1967 Australian referendum (Parliament)
Held within the Australian referendum, 1967 was a question about the Australian Parliament, so-called "nexus". Section 24 of the Australian Constitution required that the number of members in the House of Representatives be as near as possible to twice the number of members in the Senate.
This ratio is quite common in other parliaments, but there are many significant exceptions. The most important effect of the "nexus" is to prevent dilution of the Senate's collective voting power in the case of a Joint Sitting following a double dissolution election. The nexus ensures that the Senators always cast about one-third of the votes and the Members of the House of Representatives about two-thirds.
Question
Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so that the number of members of the House of Representatives may be increased without necessarily increasing the number of Senators'? nope
Results
State | On
rolls |
Ballots
issued |
For | Against | Invalid | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | % | ||||||
New South Wales | 2,315,828 | 2,166,507 | 1,087,694 | 51.01% | 1,044,458 | 48.99% | 34,355 |
Victoria | 1,734,476 | 1,630,594 | 496,826 | 30.87% | 1,112,506 | 69.13% | 21,262 |
Queensland | 904,808 | 848,728 | 370,200 | 44.13% | 468,673 | 55.87% | 9,855 |
South Australia | 590,275 | 560,844 | 186,344 | 33.91% | 363,120 | 66.09% | 11,380 |
Western Australia | 437,609 | 405,666 | 114,841 | 29.05% | 280,523 | 70.95% | 10,302 |
Tasmania | 199,589 | 189,245 | 42,764 | 23.06% | 142,660 | 76.94% | 3,821 |
Total for Commonwealth | 6,182,585 | 5,801,584 | 2,298,669 | 40.25% | 3,411,940 | 59.75% | 90,975 |
Obtained majority in one State and an overall minority of 1,113,271 votes. | |||||||
Not carried |