Peter Edward Nugent Australian politician, was the Liberal Party

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

 member of parliament for the Division of Aston

Division of Aston

The Division of Aston is an Australian Electoral Division in Victoria. The division was created in 1984 and is named for Tilly Aston, a blind writer and teacher who helped found the Library of the Victorian Association of Braille Writers in 1894. It is located in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne,...

 in the Australian House of Representatives

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

 from 1990 to 2001.

He entered parliament when he defeated the incumbent Labor

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 candidate, John Saunderson

John Saunderson

John Saunderson was an Australian politician. Born in Berkshire, England, he migrated to Australia where he became a senior technical officer for Telecom. He was State President of the Australian Telecommunications Employees' Association...

, in the 1990 federal election. However, he died suddenly at his home on the morning of 24 April 2001, from a myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

. This triggered a by-election for Aston

Aston by-election, 2001

The 2001 Aston by-election was held in the Australian electorate of Aston in Victoria on 14 July 2001. The by-election was triggered by the death of the sitting member, the Liberal Party of Australia's Peter Nugent, on 24 April 2001. The writ for the by-election was issued on 1 June...

, which was won by the Liberal candidate Chris Pearce

Chris Pearce

Christopher John Pearce , Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the Division of Aston, Victoria from July 2001, when he retained the seat for the Liberal Party in the 2001 Aston by-election, to his retirement in 2010.Pearce was born in...

.

In his time in parliament, Nugent was known as a moderate in the Liberal Party, with a passion for human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 and the well-being of indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

.