Haines of the Australian Democrats to replace him. After four years out of politics, Hall won the 1981 Boothby by-election as the Liberal Party's candidate. In August 1988, after the then opposition leader John Howard expressed his wish to control Asian immigration in Australia, Steele Hall (along with Ian Macphee and Philip Ruddock) dissented by crossing the floor of parliament and voting with the Labor government on a motion against the use of race as a criterion for selecting immigrants. Steele Hall addressed the Parliament, saying: "The question has quickly descended from a discussion about the future migrant intake to one about the level of internal racial tolerance. The simple fact is that public opinion is easily led on racial issues. It is now time to unite the community on the race issue before it flares into an ugly reproach for us all." Hall held Boothby until his retirement at the 1996 election. He had been instrumental in blocking Liberal Senate leader Senator Robert Hill to succeed him in the Liberal preselection contest for Boothby. The preselection went instead to Andrew Southcott, who succeeded Hall in the seat in 1996. Unusually for a former state premier, Hall spent most of his time as a federal Liberal MP on the backbench. His long-standing antagonism to Malcolm Fraser kept him out of cabinet during the last term of the Fraser government. In Opposition, Liberal leader Andrew Peacock appointed him to the frontbench as Shadow Special Minister of State in 1983. However, he returned to the backbench in 1984, where he remained for the remainder of his parliamentary career including when fellow South Australian Alexander Downer became leader in 1994. Hall had defeated Downer for Liberal preselection for the 1981 Boothby by-election. Personal life Hall married schoolteacher Anne Fletcher in 1956, with whom he had one son and three daughters. They were divorced in 1978, and later that year he married his research assistant Joan Bullock. The couple had one son and one daughter together. Joan was elected to the South Australian parliament in 1993. Notes References Felicia: The Political Memoirs of Don Dunstan, D. Dunstan (1981), MacMillan, South Melbourne. The Flinders history of South Australia. Political history, ed. D. Jaensch, 1986, Wakefield Press, Netley, South Australia. Playford's South Australia : essays on the history of South Australia, 1933–1968, ed. B. O'Neil, J. Raftery & K. Round. 1996, Association of Professional Historians, Adelaide.