In
Australia, one vote, one value is a democratic principle, applied in electoral laws governing
redistributions of
electoral divisions of the House of Representatives. The principle calls for all electoral divisions to have the same number of enrolled voters (not residents or population), within a specified percentage of variance. The electoral laws of the Commonwealth for 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 ...
and all states follow the principle with some exceptions. The principle does not apply to the Senate, as each state is entitled under the constitution to the same number of senators irrespective of the population of the state.
Degree of malapportionment
Currently, for the House of Representatives, the number of enrolled voters in each division in a state or territory can vary by up to 10% from the average quota for the state or territory, and the number of voters can vary by up to 3.5% from the average projected enrolment three-and-a-half years into the future. The allowable quota variation of the number of electors in each division was reduced from 20% to 10% by the ''Commonwealth Electoral Act (No. 2) 1973'', passed at the
joint sitting of Parliament in 1974. The change was instigated by the Whitlam Labor government.
However, due to various reasons, such as the minimum number of members for Tasmania, larger seats like
Cowper (New South Wales) contain almost double the electors of smaller seats like
Solomon (Northern Territory).
While all states (other than Tasmania) historically have had some form of
malapportionment
Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...
, electoral reform in recent decades resulted in an electoral legislation and policy framework based on the "one vote one value" principle. However, in the Western Australian and Queensland Legislative Assemblies, seats covering areas greater than may be drawn with fewer electors than the general tolerance would allow.
The years that each state got rid of malapportionment and instituted "one vote, one value"
Proposed constitutional amendment
The Whitlam Labor government proposed to amend the Constitution in a
referendum in 1974 to require the use of population to determine the size of electorates rather than alternative methods of distributing seats, such as geographical size. The bill was not passed by the
Senate and instead the referendum was put to voters using the deadlock provision in
Section 128.
The referendum was not carried, obtaining a majority in just one State and achieving 47.20% support, an overall minority of 407,398 votes.
In 1988, the Hawke Labor government submitted a
referendum proposal to enshrine the principle in the
Australian Constitution.
The referendum question came about due to the widespread
malapportionment
Apportionment is the process by which seats in a legislative body are distributed among administrative divisions, such as states or parties, entitled to representation. This page presents the general principles and issues related to apportionmen ...
and
gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
which was endemic during
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (13 January 191123 April 2005), known as Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was a conservative Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, during ...
's term as the Queensland Premier. The proposal was opposed by both the
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...
and the
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia, also known as The Nationals or The Nats, is an List of political parties in Australia, Australian political party. Traditionally representing graziers, farmers, and regional voters generally, it began as the Au ...
. The referendum proposal was not carried, obtaining a majority in no States and achieving just 37.6% support, an overall minority of 2,335,741.
See also
*
Elections in Australia
Elections in Australia take place periodically to elect the legislature of the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as for each Australian state and territory and for local government councils. Elections in all jurisdictions follow similar princip ...
* ''
McGinty v Western Australia''
*
One man, one vote
"One man, one vote", or "one person, one vote", expresses the principle that individuals should have equal representation in voting. This slogan is used by advocates of political equality to refer to such electoral reforms as universal suffrage, ...
*
Bjelkemander
The Bjelkemander was the term given to a system of malapportionment in the Australian state of Queensland in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the system, electorates were allocated to zones such as rural or metropolitan and electoral boundaries drawn ...
*
Playmander
The Playmander was a gerrymandering system, a pro-rural electoral malapportionment in the Australian state of South Australia, which was introduced by the incumbent Liberal and Country League (LCL) government in 1936, and remained in place for 32 ...
References
{{reflist
Democracy
Elections in Australia