1972 Australian federal election
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All 125 seats of the House of Representatives 63 seats were needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Registered | 7,073,930 7.08% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 6,747,244 (95.38%) (0.41 pp) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Results by division for the House of Representatives, shaded by winning party's margin of victory. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1972 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 2 December 1972. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, as well as a single Senate seat in Queensland. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition government, led by Prime Minister William McMahon, was defeated by the opposition Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam. Labor's victory ended 23 years of successive Coalition governments that began in 1949 and started the three-year Whitlam Labor Government.
Whitlam became the first Labor leader after World War II to lead the party to victory from opposition before Bob Hawke in 1983, Kevin Rudd in 2007 and Anthony Albanese in 2022.
Issues
The 1972 election campaign dealt with a combination of Vietnam and domestic policy issues, and the role of the federal government in resolving these issues. The Coalition of the
By contrast, Coalition policies of conservative economic management, increasing trade, and Australian involvement in the
Finally, the incumbent Prime Minister
McMahon was further weakened by concerns about inflation and negative press coverage. For example, Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper The Australian supported the ALP. The ALP ran a strong campaign under the famous slogan It's Time – a slogan which, coupled with its progressive policy programme, gave it great momentum within the electorate after 23 years of Conservative rule.[2]
The Coalition government strongly opposed the opening of full diplomatic relationship with Beijing during Mao Zedong's regime.[3]
Results
House of Representatives
Party | Votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Labor | 3,273,549 | 49.59 | +2.64 | 67 | +8 | ||
Liberal–Country Coalition | 2,737,911 | 41.48 | –1.84 | 58 | –8 | ||
Liberal | 2,115,085 | 32.04 | –2.73 | 38 | –8 | ||
Country | 622,826 | 9.44 | +0.88 | 20 | 0 | ||
Democratic Labor | 346,415 | 5.25 | –0.77 | 0 | 0 | ||
Australia | 159,916 | 2.42 | +1.54 | 0 | 0 | ||
Defence of Government Schools | 9,703 | 0.15 | +0.15 | 0 | 0 | ||
Communist | 8,105 | 0.12 | +0.04 | 0 | 0 | ||
National Socialist | 1,161 | 0.02 | +0.02 | 0 | 0 | ||
Socialist
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1,062 | 0.02 | +0.02 | 0 | 0 | ||
Independents | 63,228 | 0.96 | –1.57 | 0 | 0 | ||
Total | 6,601,050 | 125 | |||||
Two-party-preferred (estimated)
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Labor | Win | 52.70 | +2.50 | 67 | +8 | ||
Liberal–Country coalition | 47.30 | −2.50 | 58 | −8 |
Senate
A special Senate election was held in Queensland to replace Liberal senator Annabelle Rankin, who resigned in 1971.[4] Neville Bonner, who had been appointed to fill the casual vacancy by the Queensland Parliament, won the Senate position – the first Indigenous Australian elected to parliament. The election was held at the time of the House of Representatives election as per Section 15 of the Constitution.
Otherwise, no Senate election was held. Since then, every Australian federal election has included a half or full Senate election.
Seats changing hands
Seat | Pre-1972 | Swing | Post-1972 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Member | Margin | Margin | Member | Party | ||||
Bendigo, Vic | Labor | David Kennedy | 3.0 | 3.2 | 0.2 | John Bourchier | Liberal | ||
Casey, Vic | Liberal | Peter Howson
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5.0 | 7.2 | 2.2 | Race Mathews | Labor | ||
Cook, NSW | Liberal | Don Dobie | 2.8 | 3.5 | 0.7 | Ray Thorburn | Labor | ||
Darling Downs, Qld | Liberal | Reginald Swartz | N/A | 3.4 | 11.3 | Tom McVeigh | Country | ||
Denison, Tas | Liberal | Robert Solomon | 2.6 | 7.2 | 4.6 | John Coates | Labor | ||
Diamond Valley, Vic | Liberal | Neil Brown | 6.1 | 7.7 | 1.6 | David McKenzie
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Labor | ||
Evans, NSW | Liberal | Malcolm Mackay | 1.2 | 3.9 | 2.7 | Allan Mulder | Labor | ||
Forrest, WA | Labor | Frank Kirwan | 1.1 | 4.7 | 3.6 | Peter Drummond | Liberal | ||
Holt, Vic | Liberal | Len Reid | 3.5 | 7.9 | 4.4 | Max Oldmeadow | Labor | ||
Hume, NSW | Country | Ian Pettitt | 1.0 | 2.9 | 1.9 | Frank Olley | Labor | ||
La Trobe, Vic | Liberal | John Jess | 5.2 | 10.2 | 5.0 | Tony Lamb | Labor | ||
Lilley, Qld | Liberal | Kevin Cairns | 1.7 | 1.7 | 0.0 | Frank Doyle
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Labor | ||
Macarthur, NSW | Liberal | Jeff Bate† | 3.8 | 6.0 | 2.2 | John Kerin | Labor | ||
McMillan, Vic | Liberal | Alex Buchanan† | N/A | 2.9 | 2.4 | Arthur Hewson | Country | ||
McPherson, Qld | Country | Charles Barnes | N/A | 6.5 | 4.7 | Eric Robinson | Liberal | ||
Mitchell, NSW | Liberal | Les Irwin | 2.5 | 3.7 | 1.2 | Alfred Ashley-Brown | Labor | ||
Phillip, NSW | Liberal | William Aston | 0.4 | 4.1 | 3.7 | Joe Riordan | Labor | ||
Stirling, WA | Labor | Harry Webb | 5.5 | 8.4 | 2.9 | Ian Viner | Liberal | ||
Sturt, SA | Labor | Norm Foster | 0.5 | 2.2 | 2.7 | Ian Wilson | Liberal |
- †Jeff Bate and Alex Buchanan contested their seats as independent candidates.
Significance
The 1972 election ended 23 years of Liberal-Country rule, the longest unbroken run in government in Australian history. It is also unusual as Whitlam only scraped into office with a thin majority of nine seats; typically, elections that produce a change of government in Australia take the form of landslides (as in the elections of 1949, 1975, 1983, 1996, 2007 or 2013, for example). The comparatively small size of Whitlam's win is partly explained by his strong performance at the previous election in 1969, where he achieved a 7.1% swing and gained 18 seats after Labor had been reduced to 41 of 124 seats and a 43.1% two-party vote in its landslide defeat in 1966.
Prime Minister Gough Whitlam quickly switched the diplomatic recognition from
The new Labor Government of Gough Whitlam was eager to make long-planned reforms, although it struggled against a lack of experience in its cabinet and the onset of the
See also
- Candidates of the Australian federal election, 1972
- Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1972-1974
Notes
References
- ISBN 0646151207.
- ISBN 978-1-74110-492-9.
- ^ Thomas, Nicholas (2004). Re-Orienting Australia-China Relations: 1972 to the Present.
- ^ "Glossary of Election Terms – Federal Election 2007". ABC. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
- ^ Trumbull, Robert (23 December 1972). "AUSTRALIA GRANTS CHINA RECOGNITION". NY Times.
External links
- AustralianPolitics.com 1972 election details
- "It's Time For Leadership" – Whitlam policy speech, 13 November 1972
- University of WA Archived 18 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine election results in Australia since 1890
- AEC 2PP vote
- Prior to 1984, the AEC did not undertake a full distribution of preferences for statistical purposes. The stored ballot papers for the 1983 election were put through this process prior to their destruction. Therefore, the figures from 1983 onwards show the actual result based on full distribution of preferences.