The 1984 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 1 December 1984. All 148 seats in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

(24 of them newly created) and 46 of 76 seats in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

(12 of them newly created) were up for election. The incumbent Labor Party led by Prime Minister

Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and union organiser who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (A ...

defeated the opposition

Liberal–National coalition The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as "the Coalition" or informally as the LNP, is an political alliance, alliance of Centre-right politics, centre-right political parties that forms one of the two major groupings in Politic ...

, led by

Andrew Peacock Andrew Sharp Peacock (13 February 193916 April 2021) was an Australian politician and diplomat. He served as a cabinet minister and went on to become leader of the Liberal Party on two occasions (1983–1985 and 1989–1990), leading the par ...

. The election was held in conjunction with two referendum questions, neither of which was carried.

Background and issues

The election had a long campaign and a high rate of informal voting for the House of Representatives, but decreased rate in the Senate (due to the introduction of the

Group voting ticket A group voting ticket (GVT) is a shortcut for voters in a preferential voting system, where a voter can indicate support for a list of candidates instead of marking preferences for individual candidates. For multi-member electoral divisions with si ...

). The election was held 18 months ahead of time, partly to bring the elections for the House of Representatives and Senate back into line following the

double dissolution A double dissolution is a procedure permitted under the Australian Constitution to resolve deadlocks in the bicameral Parliament of Australia between the House of Representatives (lower house) and the Senate (upper house). A double dissolution ...

election of 1983. The legislated increase in the size of the House of Representatives by 24 seats and the Senate by 12 seats came into effect at the 1984 election. Prior to 1984 the electoral commission did not undertake a full distribution of preferences for statistical purposes. The stored ballot papers for the previous election were put through this process prior to their destruction – therefore the figures from 1983 onwards show the actual result based on full distribution of preferences.

Results

House of Representatives

Senate

Seats changing hands

* Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

Analysis

The results of the election surprised most analysts; the expectation had been that Bob Hawke – who had been polling a record ACNielsen approval rating of 75 percent on the eve of the election – would win by a significantly larger margin. Labor instead suffered a 2-point swing against it and had its majority cut from 25 to 16. Hawke blamed the result on the changes to Senate vote cards, which he believed confused people regarding their House of Representatives votes and contributed to the relatively high informal vote, the majority of which apparently was Labor votes. Andrew Peacock did well from a good performance in the one leaders' debate, held on 26 November 1984. This was the first televised leaders' debate in Australia.

References

University of WA
election results in Australia since 1890
AustralianPolitics.com election details
{{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Federal Election, 1984 1984 elections in Australia Bob Hawke Federal elections in Australia December 1984 events in Australia