Talk:Referendums in Australia

Copyright Permission

I've emailed the web maintainer of the palamentary handbook, as liked by this article, asking for reproduction permission for the statistics on that site, along with another article I found there which details the history of some of the successful referendums. --Swamp Ig 02:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the referendum results are a matter for public record, I wouldn't have thought that copying the data from the parliment website would be a copyright infringement. Does anyone with a legal background concour? I'd still like to copy some of the information from the following document. [1] --Swamp Ig 05:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

the results are a matter of public record. the numbers are not copyright. Xtra 13:38, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ok well the results are all up. I took the approach for the introductions that I'd read the parliment handbook, then reformulate in different words, so that shouldn't be an issue either. Next up is to do the same for the above link. --Swamp Ig 14:58, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have recieved permission from Richard Ryan [2] to include verbatum any section of the parlimentary handbook and the document Constitutional Referendums in Australia. I copied some sections into the discussion section of the various referendums which had a YES vote. The linked document has a lot of very interesting information, some of which could be incorparated into this page and it's linked pages. --Swamp Ig 11:51, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. While there is indeed a lot of referendum information in that link you've provided, there is an awful lot of good, concise general information in the Parliamentary Handbook. I think some articles could benefit greatly from that source. --mordemur 12:51, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Investigation required

On this page I've aserted that at no time has a national majority been overriden by a lack of state majorities, this needs to be checked --Swamp Ig 05:47, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

that is incorrect. it happened in numbers 2 and 3 of 1946. Xtra 13:41, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

For Australian referendum, 1988 (Fair Elections) where I've guestimated a bit about Sir Joh and Gerrymandering. Would anyone like to confirm? --Swamp Ig 14:58, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Swamp it, your estimates are wrong Ilovealpacastheysosmart (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Page format

This is comming along nicley now, I've got a basic format for the referendum dates and questions, there's a template for navigation amongst the different referendums. I suspect that the referendum results are a matter of public record and so are in the public domain, but I'm not a lawyer. The referendum question pages all have a results section, with the question and a statement of if the question was carried or not. There's a comment marking the location for the results to be inserted when we get permission. --Swamp Ig 02:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nice work. I like the format you've made for the individual pages as well as the "yearly" linking pages. mordemur 08:12, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've created pages now for every question. whew. For every question there's at least the state-by-state results breakdown, the question asked, and a short introduction (some are shorter than others). All we need now is a bit more discussion about the various questions. Some of the more recent ones I've added discussion for, I've kept it pretty much rooted in comments about the results, except as mentioned above. --Swamp Ig 15:10, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Plebicites into Referendums

Integration of Plebicites into Referendums does not quite work. They have different criteria and that makes it difficult to mark-up which ones were carried. mordemur 14:09, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

True, to an extent, but note that the 1977 plebicite occoured at the same time as the referendum questions, so the two level page index works well for this one. We can easy just stick the result in brackets afterward if you like. --Swamp Ig 02:18, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Referenda vs. referendum

Moved to referenda on the advice and good judgement of the OED, see [3]. Dysprosia 10:08, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Unless I've badly misunderstood it, that link actually supports 'referendums'. In particular: "In terms of its Latin origin, referendums is logically preferable as a modern plural form meaning ballots on one issue (as a Latin gerund referendum has no plural)... Those who prefer the form referenda are presumably using words like agenda and memoranda as models. Usage varies at the present time (1981), but The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (1981) recommends referendums, and this form seems likely to prevail."

Note that the Australian referendum, 1977 (Referendums) also used this form; we can't rename that, so using 'referenda' will necessarily create inconsistency. At least with 'referendums' we can be consistent about it. Therefore, moving back to 'referendums'. --Calair 12:30, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think an example of the usage would be: "Australia has had 19 referendums covering 44 referenda." (Or, that may simply be muddying the waters further :) ) --mordemur 02:30, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think you're correct. Digging out Fowler's Modern English Usage: "referendum, properly meaning a question to be referred (to the people), has been appropriated as a name for the system of so referring questions and for any particular occasion of its exercise. The normal form would have been reference, but referendum has the advantage of not bearing several other senses. Plural preferable -dums; -da is confusing as suggestive of the original sense - questions to be referred - for which we now use terms of reference."

But '44 referenda' is using it in the sense of 'questions to be referred', and despite what Fowler's says I don't think 'terms of reference' really works in that sentence. So it would be correct to use 'referendums' for the occasions and 'referenda' for the individual questions.

However, I suspect using both these terms is going to confuse people (it certainly confused me ;-) - what if we just call the questions 'questions'? --Calair 02:58, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, we are not discussing referendums on one issue, we are discussing referenda on several issues, thus the use of referenda in the title is desirable. You had cut out the part about the usage of the word referenda in your copy of the reference here. Dysprosia 07:20, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and I apologise for leaving it out; I got over-enthusiastic with trimming for space, and I missed the fact that there is a place for 'referenda'. The bit I ellided was this: "the Latin plural gerundive referenda, meaning 'things to be referred', necessarily connotes a plurality of issues."

However, the OED's wording is ambiguous: it states that 'referendums' is preferable for ballots on one issue (i.e. the best choice for such ballots), but it does not specifically restrict it to ballots that contain more than one issue. 'Referenda', OTOH, it explicitly reserves for 'the things to be referred' - i.e. the questions. As this suggests, and as Fowler's confirms, using 'referenda' for the occasions on which such questions are asked is incorrect and there 'referendums' should be used - whether each referendum contains one question or multiple ones.

Consider question 3 of the Australian referendum, 1977: It is proposed to alter the Constitution so as to allow electors in the territories, as well as electors in the states, to vote at referendums on proposed laws to alter the Constitution. Do you approve the proposed law? As a matter of common sense, it should be clear that this particular measure was intended to enfranchise Territorians for all proposed laws to alter the Constitution, not only those offered at single-issue ballots. And indeed, that is what it did, as evinced by Territorians' participation in subsequent multi-issue polls. When our law and the referendum process itself use 'referendums' in this sense, encompassing both multi- and single-issue polls, that's ample grounds for recognising that usage even without the supporting quote from Fowler's. This usage can also be seen in the Parliamentary handbook: "Constitutional referendums have been held on nineteen separate occasions, involving forty-four separate amendment attempts." Clearly, not all of those 'referendums' were single-issue ballots.

In that light, 'Referendums in Australia' is a perfectly satisfactory name, since this page discusses such polls. 'Referenda in Australia' isn't really wrong, since it's equally about the individual questions asked in those polls... but there's no reason to prefer it over the original title. --Calair 10:53, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification on the usage here. Dysprosia 12:08, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comments

Firstly, I'm not very fond of the article titles, or the way they're organised (I strongly dislike the two level page index) at present - I think a better scheme could be found. I'd also like to see more article and less formula. Secondly, there should be no need to ask for permission for statistics - you can just get them from Adam Carr's site, and I don't think it's needed anyway (if permission was needed, we probably wouldn't be able to use it, due to GFDL issues). Nevertheless, it's about time someone got around to tackling this - our coverage of referendums has been terrible up until now, and our coverage pales in this area compared to the Americans. Ambi 10:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree, more article is good, but having a consistent format across the articles helps if you're just looking for say results breakdowns or whatever, especialy since if you're linking from another article, the relivent discussion should be in the other article and the results are realy what you're interested in linking to. --Swamp Ig 14:58, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and in regards to the article titles, they're consistent with Elections in Australia and the various Australian federal election, 2004 ect. Someone was saying that that's how the pages are titled everywhere. The issue is realy that some referendum questions realy deserve their own page, like Australian referendum, 1999 (Establishment of Republic) for example. If we put the stuff about the preamble question in there it would get totaly swamped out, and the fact is that the preamble question is actualy a very important and relivent question all of it's own. The converse of this is Australian referendum, 1913, which had a handfull of questions, but were basicaly just the questions asked in 1911, only exploded out a bit. Overall I felt that having an article per question was best, it's not difficult to navigate from one to the other with the template in any case, although the second line of the template should could possibly become the third, and the various questions asked in the referendum should be listed there. --Swamp Ig 15:10, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

can you check how many times a referendum has received a majority of states but not votes? i think it happened once. Xtra 22:46, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Terminology: 'referendum' & 'referendum question'

It's great to see more good political science articles popping up. However there's something I find a bit strange. The current articles make a distinction between a "referendum" and a "referendum question". So, for example, if you go to a page like Australian referendum, 1911 the disambiguation says that the "1911 Australian referendum was held on 26 April 1911. It contained two referendum questions" (my italics).

It might be a cultural thing but I think that under the strictly correct meaning of referendum a referendum and a 'referendum question' are the same thing. So you would say that in 1911 there were two separate referendums that just happened to happen on the same day. I can't speak for anywhere else but in Ireland when there are two or more votes on one day people talk about two referendums.

But maybe this is a linguistic thing and in Australia the term referendum is used in a different way. If that's the case please educate me. Iota 16:38, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i think it may be to avoid confusion over the words referenda and referendums. in this context a "referendum" is the occassion where an individual or a collection of "referendum questions" is put to the people. Xtra 01:18, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Federal and State

This article assumes federal referendums throughout. The states do hold referendums, and state referendums are "Referendums in Australia" too. The article needs to make this clear, or failing that, be moved to Federal referendums in Australia. Snottygobble | Talk 03:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Done Rocksong 02:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

p.s. I think the 1933 WA secession referendum is a fascinating story which deserves its own article.

• Thanks. I agree; one of these days I'll get around to writing Secession movement in Western Australia. Snottygobble 11:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"Yes" and "No" Cases

I've found a good parliamentary resource which summarises the "yes" and "no" cases for all referendums to 1988 [4]. I've added it to the links of this page. If someone is keen, they can use it to add background to the pages of each individual referendum. Rocksong 00:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Federation

Should the three referendums (1898, 1899 and 1900) held at the Federation of Australia have separate articles, and perhaps added to Template:Australian elections ? --Astrokey44 04:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

In short: probably no and definitely no. On the former, I can't imagine us having enough to write on each of these to demand them being separate articles, so why not keep them in Federation of Australia? On the latter, I think a natural and obvious division is to limit it to Federal elections and referendums held under the constitution since 1901. The 1898-1900 referendums were state (well actually colony) referendums. Rocksong 12:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Referendum of November 6th, 1999 in external Australian territories

Please anybody give me a reference on source (on this page) about Republican referendum on Cocos (Keeling) islands, Christmas island and Norfolk island. Unfortunately, I don't found anybody on official Australian Electoral Comission web-site about Republican referendum in Australian colonies. If you have more information, will be better if you'll direct give me it. I interested how islanders voted on question of Republic, and who won on the islands: Republicans or monarchists.

--User:212.98.173.133 00:00 10.08.2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, it didn't happen.

Section 128 of the Constitution says: "In this section, "Territory" means any territory referred to in section one hundred and twenty-two of this Constitution in respect of which there is in force a law allowing its representation in the House of Representatives."

Cocos, Christmas and Norfolk Island are not represented in the House of Reps. Australian citizens living on those islands are allowed to vote as part of some NT and ACT divisions, but the islands themselves do not have representation. The only territories with representation are the NT and ACT. I'll add a mention of this to the article. --ajdlinux | utc 00:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

List of results

I'm working on what I feel might be better with the list of results. If you want to help out, it's in my sandbox. Cheers. Nick F., Toaster (talk) 23:24, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

State referendums

State referendums have been tacked on the bottom of this list, even though the rest of the text refers to federal referendums. State referendums are not binding and do not change the constitution.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You are correct that the section State referendums is currently an add on that doesn't add much value. Some state referendums are binding and change the STATE constitution - eg the 1995 referendum in NSW approved the Constitution (Fixed Term Parliaments) Amendment Act which amended the NSW Constitution. Others however are more accurately described as plebiscites, eg the WA daylight saving referendum. The State constitutions & there referendums are, in my opinion, a neglected area that would benefit from more attention. A way to improve this article would be to list all the State referendums & plebiscites, with a long term objective of including an article on each. Find bruce (talk) 10:54, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the confusion is because the federal distinction between "referendum" and "plebiscite" has never really been applied at the state level where popular votes on matters on public policy are more common. The federal distinction isn't actually set down by the constitution (or the law?) and indeed the legislation for the two conscription votes actually used the term "Military Service Referendum" in both Acts' titles, whilst the "National Song Poll" also avoided the word "plebiscite". It seems the conscription votes were only called "plebiscites" in later years. [5] Timrollpickering 13:19, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

the power of the small states

The fact is that those two wily old Tories, Sir Samuel Griffith and Andrew Inglis Clark (a Queenslander and a Tasmanian) wrote a Constitution which includes a built-in veto for the small states, which cannot be removed without their consent. They have kept us all nicely tied up by their Constitutional strings ever since. You could make a good case that Griffith, in his grave since 1920, is still the most powerful man in Australia. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 14:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Page names

A note in case an issue of page names arises again, the page naming convention of "YEAR Australian referendum (SUBJECT)" comes from RfC on election/referendum page naming format Find bruce (talk) 02:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Page format

Hi,

In regards to page format, in think it should be changed. Ilovealpacastheysosmart (talk) 03:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia. What is it about the page format that you think should be improved ? --Find bruce (talk) 07:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Page move

What is going on here? Please see discussion above, Bottle o' Enchanting, and the move has created a mess, including a blank page at Referendums in Australia and a redirect from "Referenduma in Australia" - not even a word. It needs to stay as it was to be in line with every other article on Wikipedia about Referendums/referenda in other countries. You can't just go changing things based on personal preference. Onetwothreeip, I can't work out how the whole history has been moved from the page you blanked, but can you please look at restoring this to the status quo? Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:13, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I've requested this be reverted here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:17, 18 October 2020 (UTC)