Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country b ...

, 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 ca ...

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 Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah ( Hebrew: , Modern: , Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yah"), was a monarch of ancient Israel and the son and succe ...

(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 apportionment ...

, 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 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 e ...

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 Constitution of Australia (or Australian Constitution) is a constitutional document that is supreme law in Australia. It establishes Australia as a federation under a constitutional monarchy and outlines the structure and powers of the Au ...

. The referendum question came about due to the widespread

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 politics, centre-right list of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia, one of the two Major party, major parties in politics of Australia, Australian politics, along with th ...

and the

National Party of Australia The National Party of Australia, also known as The Nationals or The Nats, is an Australian political party. Traditionally representing graziers, farmers, and regional voters generally, it began as the Australian Country Party in 1920 at a fe ...

. 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.

References

{{reflist Democracy Elections in Australia

Degree of malapportionment

The years that each state got rid of malapportionment and instituted "one vote, one value"

Proposed constitutional amendment

See also

References