Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 167
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
Other inclusions are Minutes of Proceedings of the Legislative
Council, and extracts from the Minutes; Votes and Proceedings of
the Legislative Assembly; extracts from Hansard; draft Legislative
Assembly addresses of condolence on the death of King George VI
and of congratulations upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth II
(with a change in the monarch Members of Parliament were resworn); and the program of proceedings in the Legislative
Assembly on 27 February 1952 ending with a special adjournment
as a mark of respect and affection for His Late Majesty King
George VI.
Elections
Included here are records relating to elections for Members of the Legislative Assembly
by the registered voters of New South Wales and, from 1933 when the first elections for
a reconstituted Legislative Council were held, elections for Members of the Legislative
Council by the sitting Members of the Parliament.
At the beginning of the twentieth century voting was by the `first-past-the-post' system,
with the winning candidate simply the one with the largest number of votes. In 1910 a
second ballot was introduced for those cases where a candidate did not have an absolute
majority. Amendments to the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act in 1918
introduced the proportional representation system. New South Wales was divided into
fewer but larger multi-member electorates, 24 Electoral Districts electing 90 Members at
each election (five Members in each urban electorate and three Members in each rural
electorate). This was short-lived however; electoral legislation in 1926 restored single
member electorates, and imposed an optional preferential system of voting. Only a few
years later, the 1928 Electoral Act made preferential voting compulsory.
While there was some broadening of the franchise between 1907 and 1956, most of the
electoral legislation in this period related to modifying the electoral system and
machinery. However, some important changes were made, including granting women the
right to membership in the Parliament. In 1911 provision for an absentee vote
enfranchised itinerant workers who had been unable to vote in their own electorate.
1911 also saw the disqualification of members of the military and naval services from
voting being removed, with a few short years later, in 1918, members of the military or
naval forces under the age of 21 being given the right to vote.
Postal votes from 1918 (curtailed between 1949 and 1965) improved access to the ballot
for travellers, the ill and the isolated. Compulsory enrolment of electors was first
introduced in New South Wales in 1921 and voting was made compulsory for State
elections under the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections (Amendment) Act, 1928,
which came into operation on 16 September 1930.
During the 1910s and 1920s the situation also improved for women. While women had
been given the right to vote for Members of the Legislative Assembly under the Women's
Franchise Act, 1902, they were not able to be nominated as candidates at any election or
to be elected as Members of the Legislative Assembly. Legal impediments to women
standing for election as Members of the Assembly were not removed until 1918, and the
appointment of women to the Legislative Council was not permitted until 1926. However,
it was not until 1925 that a woman was elected to the Legislative Assembly — Millicent
Preston-Stanley who held the seat of Eastern Suburbs for the Nationalist Party 1925-27
— and 1931 when two women were appointed to the Legislative Council — Catherine
Green and Ellen Webster.
State Records Authority of New South Wales
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