Australian referendum, 1967 (Parliament)

Held within the Australian referendum, 1967 was a question about the Australian Parliament, so-called "nexus". Section 24 of the Australian Constitution required that the number of members in the House of Representatives be as near as possible to twice the number of members in the Senate.

This ratio is quite common in other parliaments, but there are many significant exceptions. The most important effect of the "nexus" is to prevent dilution of the Senate's collective voting power in the case of a Joint Sitting following a double dissolution election. The nexus ensures that the Senators always cast about one-third of the votes and the Members of the House of Representatives about two-thirds.

Question

Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so that the number of members of the House of Representatives may be increased without necessarily increasing the number of Senators'?

Results

Result

State	On rolls	Ballots issued	For		Against		Invalid
				%		%
New South Wales	2,315,828	2,166,507	1,087,694	51.01%	1,044,458	48.99%	34,355
Victoria	1,734,476	1,630,594	496,826	30.87%	1,112,506	69.13%	21,262
Queensland	904,808	848,728	370,200	44.13%	468,673	55.87%	9,855
South Australia	590,275	560,844	186,344	33.91%	363,120	66.09%	11,380
Western Australia	437,609	405,666	114,841	29.05%	280,523	70.95%	10,302
Tasmania	199,589	189,245	42,764	23.06%	142,660	76.94%	3,821
Total for Commonwealth	6,182,585	5,801,584	2,298,669	40.25%	3,411,940	59.75%	90,975
Obtained majority in one State and an overall minority of 1,113,271 votes.
Not carried