Commonwealth Parliament, Senate election
Election of 1 December 1984
Government in office at Senate election
Senate enrolment and voting
Electoral composition of the Senate for this election
Senate votes and seats won, and seats held, national summary
Election held on 1 December 1984
Criteria for the inclusion of parties in this table are set out in the Glossary under 'listed party'
| Party Name | First preference vote n | First preference vote share % | Change from previous election % | Seats won by ticket n | Seats won by ticket % | Seats won by party n | Seats won by party % | Seats held by party n | Seats held by party % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Labor Party | 3,750,789 | 42.17 | -3.32 | 20 | 43.48 | 20 | 43.48 | 34 | 44.74 |
| Liberal Party | 1,831,006 | 20.59 | +9.03 | 14 | 30.43 | 16 | 34.78 | 28 | 36.84 |
| Liberal Party - National Party (joint ticket) | 1,130,601 | 12.71 | -10.57 | 3 | 6.52 | ||||
| Australian Democrats | 677,970 | 7.62 | -1.94 | 5 | 10.87 | 5 | 10.87 | 7 | 9.21 |
| Nuclear Disarmament Party | 643,061 | 7.23 | * | 1 | 2.17 | 1 | 2.17 | 1 | 1.32 |
| National Party | 527,278 | 5.93 | +1.07 | 2 | 4.35 | 3 | 6.52 | 5 | 6.58 |
| Country Liberal Party (NT) | 27,972 | 0.31 | +0.05 | 1 | 2.17 | 1 | 2.17 | ||
| Brian Harradine Group (Tas) | 22,992 | 0.26 | * | 0 | 1 | 1.32 | |||
| Independents | 16,803 | 0.19 | -2.23 | 0 | |||||
| Votes for other than listed parties | 265,628 | 2.99 | +0.44 | ||||||
| Totals | 8,894,100 | 100.00 | 46 | 100.00 | 46 | 100.00 | 76 | 100.00 |
Previous election in this series | Next election in this series | Display Chart
* Party did not contest previous election or did not meet criteria for listing, or contested previous election under a different party name.
Notes
In the table above, see the Glossary distinctions between Seats won by ticket and Seats won by party, and between Seats won by party and Seats held by party.
Electoral system: For Senate elections from 1984, changes were made to the design of the Senate ballot paper which gave the voter the opportunity to mark a single party box which had the effect of ranking all the candidates contesting the election in the order preferred by the party whose box had been marked. This above the line voting was provided in addition to the previous system in which a voter had to rank all candidates on the ballot in the order preferred by the voter. This change in ballot design led several Independent candidates to contest Senate elections as a 'group' so that they could benefit from above the line voting. For this reason, Senator Harradine from Tasmania is shown as representing the Brian Harradine Group in the Senate even though he was elected as an Independent at the 1983 Senate election.
Brian Harradine Group: See previous note.
Nuclear Disarmament Party: The candidate from the Nuclear Disarmament Party elected to the Senate from Western Australia at this election was Josephine Vallentine. Senator Vallentine was subsequently elected to the Senate from Western Australia as leader of the Vallentine Peace Group in 1987, and as a member of Greens WA at the 1990 election.
Liberal Country Party (NT): In the national summary for this election for the Senate, the seats held by the National Country Party include the seat won for the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory.
Sources
Colin A Hughes, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics, 1975-1984, Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Australian National University Press, 1986 (ISBN 008033038X); Gerard Newman, Federal Election Results 1949-2001, Canberra: Commonwealth Parliament, Department of the Parliamentary Library, Information and Research Services, Research Paper 9 2001-02, 2002 (ISSN 13287478).