Founder of third force in Australian politics dies

CANBERRA, Aug 29: Don Chipp, the man who set up the third force in Australian politics on a promise of ''keeping the bastards honest'', has died after a two-year battle with Parkinson's disease, his colleagues said today.

Chipp, 81, died in hospital in his home town of Melbourne surrounded by close family, Lyn Allison, leader of his Australian Democrats party said.

A former minister under three conservative prime ministers, Chipp reshaped Australian politics in 1977 when he quit the conservative Liberal Party to set up the centrist Australian Democrats.

Under Chipp's leadership, the Democrats carved a niche in the upper house Senate, where the party held the numbers to swing contentious votes for 20 years from the early 1980s, effectively controlling the nation's parliament.

''The Democrats story is a remarkable one. It grew from almost nothing in almost six months from 1977,'' Australian National University professor of politics John Warhurst, who wrote a book on the Democrats, told Australian radio.

Chipp's slogan ''Keeping the Bastards Honest'' struck a chord with voters at a divisive time in the nation's politics and remains one of the most recognisable political mottos in its history.

''It really cut to the heart of what Australian people were thinking at that time,'' Warhurst said.

Chipp was first elected to the national parliament in 1960 as a Liberal and served as a minister from 1966 to 1972.

As minister for customs from 1969, Chipp championed free speech and overturned long-standing bans on a range of books, and allowed politicians and journalists to take banned material home to read and review.

But a bitter dislike of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who won power in December 1975, prompted Chipp to quit the party.

He retired from politics in 1986.

''He leaves behind a legacy of integrity,'' political opponent and former centre-left Labour Prime Minister Bob Hawke told the Australian Broadcasting Corp today.

In a 2005 radio interview, Chipp said he wanted to be remembered as a man who loved his family and who wanted to make a difference.

REUTERS