1937 Australian referendum (Marketing)

Constitution Alteration (Marketing) 1936 was an Australian referendum held in the 1937 referendums which sought to alter the Australian Constitution to remove the restraints imposed on Parliament by section 92 of the Constitution.

Question

Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'Constitution Alteration (Marketing) 1936'?

Results

Result

State	On rolls	Ballots issued	For		Against		Invalid	Result
				%		%
New South Wales	1,550,947	1,461,860	456,802	33.76	896,457	66.24	108,601	No
Victoria	1,128,492	1,074,278	468,337	46.58	537,021	53.42	68,920	No
Queensland	562,240	519,933	187,685	38.78	296,302	61.22	35,946	No
South Australia	358,069	341,444	65,364	20.83	248,502	79.17	27,578	No
Western Australia	247,536	221,832	57,023	27.77	148,308	72.23	16,501	No
Tasmania	133,444	125,016	24,597	21.88	87,798	78.12	12,621	No
Total for Commonwealth	3,980,728	3,744,363	1,259,808	36.26	2,214,388	63.74	270,167	No
Obtained majority in no State and an overall minority of 954,580 votes.
Not carried

Discussion

This was one of the few instances where a referendum failed to achieve a majority in any state.

See also

• Politics of Australia
• History of Australia

Further reading

• Standing Committee on Legislative and Constitutional Affairs (1997) Constitutional Change: Select sources on Constitutional change in Australia 1901–1997. Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra.
• Handbook of the 44th Parliament (2014) "Part 5 - Referendums and Plebiscites". Parliamentary Library of Australia.
• Bennett, Scott (2003). Research Paper no. 11 2002–03: The Politics of Constitutional Amendment Australian Department of the Parliamentary Library, Canberra.
• Australian Electoral Commission (2007) Referendum Dates and Results 1906 – Present AEC, Canberra.