Richard Court

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Richard Fairfax Court AC (born Nedlands, September 27, 1947), was Liberal Party Premier of Western Australia between 1993 and 2001. He is the son of Sir Charles Court who was also Premier between 1974 and 1982. He was educated at Hale School and graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. His sister-in-law is Margaret Smith Court.

Court was the sitting member for the blue-ribbon seat of Nedlands and elected as Premier in 1993, largely due to electoral backlash against the Burke then Dowding State Governments, prominent members of which had been associated with the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s. The WA Inc royal commission called by Premier Lawrence had handed down its finding in mid-1992 shortly before the election. The notorious Easton Affair also emerged in Parliament and the media when the ALP tabled a petition alleging Court had leaked information to Penny Easton, whose divorce case now became a political scandal. After his government was elected, Court ordered the Marks Royal Commission to determine whether Lawrence had prior knowledge of this petition. Dr. Lawrence was charged with perjury and eventually acquitted.

The Court government was comfortably re-elected in 1996. However, its popularity suffered in his second term as Premier due to scandals and was narrowly defeated by a rejuvenated Labor Party led by Dr Geoff Gallop in 2001. The leakage of preferences^[1] from One Nation^[2] and the Liberals for Forests formed to protest the logging of old growth forests in the state and the unpopularity of the federal Liberal Government of John Howard due to the introduction of the GST also contributed to the narrow defeat of the Court Government. Richard Court retired from politics after the 2001 defeat. He was succeeded by Colin Barnett for the position as the leader of the Liberal Party (WA).

[edit] References

1. ^ Australian Government and Politics Database. Western Australia, Assembly votes and seats won, Election held on 10 February 2001
2. ^ Editorial: Gallop needed to go Now archived.

Preceded by Carmen Lawrence

Premier of Western Australia 1993-2001

Succeeded by Geoffrey Gallop

Premiers of Western Australia
Forrest | Throssell | Leake | Morgans | James | Daglish | Rason | Moore | Wilson | Scaddan | Lefroy | Colebatch | Mitchell | Collier | Willcock | Wise | McLarty | Hawke | Brand | Tonkin | C. Court | O'Connor | Burke | Dowding | Lawrence | R. Court | Gallop | Carpenter