In Australia, one vote, one value is a democratic principle, applied in electoral laws governing redistributions of electoral divisions of the House of Representatives. The principle calls for all electoral divisions to have the same number of enrolled voters (not residents or population), within a specified percentage of variance. The electoral laws of the federal House of Representatives, and of the state and territory parliaments, follow the principle, with a few exceptions. The principle does not apply to the Senate because, under the Australian constitution, each state is entitled to the same number of senators, irrespective of the population of the state.
Currently, for the House of Representatives, the number of enrolled voters in each division in a state or territory can vary by up to 10% from the average quota for the state or territory, and the number of voters can vary by up to 3.5% from the average projected enrolment three-and-a-half years into the future. [1] The allowable quota variation of the number of electors in each division was reduced from 20% to 10% by the Commonwealth Electoral Act (No. 2) 1973, passed at the joint sitting of Parliament in 1974. [2] The change was instigated by the Whitlam Labor government.
However, for various reasons, such as the constitutional requirement that Tasmania must have at least five lower house members, larger seats like Cowper (New South Wales) comprise almost double the electors of smaller seats like Solomon in the Northern Territory.
Historically, all states (other than Tasmania) have had some form of malapportionment, but electoral reform in recent decades has resulted in electoral legislation and policy frameworks based on the "one vote, one value" principle. However, in the Western Australian and Queensland Legislative Assemblies, seats covering areas greater than 100,000 square kilometres (38,600 sq mi) may have fewer electors than the general tolerance would otherwise allow. [3] [4]
| State | NSW | Qld | SA | Tas | Vic | WA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upper House | 1978 [5] | Abolished in 1922 [6] | 1973 [7] | 1995 [8] | 1982 [9] | 2021 [10] |
| Lower House | 1979 [11] | 1991 [12] | 1975 [13] | 1906 [14] | 1982 [9] | 2005 [15] |
The Whitlam Labor government proposed to amend the Constitution in a referendum in 1974 to require the use of population to determine the size of electorates rather than alternative methods of distributing seats, such as geographical size. The bill was not passed by the Senate and instead the referendum was put to voters using the deadlock provision in Section 128. [16] The referendum was not carried, obtaining a majority in just one State and achieving 47.20% support, an overall minority of 407,398 votes. [17]
In 1988, the Hawke Labor government submitted a referendum proposal to enshrine the principle in the Australian Constitution. [18] The referendum question came about due to the widespread malapportionment and gerrymandering which was endemic during Joh Bjelke-Petersen's term as the Queensland Premier. The proposal was opposed by both the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia. The referendum proposal was not carried, obtaining a majority in no States and achieving just 37.6% support, an overall minority of 2,335,741. [17]
The Australian electoral system comprises the laws and processes used for the election of members of the Australian Parliament and is governed primarily by the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The system presently has a number of distinctive features including compulsory enrolment; compulsory voting; majority-preferential instant-runoff voting in single-member seats to elect the lower house, the House of Representatives; and the use of the single transferable vote proportional representation system to elect the upper house, the Senate.
In the Parliament of Australia, a casual vacancy arises when a member of either the Senate or the House of Representatives:
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 in population counts for constitutional purposes to include all Indigenous Australians. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.
A double dissolution is a procedure permitted under the Australian Constitution to resolve deadlocks in the bicameral Parliament of Australia between the House of Representatives and the Senate. A double dissolution is the only circumstance in which the entire Senate can be dissolved.
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 Constitution Alteration (Referendums) Bill 1977 was an Australian referendum held in 1977 in which electors approved an amendment to the Australian constitution to allow electors in the Australian territories to vote at referendums. Electors in the territories were to be counted towards the national total, but would not be counted toward any state total.
The Constitution Alteration (Aviation) Bill 1936, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to extend the Commonwealth legislative power in respect to air navigation and aircraft. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 6 March 1937.
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 Western Australian Legislative Council is the upper house of the Parliament of Western Australia, a state of Australia. It is regarded as a house of review for legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly, the lower house. The two Houses of Parliament sit in Parliament House in the state capital, Perth.
The Legislative Assembly of Queensland is the sole chamber of the unicameral Parliament of Queensland established under the Constitution of Queensland. Elections are held every four years and are done by full preferential voting. The Assembly has 93 members, who have used the letters MP after their names since 2000.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 is an Act of the Australian Parliament which continues to be the core legislation governing the conduct of elections in Australia, having been amended on numerous occasions since 1918. The Act was introduced by the Nationalist Party of Billy Hughes, the main purpose of which was to replace first-past-the-post voting with instant-runoff voting for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Labor Party opposed the introduction of preferential voting. The Act has been amended on several occasions since.
The Court of Disputed Returns in Australia is a special jurisdiction of the High Court of Australia. The High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, hears challenges regarding the validity of federal elections. The jurisdiction is twofold: (1) on a petition to the Court by an individual with a relevant interest or by the Australian Electoral Commission, or (2) on a reference by either house of the Commonwealth Parliament. This jurisdiction was initially established by Part XVI of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 and is now contained in Part XXII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. Challenges regarding the validity of State elections are heard by the Supreme Court of that State as the State's Court of Disputed Returns.
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.
The 2008 Western Australian state election was held on Saturday 6 September 2008 to elect 59 members to the Legislative Assembly and 36 members to the Legislative Council. The incumbent centre-left Labor Party government, in power since the 2001 election and led since 25 January 2006 by Premier Alan Carpenter, was defeated by the centre-right Liberal Party opposition, led by Opposition Leader Colin Barnett since 6 August 2008.
Redistribution is the process by which electoral districts are added, removed, or otherwise changed. Redistribution is a form of boundary delimitation that changes electoral district boundaries, usually in response to periodic census results. Redistribution is required by law or constitution at least every decade in most representative democracy systems that use first-past-the-post or similar electoral systems to prevent geographic malapportionment. The act of manipulation of electoral districts to favour a candidate or party is called gerrymandering.
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.
McGinty v Western Australia, was a significant case decided in the High Court of Australia in 1996. The plaintiffs sought to enshrine the principle of ‘one vote one value’ in the Australian Constitution, and has had a significant impact on how the High Court approaches matters of the franchise, as well as malapportionment. The plaintiff's submissions were unanimously rejected by the court, who found that the interpretation of sections 7 and 24 of the Australian Constitution did not require that all votes hold the same value. The High Court exercised its original jurisdiction in hearing the matter, meaning that the case did not need to proceed as an appeal from the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
Apportionment by country describes the practices used in various democratic countries around the world for partitioning seats in the parliament among districts or parties. See apportionment (politics) for the general principles and issues related to apportionment.
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.
