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1906 Australian senate elections referendum

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Field	Value
name	1906 Australian Senate Elections referendum
title	Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled —
"Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) 1906" ?
date
country	Australia
flag_year	1903
yes	774,011
no	162,470
invalid	112,155
electorate	2,109,562
outcome	Admentment Passed
next_referendum	1910 Australian referendum	previous_referendum=N/A	question=Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled —
"Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) 1906" ?

"Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) 1906" ? "Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) 1906" ?}} The Australian referendum of 12 December 1906 approved an amendment to the Australian constitution related to the terms of office of federal senators. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) Bill 1906, which after being approved in the referendum received the royal assent on 3 April 1907. The amendment moved the date of the beginning of the term of members of the Senate from 1 January to 1 July so that elections to the federal House of Representatives and the Senate could occur simultaneously.

The 1906 vote was the first referendum ever held in the Commonwealth of Australia and concerned the first amendment proposed to the constitution since its enactment. The referendum was held in conjunction with the 1906 federal election.

Overview

Prior to the amendment the constitution provided, in section 13, that Senate term would begin on 1 January and end on 31 December. By 1906 it was felt to be unlikely that Senate terms would generally coincide with House of Representatives terms, and that for this reason a change would be beneficial. The proposed amendment provided for Senate terms to begin on 1 July and end on 30 June. Odger's Australian Senate Practice noted that the main reason for the change was to enable simultaneous elections to be held in March, which at the time was considered the most likely period in which Federal elections would be held. The amendment was uncontroversial, dealing with the mechanical matter of how to rotate Senate terms, and Robert Menzies later observed that "as the average voter ... does not care how frequently a Senator rotates, the amendment was carried".

Although the amendment has not hindered the holding of simultaneous elections, it has had one unintended consequence. Because two-thirds of Commonwealth elections have been held in the months between September and December, there have been numerous instances of incoming Senators being required to wait many months before taking their seats. Those elected on 3 October 1998, for instance, were required to wait 270 days before doing so, and those elected on 21 August 2010 were required to wait 314 days before doing so.

Question

Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) 1906?

Changes to the text of the constitution

The following changes were made to the constitution following the result of the referumdum (removed text stricken through; substituted text in bold):

Section 13

## Results ::data[format=table title="Result{{hsp}}{{refn|name=Gazette}}{{refn|name=Handbook}}"] | State | Electoral roll | Ballots issued | For | Against | Informal | Vote | % | Vote | % | New South Wales | Victoria | Queensland | South Australia | Western Australia | Tasmania | Total for Commonwealth | Results | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 737,599 | 381,019 | 286,888 | 55,261 | 16.15 | 37,929 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 672,054 | 380,953 | 282,739 | 57,487 | 16.90 | 38,936 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 271,109 | 124,352 | 81,295 | 24,502 | 23.16 | 15,325 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 193,118 | 70,479 | 54,297 | 8,121 | 13.01 | 7,892 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 145,473 | 52,712 | 34,736 | 9,274 | 21.07 | 6,312 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 90,209 | 48,792 | 34,056 | 7,825 | 18.68 | 5,761 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2,109,562 | 1,058,277 | 744,011 | 162,470 | 17.35 | 112,155 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | *Obtained majority in all 6 States and an overall majority of 581,541 votes.* **Carried**. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | :: ## References ## References 1. ["Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) Act 1906"](https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C1907A00001). 2. Odgers, J.R. (1991) ''Australian Senate Practice (6th Ed.)'', Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, Canberra. p. 22 3. Menzies, R. (1967). ["Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth. An examination of the growth of Commonwealth power in the Australian Federation"](https://archive.org/details/centralpowerinau0000menz). *Casswell*. 4. Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. (24 March 1997). ["Select sources on constitutional change in Australia 1901-1997"](http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=laca/inquiryinconch.htm). *Commonwealth of Australia*. 5. (24 October 1906). ["Notification of the receipt of a Writ for a Referendum"](https://www.legislation.gov.au/file/1906GN58). *Commonwealth of Australia Gazette*. ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_Australian_senate_elections_referendum) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_Australian_senate_elections_referendum?action=history). ::

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