1967 Australian referendum (Parliament)


The first part of the 1967 Australian referendum was the Parliament question, which related to the relative number of members in each house of the Australian Parliament − the so-called "nexus". The 1967 Australian referendum called by the Holt Government on 27 May 1967 consisted of two parts, with the second question relating to Aboriginal Australians.
Section 24 of the Australian Constitution requires that the number of members in the House of Representatives be, as nearly as possible, twice the number of members in the Senate. The most important effect of the "nexus" in the Australian Constitution is to prevent the dilution of the collective voting power of the Senate, which represents the Australian states equally, in any joint sitting of both houses following a double dissolution election. The nexus ensures that Senators will always have about one-third of the votes in a joint sitting, and Members of the House of Representatives about two-thirds. The referendum question asked the public to vote on whether "the number of members of the House of Representatives may be increased without necessarily increasing the number of Senators". It was defeated, with 59.75% of voters voting "No" to this question.

Question

Results

StateOn
rolls		Ballots
issued		ForAgainstInvalidResult--
%%--Result--
New South Wales2,315,8282,166,5071,087,69451.011,044,45848.9934,355
Victoria1,734,4761,630,594496,82630.871,112,50669.1321,262
Queensland904,808848,728370,20044.13468,67355.879,855
South Australia590,275560,844186,34433.91363,12066.0911,380
Western Australia437,609405,666114,84129.05280,52370.9510,302
Tasmania199,589189,24542,76423.06142,66076.943,821
Total for Commonwealth6,182,5855,801,5842,298,66940.253,411,94059.7590,975
Obtained majority in one state and an overall minority of 1,113,271 votes.--------
Not carried--------