1933 Western Australian secession referendum

Last updated

1933 Western Australian secession referendum
Flag of Western Australia (1870-1953).svg
8 April 1933 [1]

Are you in favour of the State of Western Australia withdrawing from the Federal Commonwealth established under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Imperial)?
Results
Choice
Votes %
Check-71-128-204-brightblue.svgYes138,65366.23%
Light brown x.svgNo70,70633.77%
Valid votes209,35996.33%
Invalid or blank votes7,9673.67%
Total votes217,326100.00%
Registered voters/turnout237,19891.62%
Are you in favour of a Convention of Representatives of equal number from each of the Australian states being summoned for the purpose of proposing such alterations in the Constitution of the Commonwealth as may appear to such Convention to be necessary?
Results
Choice
Votes %
Check-71-128-204-brightblue.svg Yes88,27542.58%
Light brown x.svg No119,03157.42%
Valid votes207,30695.43%
Invalid or blank votes9,9284.57%
Total votes217,234100.00%
Registered voters/turnout237,19891.58%

The 1933 Western Australian secession referendum was held on 8 April 1933 on the question of whether the Australian state of Western Australia should leave the Australian federation. Nearly two-thirds of electors voted in favour of secession, but efforts to implement the result proved unsuccessful.

Contents

The Western Australian secession movement emerged soon after the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901. Existing grievances over the impacts of the federal constitution and the federal government's economic policies were exacerbated by the Great Depression. The Dominion League of Western Australia was established in 1930 to lobby for secession, with leading campaigners including newspaper editor James MacCallum Smith and businessman Keith Watson. Their efforts led state premier James Mitchell to legislate for a secession referendum in 1932, although the vote was not binding on either the state government or the federal government.

The referendum saw a turnout of 91.6 percent of registered voters, with 66.2 percent voting in favour of secession. A second question on whether a national constitutional convention should be held was rejected by 57.4 percent of voters. The referendum was held simultaneously with the 1933 Western Australian state election, with Mitchell losing office to Philip Collier, who opposed secession. Collier's government nonetheless passed the Secession Act 1934, which authorised a delegation to petition the parliament of the United Kingdom for an amendment to the Australian constitution, which had originally been passed as a British act of parliament. A parliamentary joint select committee ultimately ruled that the Statute of Westminster 1931 had rendered the British parliament powerless to unilaterally amend the constitution.

Background

Western Australia was the last of the British colonies in Australia to agree to join the new federation in 1901. [2] Secessionist sentiment was quick to arise, driven by the detrimental impact of the federal government's protectionist economic policies on the state's agricultural and mining sectors. As early as 1906, the Western Australian Legislative Assembly passed a resolution calling for a secession referendum, although no action was taken by the state government. [3] Dissatisfaction with the federal government continued throughout the first decades after federation. Lobbying from Western Australians led to two royal commissions into the Australian constitution in the 1920s, but no changes were forthcoming. [4]

The Great Depression had a significant impact on Western Australia, leading to increased dissatisfaction with the federal government and support for secession. [5] In May 1930, secessionists established the Dominion League of Western Australia, which called for the state to leave the federation and become a separate self-governing dominion with the British Empire. The Dominion League "held frequent and well-attended public rallies, at which League speakers emphasised that the only real solution to Western Australia's problems lay in secession". [6] The Sunday Times and its editor James MacCallum Smith had been advocates of secession for several decades and lent their support to the League. [7] In June 1930, the Primary Producers' Association and Federated Chambers of Commerce also came out in favour of secession, following the Scullin government's announcement that it would continue its high-tariff policy and would not provide support for primary producers. [6]

In November 1930, state premier James Mitchell declared his personal support for secession. [6] A bill for a secession referendum was introduced in November 1931 and passed by the Legislative Assembly, but initially failed to pass the Legislative Council. A second bill was passed in November 1932 as the Secession Referendum Act 1932, specifying that the referendum would be held at the same time as the next state election. [8] Secession enjoyed the strong support of the Country Party, which governed in coalition with Mitchell's Nationalist Party. The Nationalists did not take an official position, whereas the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) led by Philip Collier was against secession. [6]

Campaign

Pro-secession headline from The Sunday Times in March 1933 Sunday Times Secession Headline.jpg
Pro-secession headline from The Sunday Times in March 1933

The campaign for secession was led by the Dominion League, which focused on Western Australia's "traditional grievances" with federation and the constitution. Anti-secessionist organisations included the Federal League and the Unity League, both of which had limited resources. [9] State premier James Mitchell and opposition leader Philip Collier both played little role in the campaign, with Mitchell not wanting to alienate anti-secessionist elements in the Nationalist Party and Collier not wanting to alienate pro-secessionist voters. [8]

The Dominion League "crafted a mythology of oppression and played on a sense of 'lost liberty' and 'distinct identity', and not only economic injustice, in order to galvanise a mass movement". [10] The league produced numerous pamphlets and political tracts, while other writers produced a series of nationalist poems and songs, including the "Westralia Shall Be Free", "Liberty's Light", and the "Dominion Anthem". [11]

In March 1933, Prime Minister Joseph Lyons led a federal delegation to Western Australia to campaign against secession, appearing alongside defence minister George Pearce, government senators George Pearce, Victorian senator Tom Brennan, and senior public servant Stuart McFarlane. Western Australia's isolation at the time was such that Lyons appointed John Latham as acting prime minister, an appointment usually reserved for overseas trips. [12]

Results

Secessionist How-to-vote card, 1933 Westraliasecession3.jpg
Secessionist How-to-vote card, 1933

Two questions were voted on at the referendum:

Question 1: Are you in favour of the State of Western Australia withdrawing from the Federal Commonwealth established under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Imperial)?
Question 2: Are you in favour of a Convention of Representatives of equal number from each of the Australian states being summoned for the purpose of proposing such alterations in the Constitution of the Commonwealth as may appear to such Convention to be necessary?

There were 237,198 registered voters. The result on the first question was 138,653 in favour and 70,706 against. Question Two was rejected by a vote of 119,031 to 88,275. [9] Only six of the fifty electoral districts recorded a No vote on the first question, five of them being in the Goldfields and Kimberley regions. [13] [lower-alpha 1]

Result [14]
QuestionYesNo
Votes %Votes %
1. Western Australia withdrawal from Commonwealth of Australia138,65366.23%70,70633.77%
Metropolitan [lower-alpha 2] 72,03764.85%39,04335.15%
Agricultural [lower-alpha 3] 57,31672.89%21,31927.11%
Mining and Pastoral [lower-alpha 4] 7,76345.55%9,27954.45%
Northern [lower-alpha 5] 1,53759.07%1,06540.93%
2. Australian states' constitutional convention88,27542.58%119,03157.42%
Metropolitan [lower-alpha 2] 48,06643.75%61,82156.26%
Agricultural [lower-alpha 3] 29,50937.90%48,34862.10%
Mining and Pastoral [lower-alpha 4] 9,27154.70%7,67745.30%
Northern [lower-alpha 5] 1,32951.04%1,27548.96%

Aftermath

Members of the secession delegation holding the proposed dominion flag - from left: Matthew Moss, Keith Watson, James MacCallum Smith and Hal Colebatch WA secession delegation.jpg
Members of the secession delegation holding the proposed dominion flag – from left: Matthew Moss, Keith Watson, James MacCallum Smith and Hal Colebatch

The secession referendum was held simultaneously with the 1933 Western Australian state election, which saw incumbent pro-secessionist premier James Mitchell's coalition government defeated by Philip Collier's anti-secessionist Australian Labor Party (ALP). Mitchell lost his own seat in parliament. [15]

Despite Collier's opposition to secession, his government passed the Secession Act 1934 which authorised a delegation to petition the parliament of United Kingdom to amend the Constitution of Australia. [16] The state government nominated London-based former premier Hal Colebatch as leader of the delegation, with the other members being leading secessionists James MacCallum Smith and Keith Watson and barrister Matthew Moss as legal adviser. [17] It has been suggested that the absence of high-ranking members of the government weakened the credibility of the delegation to some degree. [16]

The delegation presented the petition to the British parliament on 17 December 1934, with Adrian Moreing receiving the petition on behalf of the House of Commons and the Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair receiving the petition on behalf of the House of Lords. [18] A 489-page document titled The Case for Secession, largely authored by Watson, was also circulated to members of parliament. It "set out a comprehensive documentation of the State's grievance", including "the State's historical and political development, its economic situation, the oppressive circumstances under which it entered federation, the background of the secession movement, and the viability of the state as an independent entity". [19]

Based on the advice of the British government, in early 1935 the British parliament established a joint select committee to determine whether it was constitutionally capable of receiving the petition in the context of the Statute of Westminster 1931, which had placed significant restrictions on the parliament's ability to legislate for the dominions. [17] The petition was ultimately rejected by the joint committee in November 1935, which found that the Statute of Westminster and Balfour Declaration of 1926 had made it incompatible with the "constitutional conventions of the Empire unless the demand for such legislation came as the clearly expressed wish of the Australian people as a whole". [20] The Dominion League's subsequent calls for a unilateral declaration of independence were rejected by the state government, and the league disbanded in 1938. [21]

Legacy and analysis

Less than a month after the secession vote, the Lyons government introduced a bill creating the Commonwealth Grants Commission to provide additional federal funding to states disadvantaged by federal legislation. [22] The movement in Western Australia had led to other smaller states mooting secession, with Tasmanian premier Albert Ogilvie and South Australian premier Richard Layton Butler both making comments in support of leaving the federation. [23]

Both contemporary sources and later writers have debated the extent to which the pro-secession vote was a genuine manifestation of Western Australian nationalism or an anti-government protest vote. [24] The results of the 1933 referendum have often been invoked by later revivals of the secession movement and by other Western Australian groups dissatisfied the actions of the federal government. [25]

The joint select committee's rejection of the secession petition was cited in the Supreme Court of Canada's Patriation Reference of 1981, which concerned the ability of the British parliament to amend the constitution of Canada and had implications for the proposed secession of Quebec. [26]

See also

Notes

Related Research Articles

Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the Southern States seceding from the Union - which is one of the causes for the American Civil War, the former Soviet republics leaving the Soviet Union after its dissolution, Texas leaving Mexico during the Texas Revolution, Biafra leaving Nigeria and returning after losing the Nigerian Civil War, and Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals. It is, therefore, a process, which commences once a group proclaims the act of secession. A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent from the group or territory it seceded from.

Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been decentralized to it by the central government.

In Australian history, the term Constitutional Convention refers to five distinct gatherings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hal Colebatch</span> Australian politician

Sir Harry Pateshall Colebatch was a long-serving figure in Western Australian politics. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council for nearly 20 years, the twelfth Premier of Western Australia for a month in 1919, agent-general in London for five years, and a senator for four years. He was known for supporting free trade, federalism and Western Australian secessionism, and for opposing communism, socialism and fascism. Born in England, his family migrated to South Australia when Colebatch was four years old. He left school aged 11 and worked for several newspapers in South Australia before moving to Broken Hill in New South Wales in 1888 to work as a reporter for the Silver Age. In 1894, he moved to the Western Australian Goldfields following the gold rush there, working for the Golden Age in Coolgardie and the Kalgoorlie Miner in Kalgoorlie. Two years later, he moved to Perth to join the Morning Herald, but after that newspaper collapsed, he moved to Northam where he started The Northam Advertiser. He also became friends with local bank manager James Mitchell and convinced Mitchell to run for state parliament. Colebatch was the mayor of Northam between 1909 and 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australia Act 1986</span> Legislation by the UK and Australian Parliaments

The Australia Act 1986 is the short title of each of a pair of separate but related pieces of legislation: one an Act of the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, the other an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In Australia they are referred to, respectively, as the Australia Act 1986 (Cth) and the Australia Act 1986 (UK). These nearly identical Acts were passed by the two parliaments, because of uncertainty as to whether the Commonwealth Parliament alone had the ultimate authority to do so. They were enacted using legislative powers conferred by enabling Acts passed by the parliaments of every Australian state. The Acts came into effect simultaneously, on 3 March 1986.

There have been various movements within Canada for secession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Mitchell (Australian politician)</span> Western Australian politician and Governor

Sir James Mitchell, was an Australian politician. He served as premier of Western Australia from 1919 to 1924 and from 1930 to 1933, as leader of the Nationalist Party. He then held viceregal office from 1933 to 1951, as acting governor from 1933 to 1948 and governor of Western Australia from 1948 until his death in 1951.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Government</span> Federal government of Australia

The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government is made up of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federation of Australia</span> Process by which six separate British self-governing colonies became the country of Australia

The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. The colonies of Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation. Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.

In Australia, referendums are public votes held on important issues where the electorate may approve or reject a certain proposal. The term is commonly used in reference to a constitutional referendum which is legally required to make a change to the Constitution of Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Conventions</span> Assemblies to establish constitutional law for Virginia

The Virginia Conventions have been the assemblies of delegates elected for the purpose of establishing constitutions of fundamental law for the Commonwealth of Virginia superior to General Assembly legislation. Their constitutions and subsequent amendments span four centuries across the territory of modern-day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Collier</span> Western Australian politician

Philip Collier was an Australian politician who served as the 14th Premier of Western Australia from 1924 to 1930 and from 1933 to 1936. He was leader of the Labor Party from 1917 to 1936, and is Western Australia's longest-serving premier from that party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Watson (politician)</span> Australian politician

Sir Henry Keith Watson was an Australian businessman and politician. He was a leader of the Western Australian secession movement in the 1930s, holding office in the Dominion League of Western Australia. He was a prominent campaigner in the 1933 secession referendum and served on the delegation to the British parliament which ultimately failed to achieve the movement's aims. Watson later represented the Liberal Party in the Western Australian Legislative Council from 1948 to 1968. He was a tax accountant by profession and a long-serving chairman of the Perth Building Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secessionism in Western Australia</span> Pro-independence sentiment and movement in Western Australia

Secessionism has been a recurring feature of Western Australia's political landscape since shortly after Federation in 1901. The idea of self-governance or secession has often been discussed through local newspaper articles and editorials. On a number of occasions secession has been a serious political issue for the State, including in a successful but unimplemented 1933 state referendum.

Australia is a constitutional monarchy whose Sovereign also serves as Monarch of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and eleven other former dependencies of the United Kingdom including Papua New Guinea, which was formerly a dependency of Australia. These countries operate as independent nations, and are known as Commonwealth realms. The history of the Australian monarchy has involved a shifting relationship with both the monarch and also the British government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constitution of Australia</span> Federal constitution of 1900

The Constitution of Australia is a constitutional document that is supreme law in Australia. It establishes Australia as a federation under a constitutional monarchy and outlines the structure and powers of the Australian government's three constituent parts, the executive, legislature, and judiciary.

A series of referendums on the proposed constitution of Australia were held between 2 June 1898 and 31 July 1900 in the six colonies that were to become the states of the Commonwealth of Australia. The first four referendums were held in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria in June 1898. Although all four saw a majority vote in favour, the majority in New South Wales was insufficient. Knowledge of the result in New South Wales led to low voter turnout in South Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Secession Convention of 1861</span>

The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 was called in Richmond to determine whether Virginia would secede from the United States, govern the state during a state of emergency, and write a new Constitution for Virginia, which was subsequently voted down in a referendum under the Confederate Government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secessionism in Tasmania</span>

Secessionism in Tasmania has been proposed several times throughout Tasmania's history.

A referendum concerning the reform of the New South Wales Legislative Council was put to New South Wales voters on 13 May 1933 and was passed by the voters with a margin of 2.94%. The text of the question was:

Do you approve of the Bill entitled "A Bill to reform the constitution and alter the Powers of the Legislative Council; to reduce and limit the number of Members of the Legislative Council; to reconstitute the Legislative Council in accordance with the reformed constitution; to amend the Constitution Act, 1902, and certain other Acts; and for purposes connected therewith."

References

  1. "1933—Secession Referendum". Western Australian Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015.
  2. Musgrave 2003, p. 98.
  3. Musgrave 2003, p. 100.
  4. Musgrave 2003, pp. 101–103.
  5. Musgrave 2003, p. 104.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Musgrave 2003, p. 105.
  7. Musgrave 2003, p. 103.
  8. 1 2 Musgrave 2003, p. 106.
  9. 1 2 Musgrave 2003, p. 107.
  10. Besant 1990, p. 232.
  11. Besant 1990, p. 231.
  12. Henderson, Anne (2011). Joseph Lyons: The People's Prime Minister. UNSW Press. pp. 343–344. ISBN   978-1742240992.
  13. Stannage, C.T., ed. (1981). A New History of Western Australia. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands. p. 422. ISBN   0-85564-181-9.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Referendum". The West Australian . 3 May 1933. p. 14 via National Library of Australia.
  15. Zimmermann 2012, p. 79.
  16. 1 2 Besant 1990, p. 252.
  17. 1 2 Zimmermann 2012, p. 80.
  18. Besant 1990, p. 212.
  19. Besant 1990, p. 266.
  20. Zimmermann 2012, p. 81.
  21. Zimmermann 2012, p. 82.
  22. Besant 1990, p. 249.
  23. Besant 1990, p. 216.
  24. Besant 1990, p. 215.
  25. "Miners talk secession, recalling the heady times of 1933". The Age. 30 June 2011.
  26. Besant 1990, p. 300.

Further reading