ID 0833

Commonwealth Parliament, Senate election

Election of 1 December 1984

Show only vote and seat summary details

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General election for the Senate
Commonwealth of Australia
Date of election
1 December 1984
Type of Senate election
Half Senate (enlarged) with House of Representatives

Government in office at Senate election

Prime Minister in office at date of Senate election. (check notes to Senate national summary table to see if change of Prime Minister since previous election)
Robert James Lee Hawke
Prime Minister's party affiliation
Australian Labor Party
Government majority in Senate at date of election
No
Change of government
No
Government majority in new Senate
No
If coalition, coalition partner(s)

Senate enrolment and voting

Total number of voters on the roll
9,869,217
Total ballots cast (may differ from number of votes in multiple voting systems)
9,331,165
Turnout (rate of voting in contested seats)
94.55%
Total valid votes
8,894,100
Rate of informal (invalid) voting
4.68%

Electoral composition of the Senate for this election

Total number of seats in the Senate
76
Total number of seats for each state
12
Number of seats for each territory
2
Seats to be filled at this Senate election
46
Casual vacancies/additional seats included in seats to be filled
12
Electoral System
Adult franchise at 18 years (from 1974); multimember districts; proportional representation by the single transferable vote method (STV); compulsory preferences; above the line (group ticket) voting permitted; compulsory voting

Senate votes and seats won, and seats held, national summary

Display Chart

Election held on 1 December 1984
Criteria for the inclusion of parties in this table are set out in the Glossary under listed party

* to view table drag left or right.
Party Name First preference vote nFirst preference vote share %Change from previous election %Seats won by ticket nSeats won by ticket %Seats won by party nSeats won by party %Seats held by party nSeats held by party %
Australian Labor Party  3,750,789  42.17  -3.32 20  43.4820  43.48  34  44.74 
Liberal Party 1,831,006  20.59  +9.04 14  30.4316  34.78  28  36.84 
Liberal Party - National Party (joint ticket) 1,130,601  12.71  -10.57 3  6.520  0.00  0  0.00 
Australian Democrats 677,970  7.62  -1.95 5  10.875  10.87  7  9.21 
Nuclear Disarmament Party 643,061  7.23  * 1  2.171  2.17  1  1.32 
National Party 527,278  5.93  +1.07 2  4.353  6.52  5  6.58 
Country Liberal Party (NT) 27,972  .31  +.04 1  2.171  2.17  0  0.00 
Brian Harradine Group (Tas) 22,992  .26  * 0  0.000  0.00  1  1.32 
Independents 16,803  .19  -2.23 0  0.000  0.00  0  0.00 
Votes for other than listed parties265,6282.99 0.00       
Totals8,894,100  100    46  100%  46  100%  76  100% 

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* Party did not contest previous election or did not meet criteria for listing, or contested previous election under a different party name.

Notes

In the table above, see the Glossary distinctions between Seats won by ticket and Seats won by party, and between Seats won by party and Seats held by party.

Electoral system: For Senate elections from 1984, changes were made to the design of the Senate ballot paper which gave the voter the opportunity to mark a single party box which had the effect of ranking all the candidates contesting the election in the order preferred by the party whose box had been marked. This above the line voting was provided in addition to the previous system in which a voter had to rank all candidates on the ballot in the order preferred by the voter. This change in ballot design led several Independent candidates to contest Senate elections as a 'group' so that they could benefit from above the line voting. For this reason, Senator Harradine from Tasmania is shown as representing the Brian Harradine Group in the Senate even though he was elected as an Independent at the 1983 Senate election.

Brian Harradine Group: See previous note.

Nuclear Disarmament Party: The candidate from the Nuclear Disarmament Party elected to the Senate from Western Australia at this election was Josephine Vallentine. Senator Vallentine was subsequently elected to the Senate from Western Australia as leader of the Vallentine Peace Group in 1987, and as a member of Greens WA at the 1990 election.

Liberal Country Party (NT): In the national summary for this election for the Senate, the seats held by the National Country Party include the seat won for the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory.

Note - 103571

Sources

Colin A Hughes, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics, 1975-1984, Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Australian National University Press, 1986 (ISBN 008033038X); Gerard Newman, Federal Election Results 1949-2001, Canberra: Commonwealth Parliament, Department of the Parliamentary Library, Information and Research Services, Research Paper 9 2001-02, 2002 (ISSN 13287478).

Note - 104163


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