1990 Australian federal election
The 1990 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 24 March 1990. All 148 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 seats in the 76-member Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party, led by Bob Hawke, defeated the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led by Andrew Peacock, with its coalition partner, the National Party of Australia, led by Charles Blunt, despite losing the nationwide popular and two-party-preferred vote. The result saw the re-election of the Hawke government for a fourth successive term.
All 148 seats in the House of Representatives
75 seats were needed for a majority in the House
40 (of the 76) seats in the Senate
10,728,435 
3.62%
10,225,800 (95.31%)
(1.47 pp)
It was the first and, to date, only time the Labor party won four consecutive elections. As of 2023 it is the most recent federal election in which leaders of both the largest parties represented divisions outside New South Wales, the last to have both major party leaders from the same city other than Sydney, the last to have a rematch just six years earlier and until 2001, thus was the last for the 20th century, which unlike 13 years earlier in 1977 when it's the last rematch with the same major party leaders appeared consecutively after the previous federal election in the 20th century just 2 years earlier, and the last to have both major party leaders born prior to World War II.
Background[edit]
After John Howard lost the 1987 election to Hawke, Andrew Peacock was elected Deputy Leader in a show of party unity. In May 1989, Peacock's supporters mounted a party room coup which returned Peacock to the leadership. Hawke's Treasurer, Keating, ridiculed Peacock by asking: "Can the soufflé rise twice?" and calling him "all feathers and no meat".
Hawke's government was in political trouble, with high interest rates and a financial crisis in Victoria.
The controversy over the Multifunction Polis boiled over during the federal election campaign. Peacock, declared that a future Coalition Government would abandon the project.[1] He shared the Asian "enclave" fears of RSL president Alf Garland and others.[2] The following day, The Australian newspaper ran a headline "Peacock a 'danger in the Lodge'".[3]