New South Wales referendum, 1961
Legislative Council abolition	Vote %
No	57.5%
Yes	42.4%

A referendum concerning the abolition of the New South Wales Legislative Council

New South Wales Legislative Council

The New South Wales Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of New South Wales in Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney. The Assembly is referred to as the lower house and the Council as...

 was put to New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 voters on 29 April 1961. The abolition was specifically rejected by voters.
The text of the question was:

An Act to Abolish the Legislative Council to provide that another Legislative Council shall not be created, constituted or established nor shall any Chamber, Assembly or House, other than the Legislative Assembly, designed to form part of the Legislative Parliament of New south Wales, be created, constituted or established until a bill for the purpose has been approved by the electors in a referendum to amend the Constitution Act, 1902 and certain other Acts; and for purposes connected therewith.

Background

The abolition of the New South Wales Legislative Council had been on the Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 agenda since at least federation. However, attempts to abolish the Council did not occur until Labor Premier Jack Lang

Jack Lang (Australian politician)

John Thomas Lang , usually referred to as J.T. Lang during his career, and familiarly known as "Jack" and nicknamed "The Big Fella" was an Australian politician who was Premier of New South Wales for two terms...

’s first term of office from 1925 to 1927. This had brought him into conflict with Governor Sir Dudley de Chair

Dudley de Chair

Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair, KCB, KCMG, KBE, MVO was a Naval Officer and Governor. De Chair joined the Royal Navy from the age of 16 and served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and later as an Admiral in the First World War. He was appointed as Governor of New South Wales in 1923...

. Lang had proposed the appointment of additional members to the Legislative Council

New South Wales Legislative Council

The New South Wales Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of New South Wales in Australia. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney. The Assembly is referred to as the lower house and the Council as...

, in order to enable the abolition of the house, using the same techniques used to abolish the Queensland Legislative Council

Queensland Legislative Council

The Queensland Legislative Council was the upper house of the parliament in the Australian state of Queensland. It was a fully nominated body which first took office on 1 May 1860. It was abolished by the Constitution Amendment Act 1921, which took effect on 23 March 1922.Consequently, the...

 in 1922. His inability to gain control in the Upper House obstructed Lang’s legislative programme and in November 1930, claiming a mandate to abolish the Council, Labor MLCs put forward two bills, one to repeal section 7A of the NSW Constitution (which prevented the abolition of the Council without a referendum), the other to abolish the Council. Lang requested the necessary additional appointments to pass the legislation from the Governor. However, these requests were refused by De Chair's successor, Sir Philip Game

Philip Game

Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott Game GCB, GCVO, GBE, KCMG, DSO was a British Royal Air Force commander, who later served as Governor of New South Wales and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis...

.

Believing that a referendum

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

 was necessary before the bills could become law, the Legislative Council permitted the bills to pass without a division on 10 December. Lang then announced his intention of presenting the bills for Game's Royal assent

Royal Assent

The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...

 without a referendum. The following day, two members of the Legislative Council, Thomas Playfair and Arthur Trethowan

Arthur Trethowan

Sir Arthur King Trethowan KCMG was an Australian politician.Born in Creswick, Victoria, to auctioneer Samuel Trethowan and Charlotte King, he attended Creswick Grammar School before becoming an auctioneer at Numurkah. On 9 November 1886 he married Jane Alice Manifold, with whom he had eleven...

, applied for and were granted an injunction preventing the President of the Council, Sir John Peden, and the ministers from presenting the bills to the Governor without having held a referendum. On 23 December the Supreme Court of New South Wales

Supreme Court of New South Wales

The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales...

 in the case of Trethowan v. Peden, upheld the injunction and ordered the government not to present for royal assent, unless ratified by the electors in a referendum, bills to abolish the council. Lang immediately prepared an appeal to the High Court of Australia

High Court of Australia

The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...

. In the case of Attorney-General (New South Wales) v. Trethowan, the appeal was rejected by a majority of the court. Lang then appealed this decision to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is one of the highest courts in the United Kingdom. Established by the Judicial Committee Act 1833 to hear appeals formerly heard by the King in Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is one of the highest courts in the United...

 in London. The privy Council then delayed the appeal until April 1932.

In March and June 1931 Lang's repeatedly requested for the necessary 80 appointments to swamp the council and prevent obstruction to his legislation. Game again refused, offering 21 appointments, which were enough to pass some of the legislation but not the most controversial bills, including the bill to default on debts. Finally, in a compromise move with Lang, on 19 November 1931 Game assented to twenty five appointments, reasoning that it would not be possible to refuse Lang's requests until the Privy Council case was resolved. The appeal was finally resolved with the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on 31 May 1932. The judgment dismissed the appeal by the Government of New South Wales

Government of New South Wales

The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...

. The bills repealing Section 7A and abolishing the Legislative Council could not therefore be presented to the Governor for assent until they had been passed in a referendum. Faced with other problems, Lang's plans for abolition utlimately failed. His successor as Premier, Bertram Stevens, later passed major reforms to replace the appointed Legislative Council, by a Council elected by the whole parliament to terms equivalent to four Assembly terms. This was passed by referendum in 1933.

At the March 1962 election

New South Wales state election, 1962

The 1962 New South Wales state election was held on 3 March 1962. It was conducted in single member constituencies with compulsory preferential voting and was held on boundaries created at a 1961 redistribution...

, Labor had been in power for 21 years and Bob Heffron had been Premier for 2 and a half years. The standing of Heffron's government suffered when the electors rejected its proposal to abolish the Council, being the first time Labor had lost a state electoral poll in 20 years. Opposition Leader Robert Askin

Robert Askin

Sir Robert William Askin GCMG, was an Australian politician and the 32nd Premier of New South Wales from 1965 to 1975, the first representing the Liberal Party of Australia. He was born in 1907 as Robin William Askin, but always disliked his first name and changed it by deed poll in 1971...

's successful opposition campaign centred on warning of a Labor-dominated single house subject to "Communist and Trades Hall influence".

Results

The referendum was resolved in the negative, defeating the long-held Labor policy to abolish the Council. The referendum, while defeated, sparked discussion on future reform of the then-half-appointed Council, culminating in the full democratisation of the chamber in 1978 by the Neville Wran

Neville Wran

Neville Kenneth Wran, AC, CNZM, QC was the Premier of New South Wales from 1976 until 1986. He was National President of the Australian Labor Party from 1980 to 1986 and Chairman of both the Lionel Murphy Foundation and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation from 1986...

Labor Government. Since these reforms removed many of the arguments against the upper house, another question on abolition is unlikely.

	| Votes	| %
No	1,089,193	57.5%
Yes	802,512	42.4%
Total Formal	1,891,705
Informal	49,352
Total Votes	1,941,057