1949 Australian federal election 1949 Australian federal election Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1949. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives and 42 of the 60 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Ben Chifley, was defeated by the opposition Liberal–Country coalition under Robert Menzies. Menzies became prime minister for a second time, his first term having ended in 1941. The number of MPs in both houses had been increased at the election, and single transferable vote under a proportional voting system had been introduced in the Senate. Though Labor
The Accidental Prime Minister slated for release on 21 December 2018. The Accidental Prime Minister The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh is a 2014 memoir by Indian policy analyst Sanjaya Baru, who was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's media advisor from May 2004 to August 2008. Published by Penguin India, the book alleges that Singh was not entirely in control of his cabinet—or even the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). Instead, significant power was wielded by the Congress party's president Sonia Gandhi, to whom Singh was completely "subservient". "There cannot be two centres of power", Baru remembers Singh explaining to him,