1977 Australian referendum (Simultaneous Elections)

The Constitution Alteration (Simultaneous Elections) 1977 was an Australian referendum held in the 1977 referendums which sought to amend the Australian constitution for the second time to ensure that elections for both houses of parliament occurred simultaneously.

Question

It is proposed to alter the Constitution to ensure that Senate elections are held at the same time as House of Representatives elections.

Do you approve the proposed law?

Results

Result

State	On rolls	Ballots issued	For		Against		Invalid
				%		%
New South Wales	3,007,511	2,774,388	1,931,775	70.71%	800,331	29.29%	42,282
Victoria	2,252,831	2,083,136	1,325,708	65.00%	713,929	35.00%	43,499
Queensland	1,241,426	1,138,842	534,968	47.51%	590,942	52.49%	12,932
South Australia	799,243	745,990	480,827	65.99%	247,762	34.01%	17,401
Western Australia	682,291	617,463	292,344	48.47%	310,765	51.53%	14,354
Tasmania	259,081	246,063	82,785	34.26%	158,818	65.74%	4,460
Australian Total	8,242,383	7,605,882	4,648,407	62.22%	2,822,547	37.78%	134,928
Obtained majority in three States and an overall majority of 1,825,860 votes.
Not carried

Discussion

This was one of several occasions that the double majority rule resulted in a referendum with a clear 'Yes' overall majority not being approved, as it failed to receive approval in a majority of States. The margin of failure, 9211 votes (in WA), made it the third-closest referendum result in Australian history. Charles Court the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Joh Bjelke-Petersen the National Party Premier of Queensland and Max Bingham Leader of the Tasmanian state Liberal Party (then in Opposition at the state level) campaigned against the referendum, causing its defeat in those three states.