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Raymond Steele Hall was Premier of South Australia from 1968 to 1970, Senator for South Australia from 1975 to 1977 and federal member for Boothby constituency from 1981 to 1996.
Born in 1930, Hall was originally a farmer from Owen, seventy kilometres north of Adelaide, before gaining election to the South Australian Legislative Assembly as the Liberal and Country League (LCL) member for Gouger (later renamed Goyder) in 1959. Quickly gaining a reputation for his independence and strength of his views, Hall rose through the LCL parliamentary ranks to assume party leadership following Sir Thomas Playford's retirement in July 1966. Playford, who had earlier served as Premier for 26 years, a British Commonwealth record, preferred Hall as his successor partly because they shared a background as small farmers rather than a member of the rural elite or the prestigious Adelaide Establishment.
Hall served as leader of the opposition for two years before being elected Premier in the 1968 election. Considered young and handsome, Steele was also the first Australian state premier to sport sideburns. Indeed, the 1968 election, fought between Hall and his Labor opponent Don Dunstan, was seen by the Democratic Labour Party as the battle of "the matinee idols". Hall entered office on April 17 1968 and immediately set out to deal with the issue of electoral reform. Deliberately inequitable electoral boundaries had advantaged the LCL over the past forty years and embarrased by the LCL win in the election after receiving 43.8% of the first preference vote compared to the ALP's 52%, and concerned by the level of publicity and public protest about the issue, Hall was committed to the principle of a fairer electoral system.
Whatever the public outcry over the electoral inequalities, Hall's political bravery in introducing legislation to reform the House of Assembly to a more equitable system of representation and therefore virtually guaranteeing the LCL's defeat at the next election, should not be underestimated and ranks as one of the few instances in Australian political history when a politician initiated a reform knowing that it would expressly disadvantage him or her. In addition to electoral reform, Hall expressed his progressive credentials by introducing improvements in social welfare, Aboriginal affairs and abortion reform.
Folowing the expected loss to the Dunstan led ALP in the 2 June 1970 election, Hall remained Leader of the Opposition for two years before resigning from the LCL, claiming that the Party had 'lost its idealism [and] forgotten...its purpose for existence'. He founded the Liberal Movement, a progressive Liberal party that included about 200 former LCL members. Hall won a Federal Senate seat for the Liberal Movement in 1975, and served in the Senate for two years before resigning his position. His replacement as the Liberal Movement Senator for South Australia was Janine Haines, who would subsequently become the initial Australian Democrats Senator.
Hall joined the Liberal Party and returned to national politics as the member for the Adelaide metropolitan electorate of Boothby in 1981. He would hold the seat until his retirement in 1996, which was perhaps preempted by the growing conservatism of the Liberal Party which sought to replace him (and fellow wet Liberals) with dry Liberals.
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