1949 Australian federal election of Representatives was enlarged from 74 to 121 seats and the Senate from 36 members to 60 members. All 121 lower house seats, and 42 of the 60 upper house seats, were up for election. The Chifley Government was defeated, ending the longest period of Labor Federal Government in Australian history up to that date (1941–49). Labor would not return to office until 1972. Robert Menzies became Prime Minister for the second time, and the Liberal Party of Australia won government federally for the first time. 1949 Australian federal election Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1949.
Prime Minister of Italy Giolitti was Prime Minister five times between 1892 and 1921 and the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Italian history. Giolitti was a master in the political art of "trasformismo", the method of making a flexible, fluid centrist coalition in Parliament which sought to isolate the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics. Under his influence, the Italian Liberals did not develop as a structured party. They were instead a series of informal personal groupings with no formal links to political constituencies. The period between the start of the 20th century and the start of World War I,