From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1966 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 26 November 1966. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election. There was no Senate election until the 1967 Australian Senate election. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition government, led by Prime Minister Harold Holt, won an increased majority over the opposition Labor Party, led by Arthur Calwell, in a landslide.[1] The Liberal–Country coalition two-party-preferred vote was 56.90%, its highest in its history.
This was the first and only time that a Federal Government won an eighth consecutive term in office.
Government (82)Opposition (41)
Crossbench (1)
Sir Robert Menzies had retired from politics in January; his successor, former treasurer Harold Holt, was stylish, debonair and popular with the electorate, contrasting sharply with the much rougher figure of Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell, who had already lost two elections.
Calwell also came across poorly on television compared to Holt, looking and sounding older than his 70 years. It did not help that also held to the beliefs that had been central to the previous Labor Government of 1941–1949, many of which were seen as being long outdated in 1966; for example, he still defended the White Australia policy and nationalisation, and also strongly supported socialism.
These factors, along with a strong economy and initial enthusiasm for Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, virtually guaranteed the Coalition another term. The Coalition campaigned with the slogan "Keep Australia secure and prosperous – play it safe".[2]
The election was a landslide win for the Coalition, which won twice as many seats as Labor. The Liberals arrived two seats short of a majority in their own right, the closest that the major non-Labor party had come to governing in its own right since adopting the Liberal banner. Holt's victory was also larger than any of Menzies' eight victories, and resulted in the largest majority government in Australian history at the time. It was later seen as the electoral high point of both Holt's prime ministership and the 23 years of continuous Coalition rule.
Calwell retired to the backbench a month after the crushing election loss, and was succeeded by his deputy, Gough Whitlam.
House of Reps (IRV) — 1966–69—Turnout 95.13% (CV) — Informal 3.10% Party Votes % Swing Seats Change Liberal–Country coalition 2,853,890 49.98 +3.94 82 +10 Liberal 2,291,964 40.14 +3.05 61 +9 Country 561,926 9.84 +0.90 21 +1 Labor 2,282,834 39.98 –5.49 41 –9 Democratic Labor 417,411 7.31 –0.13 0 0 Liberal Reform 49,610 0.87 +0.87 0 0 Communist 23,056 0.40 –0.19 0 0 Independents 82,948 1.45 +0.98 1 +1 Total 5,709,749 124 +2 Two-party-preferred (estimated) Liberal–Country coalition Win 56.90 +4.30 82 +10 Labor 43.10 −4.30 41 −9Independents: Sam Benson
Popular vote Liberal 40.14% Labor 39.98% Country 9.84% DLP 7.31% Independents 1.45% Other 1.27% Two-party-preferred vote Coalition 56.90% Labor 43.10% Parliament seats Coalition 66.13% Labor 33.06% Independents 0.81% Seats changing hands[edit] Seat Pre-1966 Swing Post-1966 Party Member Margin Margin Member Party Adelaide, SA Labor Joe Sexton 7.2 10.0 2.8 Andrew Jones Liberal Barton, NSW Labor Len Reynolds 0.7 2.9 2.2 Bill Arthur Liberal Batman, Vic Labor Sam Benson N/A 8.7 7.8 Sam Benson Independent Eden-Monaro, NSW Labor Allan Fraser 2.7 3.4 0.7 Dugald Munro Liberal Grey, SA Labor Jack Mortimer 4.8 7.8 3.0 Don Jessop Liberal Griffith, Qld Labor Wilfred Coutts 5.8 6.9 1.1 Don Cameron Liberal Herbert, Qld Labor Ted Harding 3.2 4.3 1.1 Robert Bonnett Liberal Hughes, NSW Labor Les Johnson 2.7 4.7 2.0 Don Dobie Liberal Kennedy, Qld Labor Bill Riordan 13.5 15.0 1.5 Bob Katter Country Kingston, SA Labor Pat Galvin 4.5 12.7 8.2 Kay Brownbill Liberal Lalor, Vic Labor Reg Pollard 7.0 7.7 0.7 Mervyn Lee Liberal Northern Territory, NT Labor Jock Nelson 100.0 51.7 1.7 Sam Calder CountryRetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4