Leslie James Scott (born 18 October 1947) was a

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

member of the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Australian Senate, Senate. Its composition and powers are set out in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. ...

for the

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Division of Oxley The Division of Oxley is an Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian Electoral Division in Queensland. It is currently represented by Milton Dick, the current Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, Speaker ...

from 8 October 1988 to 2 March 1996. He originally won his seat in a 1988 by-election after sitting member and former ALP leader

Bill Hayden William George Hayden (23 January 1933 – 21 October 2023) was an Australian politician who served as the 21st governor-general of Australia from 1989 to 1996. He was Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 198 ...

was promoted from the

Foreign Ministry In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral re ...

Governor-General Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

. Scott was defeated at the 1996 election by controversial independent

Pauline Hanson Pauline Lee Hanson (''née'' Seccombe, formerly Zagorski; born 27 May 1954) is an Australian politician who is the founder and leader of One Nation, a right-wing populist political party. Hanson has represented Queensland in the Australian S ...

, who had originally been his Liberal opponent before she was disendorsed for making racially offensive remarks that indigenous Australians were given preferential treatment over non-indigenous Australians. Scott only garnered 39 percent on the first count, and ultimately lost on the sixth count with 45 percent of the two-candidate vote to Hanson's 54 percent—a 19.3 percent swing. Even considering Labor's severe defeat in that election and near-meltdown in Queensland in particular (Labor lost all but two seats in Queensland), Scott's defeat was a considerable upset. Going into the election, Oxley had been the safest Labor seat in Queensland, with a 12.6 percent two-party majority. Had Hanson still been running as a Liberal, Scott would have suffered the largest two-party swing of the election. Scott considered legally challenging Hanson's victory over him, since she was still listed as a Liberal even after her disendorsement. However, this did not eventuate. While his defeat at the 1996 election marked Scott's political retirement, his wife Anne made an unsuccessful attempt to gain ALP preselection for Oxley for the 1998 election. Les and Anne are now running Les Scott and Associates, a finance consulting service which they established in 1999.

References

Living people 1947 births Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Oxley Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Australia Australian MPs 1987–1990 Australian MPs 1990–1993 Australian MPs 1993–1996 {{Australia-Labor-representative-stub