The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. There are a total of 76 senators: 12 are elected from each of the six Australian states regardless of population and 2 from each of the two autonomous internal Australian territories. Senators are popularly elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation.
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions, thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document.
The Parliament of Australia is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The combination of two elected chambers, in which the members of the Senate represent the states and territories while the members of the House represent electoral divisions according to population, is modelled on the United States Congress. Through both chambers, however, there is a fused executive, drawn from the Westminster system.
The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt government, related to Indigenous Australians. Voters were asked whether to give the Federal Government the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether Indigenous Australians should be included in official population counts for constitutional purposes. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.
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.
The Australian referendum of 12 December 1906 approved an amendment to the Australian constitution related to the terms of office of federal senators. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration Bill 1906, which after being approved in the referendum received the royal assent on 3 April 1907. The amendment moved the date of the beginning of the term of members of the Senate from 1 January to 1 July so that elections to the federal House of Representatives and the Senate could occur simultaneously.
The 1984 Australian referendum was held on 1 December 1984. It contained two referendum questions, neither of which passed. As of 2022, this is the last referendum in which any state voted in favour of a constitutional amendment.
The 1977 Referendums question was a successful amendment to the Australian constitution that allowed Australians living in territories to vote on future referendums. This question was put to voters alongside four others during 1977. With the success of the vote, the Constitution Alteration (Referendums) Bill 1977 passed. In future referenda, the votes of electors in the territories would be counted towards the national total, but would not be counted toward any state total.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1974, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to require simultaneous elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 18 May 1974. Previous elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate had usually held simultaneously although this was a matter of convention rather than constitutional law. Election terms had lost synchronisation in the 1960s with separate half Senate elections in 1964, 1967 and 1970.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1974, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to make it easier to amend the constitution and give voters in the Australian territories the right to vote in referendums. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 18 May 1974.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1974 was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to make population instead of electors, the basis of determining the average size of electorates in each state. It applied not only to the House of Representatives, but also to the various state Legislative Assemblies, requiring the use demographical population size to ensure democratic elections. This was intended to replace alternative methods of distributing seats, such as geographical size, with instead the population of states and territories. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 18 May 1974.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1977, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to enable simultaneous elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 21 May 1977.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1977, was a successful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution concerning the filling of casual vacancies in the Senate. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 21 May 1977. After being approved in the referendum, it received the royal assent and became law on 29 July 1977.
Chapter VIII of the Constitution of Australia contains only section 128, which describes the constitutional referendum process required for amending the Constitution.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1974 to 1975. The 18 May 1974 election was a double dissolution of both Houses, with all 127 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 60 seats in the Senate up for election. The incumbent Labor Party led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam defeated the opposition Liberal Party led by Billy Snedden and their Coalition partner the Country Party led by Doug Anthony.
Section 13 of the Constitution of Australia provides for three aspects of the terms of members of the Australian Senate: the timing of elections, the commencement date of their terms and for the Senate to allocate long (six-year) and short (three-year) terms following a double dissolution of the Parliament of Australia. While members of the House of Representatives and territory senators have a maximum three-year term, state senators have a fixed six-year term, subject only to the parliament being dissolved by a double dissolution.
The Constitution Alteration 1988 was an unsuccessful proposal put to referendum in the 1988 Australian referendum on 3 September 1988. It proposed to alter the Australian constitution so that both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be elected for a term of four years. This involved reducing the terms of the Senate from six years to four years, and increasing the terms of the House of Representatives from three years to four years. It also proposed for the fourth time that Senate and House elections occur simultaneously.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1988, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to enshrine the principle that each elector's vote should have equal value in Australia, also referred to as one vote, one value, including in states and territories. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 3 September 1988.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1988, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to recognise local government. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 3 September 1988. The structure of the Constitution recognises government at federal and state levels, but makes no mention of local government.
The Constitution Alteration Bill 1988, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to enshrine various civil rights, namely freedom of religion, rights in relation to trials, and rights regarding the compulsory acquisition of property. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 3 September 1988.
