March 1990
Preceded by	Doug Anthony
Succeeded by	Neville Newell
Personal details
Born	19 January 1951 (1951-01-19) (age 60) Sydney, New South Wales
Nationality	Australian
Political party	National Party of Australia
Alma mater	University of Sydney
Occupation	Economist

Charles William Blunt (born 19 January 1951) Australian politician and businessman, was leader of the National Party of Australia from 1989 to 1990.

Blunt was born in Sydney and graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in economics. After working in various positions he was hired as New South Wales State Director of the National Party. At a by-election on 18 February 1984, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the Division of Richmond in northern New South Wales, despite having had no previous connections with the area. He succeeded the former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NPA, Doug Anthony, who had resigned his seat.

Blunt was immediately promoted to the opposition front bench, serving as shadow Minister for Social Services. He was returned to parliament at the 1984 and 1987 general elections. In 1989 he organised a leadership coup against the veteran leader of the NPA, Ian Sinclair. Blunt aimed to modernise the NPA and bring it into closer alignment with the Liberal Party, particularly on issues of economic deregulation. He was also more socially liberal than most NPA members.

Unfortunately for Blunt, neither of these things was popular with rank and file NPA members, and he found his leadership under increasing attack from traditionalists. At the same time the seat of Richmond, which had been held by the NPA and its predecessor the Country Party since 1922, was becoming more urbanised. Some argue that the growing unpopularity of the National Party state government in Queensland (Richmond sits across the border from Gold Coast) influenced federal voting intentions. The anti-war campaigner Helen Caldicott announced that she would oppose Blunt in his electorate at the next election.

The culmination of these trends was a swing against the NPA at the 1990 election, at which the Hawke Labor government was re-elected. Blunt was defeated in his own seat of Richmond. Blunt had no local connections, which worked against him in a country seat. Labor challenger Neville Newell won the seat on the seventh count after Caldicott's preferences flowed overwhelmingly to him. It was only the second time that the leader of a major Australian party had lost his own seat in an election; the first was Stanley Bruce, the then Prime Minister, who lost not only the 1929 election but also his own seat of Flinders. The NPA also lost the adjoining seat of Page, both campaigns being heavily influenced by Queensland media.

After the election, Blunt was again the focus of political controversy when he was accused of inappropriately using publicly-funded mailouts of election-related material:

“	Yesterday I was asked by the honourable member for Wannon a series of questions relating to postal allowances. I can confirm that Dr Hewson, as Opposition leader, spent $3,000 on postage. Mr Peacock spent $5,100. The former Democrats leader, Mrs Janine Haines, spent $5,500. I spent $10,255. And Mr Charles Blunt, the former National Party leader, spent $278,922."	”
—Bob Hawke, November 1990, [1]

After an investigation Blunt was found not to have breached any rules, and the matter was dropped.

After leaving politics Blunt went into business. He led a number of trade and investment missions to the United States and was regular speaker at international trade and investment outlook conferences. In 2003 he became National Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. He is also currently chair of a number of publicly listed companies, including Capital Trade and Policy and Palamedia.

References

1. ^ Hawker back in his stamping ground: SMH 17 November 2004

External links

• American Chamber of Commerce in Australia
• Parliamentary Biography

Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Doug Anthony	Member for Richmond 1984–1990	Succeeded by Neville Newell
Party political offices
Preceded by Ian Sinclair	Leader of the National Party of Australia 1989–1990	Succeeded by Tim Fischer

Persondata
Name	Blunt, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	19 January 1951
Place of birth	Sydney, New South Wales
Date of death
Place of death