1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election The 1976 Liberal Party (UK) leadership election was called following the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe in the wake of allegations which would eventually lead to Mr. Thorpe's trial and acquittal for conspiracy to murder in 1979. There were two candidates, David Steel and John Pardoe, who were elected by a ballot of an electoral college made up of representatives of the various constituency associations, with their vote "weighted" by the strength of the Liberal vote at the previous general election. This electoral system was devised by Michael Steed, and this election proved to be
Liberal Party of Australia in 1971; and Malcolm Fraser's Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976. A West Australian Liberal, Ken Wyatt, became the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives in 2010. The Liberal Party is a member of the International Democrat Union. The Liberal Party and its predecessor parties have been the first to directly elect female representatives to the federal and every state and territory parliament nationwide. The first female member of the Australian House of Representatives and member of cabinet, Dame Enid Lyons, was elected in 1943 as a Liberal representing the division of Darwin in Tasmania. The first female