Court–McPharlin Ministry

The Court–McPharlin Ministry was the 26th Ministry of the Government of Western Australia, and was led by Liberal Premier Sir Charles Court and his deputy, National Country Party leader Ray McPharlin. It succeeded the Tonkin ministry on 8 April 1974, following the defeat of the Labor government at the 1974 election nine days earlier. The Ministry collapsed when McPharlin led the National Country Party out of the Coalition on 20 May 1975, and was reconstituted on 5 June 1975 as the Court Ministry.

Prior to the election, the Country Party had tentatively merged with the Democratic Labor Party, going to the voters as the "National Alliance" which put forward a centrist platform—however, they lost both votes and seats in doing so, when compared with the two parties' performance at the 1971 election.

In order to form a parliamentary majority, the National Country Party under its new leader, Ray McPharlin, agreed to form a coalition with the Liberals after the election, and negotiated three seats in the Ministry. However, relations between the two parties were not smooth—the reduced position of the party vis-a-vis the Liberals had led to public discussions that it needed an identity distinct from the Liberals in order to survive.

Ultimately, tensions over rural and education issues and, ultimately, milk quotas for dairy producers led to a split, and on 20 May 1975, National Country Party leader Ray McPharlin had led the party (and its three Ministers) out of the Coalition. In the negotiations which followed, which included, among others, Federal Country Party leader Doug Anthony and Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, McPharlin was replaced as leader by Dick Old and the Coalition was resumed on 31 May; however, Court insisted he was too inexperienced to be Deputy Premier, and from this point until the Liberals' defeat in 1983, while the Coalition was maintained between the two parties, the Liberal Party got to name both leading positions in the Ministry.

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