Page "Jeff Kennett" Paragraph 8

Toward the end of its second term the Cain government had endured some loss in support and the Liberals were expected to win the 1988 election.

When Cain was returned with a small but workable majority, Kennett was again criticised within his own party, and in 1989 he was deposed as leader and replaced by Alan Brown, a little-known rural Member of the Legislative Assembly.

A furious Kennett described Alan Hunt, the instigator of the coup, as " a man never to be trusted ".

He publicly pledged never to attempt a return to the Liberal leadership, but when Brown proved unable to challenge the government effectively, he allowed his supporters to organise a party-room coup and restore him to the leadership, unopposed, in 1991.