The last constitutional referendums in this country were held in 1999, on adding a preamble to the constitution and changing Australia to be a republic. The latter referendum may have some insights about what we could expect on Saturday, so I thought I would delve a bit into the trends in those results.
I will mostly be ignoring the preamble referendum, and looking at the republic.
Ben is joined by James Mulrennan from The Overhang. We preview next weekend’s New Zealand national election, touching on the electoral system, the state of the parties and the polls, and the potential shape of the next government.
For today’s post, I wanted to explore how much referendum results vary geographically – how much variety there is by seat and by state.
There’s been quite a bit of variety in how tightly-clustered the states have been over time, although it’s very clear that multiple referendums held at the same time usually follow similar patterns.
Things look a bit different at the seat level – it looks like the amount of variety declined as the twentieth century went on.
One of the key factors to consider when looking at the history of Australia’s constitutional referendums is which government submitted the redistribution proposal. Labor and their Coalition opponents (and their predecessors) have held differing attitudes to the constitution, all the way back to the original formation of the Constitution. Labor was barely represented at that Convention, and the party was very critical of key parts of the federation settlement from the very beginning.
Referendum results are made up of building blocks of states – four states are required to pass a referendum. While a successful referendum also requires a majority nationwide, that has never been the deciding factor. It’s always been about the four states.
In this post I’m analysing which states have tended to vote together, and the combinations of states that have appeared throughout the twentieth century.
One of the most interesting elements of a constitutional referendum in Australia is that there are two requirements for the referendum to be carried: it needs a majority of votes nationally, but it also needs a majority in a majority of states.
Over the next two weeks I’ll be writing a few blog posts based on the referendum results data in my data repository – looking at the history of referendums throughout the 20th century.
The Voice referendum will be the first constitutional referendum held since 1999 – that’s 24 years without a referendum.
Federal redistributions have recently commenced in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
The AEC yesterday published the enrolment data to be used to draw New South Wales federal electorates.
There are two sets of data – enrolment data as of August 2023, and projected enrolments as of April 2028. This data has been published at the level of SA1, but for this post I’m just looking at it at the electorate and regional level.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will be stepping down today as premier and as Member for Mulgrave, a seat he has held since 2002.
This means a by-election will be held for that seat soon, likely before the end of the year.
My guide to Mulgrave is now live.
Check it out!
Tomorrow I’ll be back with more historical referendum analysis.
Ben is joined by historian Alison Holland, who is researching the history of ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. We discuss the history and current existence of Indigenous elected institutions around Australia, including ATSIC and its predecessors at a federal level, regional land councils and state Voices that have started to pop up.