Walter Scott (Australian politician)

Walter Robert Scott (born 23 April 1943) is a former Australian politician. He was a Liberal member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1974 to 1978.

Scott was born in Maitland and attended Maitland Boys' High School and Morpeth Grammar School. He subsequently became a dairy farmer and salesman with Shortland City Council, before directing a small family company in the area.[1] A member of the Liberal Party, he contested the 1965 and 1968 state elections as an independent in the seat of Gloucester, where the Coalition agreement prevented the Liberal Party from endorsing a candidate against the sitting Country Party member.[2]

In 1974, Scott was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council, filling a casual vacancy caused by the death of independent MLC John Gardiner. He served until the 1978 state election, when the reduction in the Council's size led him to lose his place on the Coalition's ticket.[1] In the 1988 state election, he was the Liberal candidate for Port Stephens, losing to Labor candidate Bob Martin by 90 votes. Scott took the result to the Court of Disputed Returns, which surprised political observers and politicians by returning a judgement that government cheques handed to community groups by Martin counted as electoral bribery. In the subsequent by-election, Martin resoundingly defeated Scott, who has not returned to politics.[3]