Eric Robinson (Australian politician)

Eric Laidlaw Robinson (18 January 1929 – 7 January 1981) was an Australian politician. He served as the Member of Parliament for the electoral district of McPherson from 1972 to 1981 as a member of the Liberal Party.

Robinson took over his family's sporting goods business and built it up from a single store into a chain along the Queensland coast. He was president of the Queensland branch of the Liberal Party in from 1968 to 1973.^[1] He was elected to the Federal seat of McPherson in the House of Representatives. Following Malcolm Fraser's win at the 1975 election, he was appointed Minister for the Capital Territory in the Fraser ministry. In February 1976, he was moved to Minister for Post and Telecommunications. He was appointed Minister for Finance following Phillip Lynch's standing down in 1977. Allegations of malpractice by him were dealt with in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Matters in Relation to Electoral Redistribution in Queensland 1977, which exonerated him of wrongdoing.^[2] On 22 February 1979, he resigned from the ministry, stating in a letter to Fraser that he could no longer give him his "unqualified support". On 27 February he agreed to return as Minister for Finance—Fraser said that "there were no significant differences" between them.^[3] He was not reappointed to the ministry following the 1980 election.

Robinson died suddenly in 1981, while still in office. He was survived by his wife, Narelle, a son and a daughter.^[2]

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