Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 96
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
addition an alteration in the manner of conducting official
correspondence was also agreed to.
Instead of communicating only with the Colonial Secretary as
has hitherto been the practice, with reference to all matters
requiring the action or decision of the Government, the
particular Minister, to whose Department, under the foregoing
arrangements, the business may belong, should be addressed
and he will convey the necessary instructions or reply to the
Department or persons concerned.
In matter or minor importance, or of detail, the correspondence
will still as heretofore, take place direct with the heads of the
subordinate Departments.
An index in the front of the volume can assist in finding relevant
Minutes - entries under such headings as Bills, Departmental
arrangements, Despatch, Electoral duties, Legislative Assembly,
Legislative Council, and Returning Officer are particularly worth
examining.
Elections
With responsible government and the establishment of the bicameral Parliament, the
electoral law only applied to the Legislative Assembly as the Legislative Council was
reconstituted as an exclusively nominated body.
The first elections under the Constitution Act of 1855 to elect 54 Members for the new
Legislative Assembly were held between 11 March and 19 April 1856, with all Writs of
Election returnable by 30 April 1856. The Act had extended the franchise qualifications
set up in the Australian Colonies Government Act of 1850 and reiterated in The Electoral
Act of 1851, to include those men receiving an annual salary of £100 and to those
paying £40 per annum for board and lodging or £10 per annum for lodging only.
Any "absolutely free" person qualified and registered as a voter could stand for election
to the Legislative Assembly, except if he was a member of the Legislative Council or a
Minister of Religion, held any office of profit under the Crown or had a pension from the
Crown. Excluded from the disqualifications were official Members of the Government (the
Colonial Secretary, Colonial Treasurer, Auditor General, Attorney General and Solicitor
General) as well as such additional officers as the Governor "with the Advice of the
Executive Council, may from Time to Time, by a Notice in the Government Gazette,
declare capable of being elected a Member of the said Assembly".
The Electoral Act of 1858 established manhood suffrage alongside property voting. All
adult males who had lived in an electorate at least six months before the making of the
Electoral List and were either "natural born" or had been naturalised and had lived in the
colony for three years were qualified to vote. The property qualifications were retained
and allowed an adult male to vote in every electorate where he had the necessary
property. Holders of miners' rights were allowed to vote in the three Gold Fields
electorates and electoral qualifications were specified for the election of a member to be
returned by the University of Sydney when the number of graduates reached 100.
However, no elector could hold a right to vote more than once at any election in an
electoral district.
Members of the Police and serving members of the naval or military service were barred
from voting as well as paupers, prisoners and persons of unsound mind. The 1858 Act
also increased the number of members in the Legislative Assembly to 80 (81 once the
University of Sydney was entitled to return a member) and established voting by secret
ballot. (The secret ballot had been introduced in South Australia and Victoria in 1856.)
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State Records Authority of New South Wales
