IRV (in Australia called preferential voting) was introduced for House of Representatives elections in Australia after the Swan by-election in October 1918, when the conservative Country Party, representing small farmers, split the non-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win on a first-past-the-post vote then in place. The conservative Nationalist government of Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting to enable the Coalition parties to field candidates in the same electorates without putting Coalition seats at risk. It was first used at the Corangamite by-election on 14 December 1918, and nationwide at the 1919 election. Preferential voting continued to benefit the Coalition until the 1990 election, when for the first time the Labor Bob Hawke government obtained a net benefit from preferential voting.