The 1917 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 5 May 1917. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 36 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 ...

were up for election. The incumbent Nationalist Party, led by Prime Minister

Billy Hughes William Morris Hughes (25 September 1862 – 28 October 1952) was an Australian politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Australia, in office from 1915 to 1923. He is best known for leading the country during World War I, but ...

, defeated the opposition Labor Party led by

Frank Tudor Francis Gwynne Tudor (29 January 1866 – 10 January 1922) was an Australian politician who served as the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1916 until his death. He had previously been a government minister under Andrew Fisher and Billy ...

in a landslide. Hughes, at the time a member of the ALP, had become prime minister when Andrew Fisher retired in 1915. The Australian Labor Party split of 1916 over the conscription issue had led Hughes and 24 other pro-conscription Labor MPs to split off as the

National Labor Party The National Labor Party was formed by Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes in 1916, following the 1916 Labor split on the issue of World War I conscription in Australia. Hughes had taken over as leader of the Australian Labor Party and Pri ...

, which was able to form a minority government supported by the

Commonwealth Liberal Party The Liberal Party was a parliamentary party in Australian federal politics between 1909 and 1917. The party was founded under Alfred Deakin's leadership as a merger of the Protectionist Party and Anti-Socialist Party, an event known as the Fu ...

under

Joseph Cook Sir Joseph Cook, (7 December 1860 – 30 July 1947) was an Australian politician who served as the sixth Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1913 to 1914. He was the leader of the Liberal Party from 1913 to 1917, after earlier serving ...

. Later that year, National Labor and the Liberals merged to form the Nationalist Party, with Hughes as leader and Cook as deputy leader. The election was fought in the aftermath of the 1916 plebiscite on

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

, which had been narrowly defeated. The Nationalists won a decisive victory, securing the largest majority government since Federation. The ALP suffered a large electoral swing against it, losing almost seven percentage points of its vote share compared with 1914. The swing was magnified by the large number of former Labor MPs who followed Hughes out of the party. This election would be the last federal election using the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

election system as Australia switched to the preferential voting system in

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the c ...

. This is the first of two elections (the other in 1922 also with Hughes as the incumbent Prime Minister), in which the incumbent Prime Minister, Hughes, had successfully transferred to another seat. At this election, Hughes had abandoned West Sydney, which he won with 75.3% of the vote as the Labor candidate at the previous election in 1914, and moved to Bendigo instead, winning it as the Nationalist candidate: unlike 1922, Hughes made his seat transfer in 1917 by defeating that seat’s incumbent member, Alfred Hampson, for re-election, the only time that an incumbent Prime Minister has defeated another MP for his seat. Except for the 1917 and 1922 elections, all other elections have seen the incumbent Prime Minister recontest the seat that they held prior to the election.

Results

House of Representatives

;Notes * Ten members were elected unopposed – seven Nationalist and three Labor. * The changes recorded for the Nationalist Party are with regard to the

's performance in 1914.

Senate

---- ;Notes * The changes recorded for the Nationalist Party are with regard to the

's performance in 1914.

Seats changing hands

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

Post-election pendulum

Notes

References

University of WA
election results in Australia since 1890 {{DEFAULTSORT:Australian Federal Election, 1917 Federal elections in Australia 1917 elections in Australia May 1917 events