Cleaver Ernest Bunton AO, OBE (5 May 1902 – 20 January 1999) was a long-serving Mayor of Albury, New South Wales, Australia, who came to national prominence in 1975 when he was controversially appointed to the Senate by New South Wales Liberal Party Premier, Tom Lewis, to fill a position vacated by an Australian Labor Party member.
He also held administrative roles in the Victorian Country Football League,[1] the West Albury Tennis Club and a range of other community groups and organisations.
[1] Bunton would have remained an uncontroversial local administrator but for the resignation of the Australian Labor Party Senator for New South Wales, Lionel Murphy, on 9 February 1975, to take up an appointment as a justice of the High Court.
[2] Facing a hostile Labor Party (and a sometimes hostile electorate), Bunton surprised many observers by acting independently rather than as a Liberal appointee, and resisted urgings from the Malcolm Fraser-led Opposition to block the supply bills of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government, instead supporting Labor on the supply bills during the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
The controversy surrounding his appointment, as well as that of Albert Field, prompted an amendment to the Constitution, requiring that casual Senate vacancies be filled by a member of the same party.