The first part of the

1967 Australian referendum The 1967 Australian referendum occurred on 27 May 1967 under the Holt Government. It contained three topics asked about in two questions, regarding the passage of two bills to alter the Australian Constitution. The first question (''Constitution ...

to change the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

was the Parliament question, which related to the relative number of members in each house of the

Australian Parliament The Parliament of Australia (officially the Federal Parliament, also called the Commonwealth Parliament) is the legislature, legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch (represented by the ...

− 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 Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

Section 24 of the Australian Constitution Section 24 of the Constitution of Australia is titled "Constitution of House of Representatives". It provides that the House of Representatives be "directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth" and have twice as many seats as the Senate. It ...

requires that the number of members 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 ...

be, as nearly as possible, twice the number of members 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 ...

. Constitution of House of Representatives. 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 A joint session or joint convention is, most broadly, when two normally separate decision-making groups meet, often in a special session or other extraordinary meeting, for a specific purpose. Most often it refers to when both houses of a bicame ...

of both houses following a

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. 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.

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