The Constitution Alteration (Simultaneous Elections) Bill 1977, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to enable simultaneous elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 21 May 1977.

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?

Background

The bill was substantially the same as the proposal that had been unsuccessful at the referendum in 1974. Despite the title, the proposal was to change the terms of senators from a fixed 6 years to 2 terms of the House of Representatives. The proposal did not expressly require elections for both houses to be held at the same time, instead it made the terms of Senators the same as for the House of Representatives and would give parliament the power to make laws about the time and places for elections.

Yes case

The Yes case was that because elections for the houses were out of alignment, there could be 4 elections in the next 4 years. If the Senate used its power to force an election, half the senators would also face elections.

No case

The Liberals had campaigned against the 1974 referendum on the basis that the title of the bill was a fraud and was designed to mislead voters from the real change which was to alter the Constitution so that the terms of Senators would be two terms of the House of Representatives. The no case in this referendum took a similar line, that the proposal didn't require simultaneous elections and instead was a proposal to enable governments to dissolve half the Senate. In Queensland, the National Party Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, campaigned against the proposal on the basis that it would permit the senate to be abolished.

Results

Proposed changes to the text of the constitution

The proposal was to alter the constitution as follows (removed text stricken through; substituted text in bold): The Senate Casual Vacancies bill proposed to change the way in which casual vacancies were filled and so the proposal included that the following amendments would not take effect if that referendum was carried.

Discussion

For a referendum to approve an amendment of the constitution, it must ordinarily achieve a double majority: approved by a majority of states (i.e., four of the six states) as well as a majority of those voting nationwide. This was the fourth of five referendums to achieve an overall majority, but fail the requirement of a majority of states. It had the highest percentage approval of any unsuccessful referendum and the margin of failure in the fourth state, Western Australia, was 9,211 votes (1.53%). Charles Court, the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the National Party Premier of Queensland, and Max Bingham, Leader of the Tasmanian Liberal Party (then in Opposition at the state level), campaigned against the referendum, largely causing its defeat in those three states. This was the second unsuccessful referendum that sought to enable simultaneous elections of the House of Representatives and the Senate.