Sir henry bolte biography of michael

On 24 MarchBolte was involved in a serious head-on accident when he was driving home after an evening in the local hotel near his property at Bamganie. Contents move to sidebar hide. Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Tools Tools. In other projects.

Sir henry bolte biography of michael

Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Henry Bolte. Birth [ change change source ]. Death penalty controversy [ change change source ]. Drink driving controversy [ change change source ]. The majority of these projects were facilitated, rather than funded, by the State government. Bolte was easily re-elected at theand state elections. Bolte was a proponent of using capital punishment as a deterrent against violent crime.

Many believed he was foiled when Robert Peter Tait who had murdered Ada Hall, an elderly widow, at the Hawthorn vicarage where she lived with her son, and who subsequently had been sentenced to hang for the crime, was granted an eleventh-hour reprieve in after the High Court had found him insane. Starke said "After Bolte was denied with Tait he simply waited for the next cab off the ranks, and poor Ryan happened to be the next cab!

Intwo prisoners, Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker, had escaped from Melbourne's Pentridge Prisonallegedly killing a prison guard in the process. They were recaptured, and Ryan was sentenced to death for murder. Bolte had the power to recommend clemencybut declined to exercise it, arguing that the death penalty was a necessary deterrent for crime against government officials and law enforcement officers.

All calls for clemency, petitions and protests were to no avail. Ryan was hanged in February Bolte had said "If I thought the law was wrong I would change it". A reporter at his daily press conference on the day of the hanging asked what he was doing at the time it took place. Bolte, replied: "One of the three Ss, I suppose. Bolte responded: "A shit, a shave or a shower.

Bolte's insistence on having Ryan hanged earned him the opposition of the Melbourne press, particularly The Agethe churches, the universities and most of the legal profession. It also alienated sections of the Liberal Party and some members of his own Cabinet, including his eventual successor, Dick Hamer. But Bolte had correctly interpreted the populist appeal of his putative law-and-order sir henry bolte biography of michael, and at the elections the Liberals went from 38 of 66 seats in to 44 of 73 in Afterwhen Bolte turned 60, his appeal to younger urban voters declined, and he showed little sympathy with new issues such as the environment and civil liberties.

His standing was also reduced by a crisis in the state education system, with teacher shortages and overcrowded schools as the children of the baby boom passed through the education system. The government recruited large numbers of American schoolteachers to deal with the shortage. At the same time the Labor Party began to revive under a new leader, Clyde Holding.

At the state elections the Liberals seemed in serious danger of losing office, or at least being forced into a coalition with the Country Party, but Bolte was saved by Holding's left-wing enemies in the Labor Party, who sabotaged his campaign by publicly opposing government funding for non-government schools which Holding and Gough Whitlam had made Labor policy.

Nevertheless, the Liberals lost six seats. McMahon needed Bolte's political support, so he wrote to 10 Downing Street with a proposal, but it was declined. As dawned, the Liberals lost further ground among younger voters in Melbourne. Bolte was shrewd enough to see that the Liberals had a year at most to broaden their appeal before a statutory general election, and concluded that they needed a new leader and a new image for the s.

In Augusthe resigned, apparently with no regrets. Despite misgivings from the more conservative wing of the party, Hamer became Liberal leader and premier. This proved a sound judgement, since Hamer went on to win three more elections for the Liberals. After his resignation and retirement from Parliament, Bolte retired to his farm, 'Kialla', at Bamganie, near Meredith.

Liberals in the Opposition would visit Bolte at his farm, "whisky bottle in hand, seeking consolation and advice. On 24 MarchBolte was involved in a serious head-on accident when he was driving home after an evening in the local hotel near his property at Bamganie. Bolte and the occupants of the other car were taken to the Ballarat Base Hospital, where blood samples were taken to test for alcohol levels.

Whilst there was no evidence of alcohol in the blood of the other driver involved, there were indications of an alcohol content in excess of 0. Further samples were subsequently collected from the hospital by the police, but these were found to have been substituted, and the sample box containing them had been unlocked by an unknown person.

An enquiry found that it would have been unfair to proceed with prosecution because of interference with the evidence. Bolte died at his home on 4 January Bolte was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. The Bolte Bridge that spans Melbourne 's Docklands is named after him. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.

Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Australian politician. For the American baseball player, see Henry Bolte baseball. The Honourable. Edith Lilian "Jill" Elder. Early years [ edit ]. Parliamentary career [ edit ]. Infrastructure building [ edit ].

Capital punishment controversy [ edit ]. Later career [ edit ]. Retirement and death [ edit ]. Honours and memorials [ edit ]. Bridge [ edit ]. Further reading [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Australian Dictionary of Biography. ISBN ISSN