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1913 Australian referendum (Railway Disputes)

Field	Value
name	1913 Australian Railway Disputes referendum
title	Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled —
"Constitution Alteration (Railway Disputes) 1912" ?
date
country	Australia
yes	956,358
no	990,046
invalid	84,366
electorate	2,760,216

"Constitution Alteration (Railway Disputes) 1912" ? The Constitution Alteration (Railways Disputes) Bill 1912 was an unsuccessful referendum held in 1913 that sought to alter the Australian Constitution to give the Commonwealth legislative power over industrial relations in the state railway services. The question was put to a referendum in the 1913 Australian referendum.

Issues

Question

Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'Constitution Alteration (Railway Disputes) 1912'?

Proposed Changes to the Constitution

The proposal was to alter the text of section 51 of the Constitution to read as follows: (substituted text in bold)

51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have Legislative power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: :**(xxxv.A.) Conciliation and arbitration for prevention and settlement of industrial disputes in relation to employment in the railway service of a State.**

Results

The referendum was not approved by a majority of voters, and a majority of the voters was achieved in only three states.

State	Electoral roll	Ballots issued	For	Against	Informal	Vote	%	Vote	New South Wales	Victoria
1,036,187	717,855	316,928	46.70	361,743		37,928
830,391	626,861	296,255	48.79	310,921		19,357
363,082	280,525	146,521		123,859	45.81	9,924
244,026	195,463	96,072		91,262	48.72	7,912
179,784	132,149	65,957		59,965	47.62	5,894
106,746	80,398	34,625	45.01	42,296		3,351
noWrap	2,760,216	noWrap	2,033,251	noWrap	956,358	49.13	noWrap	990,046	noWrap	84,366
Obtained majority in three states and an overall minority of 33,688 votes. Not carried

Discussion

The 1911 referendum asked a single question that dealt with trade and commerce, corporations and industrial matters. This was an additional resolution that went beyond the previous proposal to directly address industrial disputes in the state railways. Like its forebear, none of these resolutions were carried. On each of the many occasions a similar question was asked at a referendum the public decided not to vest power in the Commonwealth over these matters.

1911 referendum on trade and commerce

References

"Constitution Alteration (Railways Disputes) Bill".
(25 April 1913). "Notification of the receipt of a Writ for a Referendum". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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