Australian legislative election, 1963

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Legislative elections were held in Australia on 30 November, 1963. All 122 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election. The election was for the House only; seats in the Senate were up for election in 1964.

The election was held following the early dissolution of the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, gave as his reason for calling an election within two years that there was an insufficient working majority in the House.^[1] The 9 December 1961 election had been won with a substantially reduced majority of only two seats. One of the consequences of an early House election was that there were separate Senate and House elections until 1974.

The Coalition government of the Liberal Party led by Robert Menzies and the Country Party led by John McEwen was returned with a substantially increased majority over the Australian Labor Party led by Arthur Calwell.

Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections on the same basis as other electors for the first time in this election following an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act becoming law on 1 November. The amendment enfranchised Indigenous people in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Indigenous voting rights in other states had been in place since 1949.

[edit] Election issues

[edit] State aid for non-Government schools

The toilets of St Brigid's; the reason for the 1962 School Strike and the beginning of State Aid to non-Government schools. Health officials requested the installation of three extra toilets at a Goulburn Catholic Primary School. The Catholic church declared they had no money to install the extra toilets. The local community closed down non-Government schools and sent the children to the Government schools. Nearly 1,000 children turned up to be enrolled locally and the state schools were unable to accommodate them.

The election was notable for the issue of State Aid to non-government schools being finally resolved. There was a School Strike in Goulburn, New South Wales in 1962, where Catholic schools were closed and parents sent their children to Government schools. The strike received national attention. The Labor Premier of New South Wales, Robert Heffron, had promised money for science labs at non-Government schools. This promise is said to have been overthrown at the federal level of the Labor Party executive, although policy is in fact made at the Labor Party's Conferences. Menzies called a snap election with State Aid for science blocks and Commonwealth scholarships for students at both Government and non-Government schools as part of his Party's platform. Menzies saw it as an attempt to woo Catholic voters away from the Labor Party which they traditionally supported; the wedge driven through the ALP, and its core constituency took nearly a decade to overcome. Most non-Government schools were Catholic. The Labor Party reduced its representation in the house by 10 seats and suffered a first preference vote swing of -2.43%. The Country Party vote was higher than the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) vote for the first time since 1955; the DLP had evolved from the Catholic wing of the ALP. It is possible that the Liberal Party probably would have won regardless of the Liberals' decision on State Aid.^[2]

[edit] North-west Cape communications facility

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt, the North-west Cape communications facility which was built in the 1960s

Other key issues in the election included the building the North-west Cape communications facility which would support the US nuclear submarine capability. A special federal conference of the ALP was called in March 1963. Labor voted by a narrow margin to support the base. The Left faction was opposed to a foreign base on Australian soil and which supported America's nuclear program.^[3]

[edit] Australian Labor Party National Executive

At the March ALP conference, Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam were photographed outside the venue at Kingston in Canberra. Although Calwell was the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives and Whitlam was on the opposition front bench, neither man was a member of the Party's federal executive. Menzies jibed that the ALP was ruled by "36 faceless men" - a jibe that is remembered more than 40 years later.^[3]

[edit] Assassination of US President Kennedy

The week before the election, on 22 November 1963, John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, was assassinated. It has been suggested that this tragedy helped to consolidate Menzies' position.^[4]

[edit] National Summary

[edit] References

1. ^ House of Representatives Practice; Chapter 3 Elections and the electoral system. Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives (2005). Retrieved on 2006-04-04.
2. ^ The Battle for State Aid. Timeframe. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997). Retrieved on 2006-04-02.
3. ^ ^{a b} Boilermaker Bill's Jakarta jottings; Boilermaker Bill McKell Labor Legend. Crikey (10 September 2004). Retrieved on 2006-04-03.
4. ^ Farnsworth, Malcolm. It's Time; 1972 Federal Election: Sound Archives. australianpolitics.com. Retrieved on 2006-04-04.

• University of Western Australia Election Database