The 4 failed attempts to establish party list systems in Australia

	Proportional Representation Society of Australia Inc.
	+61429176725	www.prsa.org.au	info@prsa.org.au	2025-12-18

The four failed attempts to establish party list systems
for the legislatures of Australia's States and Territories

The requirements in Sections 7 and 24 of the Australian Constitution, and in the Western Australian Constitution - that MPs “shall be directly chosen by the people" - have fortunately protected voters for those parliaments from party list systems, but the other five States still lack that protection. The Australian Capital Territory has similar protection, as shown below.

1915 TAS

A Parliamentary Committee rejected a Labor Party proposal to replace Tasmania’s then recently-established Hare-Clark PR-STV system with a Party List system. See “PR-STV versus Party List.” The Secretary of what is now the Electoral Reform Society in the United Kingdom made the long sea voyage to Tasmania from England - during the First World War - to give persuasive evidence on why a Party List system should not be substituted for Hare-Clark.

1973
SA

The Dunstan Labor Government’s Constitution and Electoral Acts Amendment Act 1973 introduced, for elections to South Australia’s Legislative Council, a Party List system that provided for transferable votes between party groups only, and not between individual candidates, but pleasingly a subsequent Liberal Government replaced it with a PR-STV system in 1981, with Australian Democrats’ support in the Legislative Council.

1978 NSW

The Wran Labor Government’s first bill for popular elections for the New South Wales Legislative Council proposed a Party List system, but the Opposition Leader, Sir Eric Willis, said the Opposition parties would urge a NO vote at the referendum needed under the NSW Constitution, unless a PR-STV system was substituted for it. Fortunately that change was made and, with bipartisan support, the referendum was carried. The PRSA's then NSW Branch also pressed for PR-STV, and not a Party List system, as Hansard records.

1989 ACT

The Hawke Labor Federal Government introduced a “Modified d’Hondt” Party List system for the 1989 and 1992 elections for the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory, but public dissatisfaction led to a plebiscite's being held to choose whether the replacement system should be a Hare-Clark PR-STV system or a system of single-member electoral districts.

The Hare-Clark PR-STV system was chosen by 65% of voters, and was thus introduced. A subsequent referendum in 1995 entrenched it, with 65% of voters favouring that entrenchment. The PRSA Inc's then ACT Branch successfully campaigned for Hare-Clark in both of those polls.