Australian referendum, 1977 (Senate Casual Vacancies)

The referendum of 21 May 1977 approved an amendment to the Australian constitution

Constitution of Australia

The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...

concerning the filling of casual vacancies

Casual vacancy

In the Parliament of Australia, a casual vacancy is caused when a member of either house :* dies* resigns mid-term * is expelled from Parliament and their seat is declared vacant, or...

in the Senate. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Senate Casual Vacancies) 1977 which, after being approved in the referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

, became law on 29 July of the same year.

Prior to the amendment:

the legislature of the relevant state was not required to have regard to the political allegiances of the replacement senator, and
the new senator's term continued only until the next general election for either the House of Representatives or the Senate, or the end of the original senator's term, whichever happened earlier.

The amendment changed this procedure by providing that:

a state legislature replace a senator with a member of the same political party, and
the new senator's term continue until the end of the original senator's term.

Its intended purpose was to prevent major changes in the balance of power in the senate in the middle of a parliamentary term, but as it did not provide any time limit within which the appointment had to be made, the state legislature remained free to decline to fill the vacancy. As Section 11 of the Constitution permits the Senate to carry on despite the failure to fill any vacancy, the amendment did not completely solve the problem.

On the same day as the vote on the casual vacancies amendment, three other questions were also put to the electorate. These concerned the:

Simultaneous elections amendment
Australian referendum, 1977 (Simultaneous Elections)
Constitution Alteration 1977 proposed for the second time that the Constitution be altered to ensure that elections for both houses of parliament occurred simultaneously...
Retirement of judges amendment
Australian referendum, 1977 (Retirement of Judges)
The legislation Constitution Alteration 1977 proposed to create a retirementage of 70 for judges in federal courts.The question was put to a referendum in the Australian referendum, 1977.-Results:...
National song plebiscite
Australian plebiscite, 1977 (National Song)
As an additional question in the 1977 referendum, the voters were polled on which song they would prefer to be used to mark occasions where a particularly Australian national identity was desired. Voting on this question was not compulsory...

.

Overview

The casual vacancies amendment came about as part of the political fallout from the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975

Australian constitutional crisis of 1975

The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis has been described as the greatest political crisis and constitutional crisis in Australia's history. It culminated on 11 November 1975 with the removal of the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party , by Governor-General Sir John Kerr...

. In the aftermath of this crisis, four amendments were recommended by sessions of the Australian Constitutional Convention, including one that would change the procedure for appointing replacement senators. All four were put to voters on 21 May 1977, and all were passed except a proposal for simultaneous elections to the 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....

and Senate.

The casual vacancies proposal arose out of the 1975 controversy over the appointment of independent Cleaver Bunton

Cleaver Bunton

Cleaver Ernest Bunton AO OBE 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.-Early life:...

(New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

) and anti-Whitlam

Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...

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...

member Albert Field

Albert Field

Albert Patrick Field was an Australian who was a French polisher plucked from obscurity to become a Senator in 1975. The circumstances of his appointment were instrumental in precipitating the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.Queensland ALP Senator Bertie Milliner died suddenly on 30 June 1975...

(Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

) to fill Senate seats formerly held by ALP senators. The change aimed to ensure that a replacement senator would be required to be a member of the party of which the previous senator was a member at the time of his or her election. The amendment was approved by a 73.3 per cent majority of the electorate.

Despite the intention of the amendment's supporters to ensure that the party balance in the Senate should not be altered by a casual vacancy, the amendment has not been entirely successful in that regard. Following the resignation of the Tasmanian ALP Senator Don Grimes

Don Grimes

Donald James "Don" Grimes AO is an Australian former politician. He was a minister in the Labor government of Bob Hawke.-Biography:...

in April 1987, the nominee of the ALP, John Devereux, was rejected by a tied vote in the Tasmanian Parliament. As one Tasmanian Minister argued: "we can choose only a person who is a member of the same party ... but we are not bound to accept the nomination of the party concerned". Tasmania therefore had only eleven senators between 2 April and the double dissolution election of 11 July 1987.

Changes to the text of the constitution

Section 15 (before)

If the place of a senator becomes vacant before the expiration of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of the State for which he was chosen shall, sitting and voting together, choose a person to hold the place until the expiration of the term, or until the election of a successor as hereinafter provided, whichever first happens. But if the Houses of Parliament of the State are not in session at the time when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of the State, with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may appoint a person to hold the place until the expiration of fourteen days after the beginning of the next session of the Parliament of the State, or until the election of a successor, whichever first happens.

At the next general election of members of the House of Representatives, or at the next election of senators for the State, whichever first happens, a successor shall, if the term has not then expired, be chosen to hold the place from the date of his election until the expiration of the term.

The name of any senator so chosen or appointed shall be certified by the Governor of the State to the Governor-General.

Section 15 (after)

If the place of a Senator becomes vacant before the expiration of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of the State for which he was chosen, sitting and voting together, or, if there is only one House of that Parliament, that House, shall choose a person to hold the place until the expiration of the term. But if the Parliament of the State is not in session when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of the State, with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may appoint a person to hold that place until the expiration of fourteen days from the beginning of the next session of the Parliament of the State or the expiration of the term, whichever first happens.

Where a vacancy has at any time occurred in the place of a senator chosen by the people of a State and, at the time when he was so chosen, he was publicly recognized by a particular political party as being an endorsed candidate of that party and publicly represented himself to be such a candidate, a person chosen or appointed under this section in consequence of that vacancy, or in consequence of that vacancy and a subsequent vacancy or vacancies, shall, unless there is no member of that party available to be chosen or appointed, be a member of that party.

Where-

(a) in accordance with the last preceding paragraph, a member of a particular political party is chosen or appointed to hold the place of a senator whose place had become vacant; and

(b) before taking his seat he ceases to be a member of that party (otherwise than by reason of the party having ceased to exist),

he shall be deemed not to have been so chosen or appointed and the vacancy shall be again notified in accordance with section twenty-one of this Constitution.

The name of any senator chosen or appointed under this section shall be certified by the Governor of the State to the Governor-General.

[Remaining provisions omitted]

Referendum results

Question: It is proposed to alter the Constitution to ensure as far as practicable that a casual vacancy in the Senate is filled by a person of the same political party as the Senator chosen by the people and for the balance of his term. Do you approve the proposed law?

	For	Against
Votes	%73.32	%26.68
States	6	0

State	On rolls	Ballots issued	For		Against		Informal
State	On rolls	Ballots issued		%		%	Informal
New South Wales New South Wales New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...	3,007,511	2,774,388	2,230,218	%81.62	502,171	%18.38	41,999
Victoria Victoria (Australia) Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....	2,252,831	2,083,136	1,552,558	%76.13	486,798	%23.87	43,780
Queensland Queensland Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...	1,241,426	1,138,842	662,732	%58.86	463,165	%41.14	12,945
South Australia South Australia South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...	799,243	745,990	557,950	%76.59	170,536	%23.41	17,504
Western Australia Western Australia Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...	682,291	617,463	344,389	%57.11	258,655	%42.89	14,419
Tasmania Tasmania Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...	259,081	246,063	129,924	%53.78	111,638	%46.22	4,501
Total for Commonwealth	8,242,383	7,605,882	5,477,771	%73.32	1,992,963	%26.68	135,148

Overview

Changes to the text of the constitution

Referendum results

See also