1977 federal election major party leaders
Labor		Liberal
Gough Whitlam Opposition Leader		Malcolm Fraser Prime Minister
Parliament	25 years	Parliament	22 years
Leader since	1967	Leader since	1975
Division	Werriwa	Division	Wannon

Legislative elections were held in Australia on December 10, 1977. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives, and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election. The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Malcolm Fraser in government since 1975 defeated the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam. Whitlam resigned following the result of the election. Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC (born 11 July 1916), known as Gough Whitlam (, pronounced Goff), Australian politician and 21st Prime Minister of Australia. ... This article is about the former Prime Minister of Australia; for the Western Australian public servant, see Malcolm Fraser (surveyor). ... The Division of Werriwa is a Federal Electoral Division for the Australian House of Representatives. ... The Division of Wannon is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... Australian House of Representatives chamber Entrance to the House of Representatives The Australian House of Representatives is one of the two houses (chambers) of the Parliament of Australia. ... Australian Senate chamber Entrance to the Senate The Senate is the upper of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia. ... The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party. ... This article is about the former Prime Minister of Australia; for the Western Australian public servant, see Malcolm Fraser (surveyor). ... The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Australias oldest political party. ... Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC (born 11 July 1916), known as Gough Whitlam (, pronounced Goff), Australian politician and 21st Prime Minister of Australia. ...

The 1977 election was held a year earlier than required. In part, it was necessary to bring elections for the House and Senate back into line. A half-Senate election had to be held by the middle of 1978, since the double dissolution election of 1975 had resulted in the terms of senators being backdated to July 1975.

The election is remembered for the "fistful of dollars" advertisements run by the government, offering tax cuts to voters. The tax cuts were never delivered; instead a "temporary surcharge" was imposed in 1978. The election also coincided with the retirement of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. Kerr had disgraced himself by a drunken appearance at the Melbourne Cup in November. His appointment as Ambassador to UNESCO never took place due to a public outcry. The Rt Hon. ...

National Summary

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Australias oldest political party. ... The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party. ... The National Party of Australia is an Australian conservative political party, which claims to represent rural voters. ... The Australian Democrats (in regular parlance, just the Democrats), is an Australian social liberal party formed in 1977 from the earlier Australia Party by Don Chipp, who left the Liberal Party of Australia to do so. ... The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Australias oldest political party. ... The Australian Democrats (in regular parlance, just the Democrats), is an Australian social liberal party formed in 1977 from the earlier Australia Party by Don Chipp, who left the Liberal Party of Australia to do so. ... The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party. ... The National Party of Australia is an Australian conservative political party, which claims to represent rural voters. ... In Australian politics, the Country Liberal Party (CLP) is the Northern Territory equivalent to the Liberal and National parties - the Country part of the partys name is a relic of when the National Party was called the Country Party. ...

Australian Democrats

The party was formed following the 1975 federal election which saw the Liberal Movement turned New LM and the Australia Party gain primary votes, who ended up merging together with with Liberal Don Chipp, unhappy with the direction of the Liberal Party's policies. The inaugural election for the Democrats saw Don Chipp elected in Victoria and Janine Haines elected in South Australia, with a country-wide primary vote of over eleven percent. The Democrats successfully became the third force in Australian politics and would solely hold the balance of power in the Senate and many state upper houses for many years. The party was successful in drawing a small-l liberal base from all three major parties, with each party losing approximately the same primary vote proportionally. Federal elections were held in Australia on December 13, 1975. ... The Liberal Movement was a minor Australian political party that flourished in the 1970s. ... The New LM was an Australian political party that flourished during the mid 1970s. ... The Australia Party was the name minor political party in Australia (not to be confused with the Australian Party, which was set up by Billy Hughes in 1930). ... Donald Leslie Chipp (21 August 1925 - 28 August 2006) was an Australian politician. ... Donald Leslie Chipp (21 August 1925 - 28 August 2006) was an Australian politician. ... Janine Haines AM (8 May 1945 – 20 November 2004), Australian politician, was the first woman to lead a political party in Australia. ... The term small-l liberal is used, particularly in reference to Australian and Canadian politics, to distinguish between holders of an ideology of liberalism and adherents to either the Liberal Party of Australia or the Liberal Party of Canada (capital L). ...

The party's original support base was disaffected middle-class traditional Liberal voters from the centre-right Liberal Party's socially liberal, "wet" wing, together with a medley of people concerned about environmental issues and social justice. The party aimed to combine liberal social policies with centrist (particularly neo-Keynesian) economics and a progressive environmental platform. However, the major parties, including the social democratic Labor Party, have moved to the right on economics since the early 1980s, shifting the 'centre' of Australian politics well to the right. Thus the Democrats have come to be seen as leaning to the left on economic as well as social issues. Social democracy is a political ideology emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from supporters of Marxism who believed that the transition to a socialist society could be achieved through democratic evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. ... The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is Australias oldest political party. ...

The Democrats' agenda includes interventionist economic policies, commitment to environmental causes, support for reconciliation with Australia's indigenous population through such mechanisms as formal treaties, pacifist approaches to international relations, open government, constitutional reform, progressive approaches to social issues such as sexuality and drugs, and strong support for human rights and civil liberties. Its core support base is overwhelmingly tertiary-educated, and middle-class. The party also explicitly targets voters who seek a brake on the powers of the government of the day to change things, with their long-term hold on the Senate balance of power. Economic interventionism is a term used to describe activity undertaken by a central government to affect a countrys economy in an attempt to increase economic growth and/or standards of living. ... The historic Blue Marble photograph, which helped bring environmentalism to the public eye. ... Look up reconcile in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. ... Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Students attend a lecture at a tertiary institution. ... The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry. ...

The party has a platform of participatory democracy, with policies supporting proportional representation and citizens' initiated referenda. Many important internal issues (such as electoral pre-selection and leadership) are decided by direct postal ballot of the membership. Although policies are theoretically set in a similar fashion, Democrat parliamentarians have extensive freedom in interpreting them. Proportional representation (sometimes referred to as full representation, or PR), is a category of electoral formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates (grouped by a certain measure) obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive (usually in legislative assemblies). ... A referendum (plural: referendums or referenda) or plebiscite is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ...

During the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments (1983-96), the Democrats held the balance of power in the Senate: the numbers were such that they could team with Labor to pass legislation, or team with the Coalition to block legislation. Robert James Lee Bob Hawke AC (born 9 December 1929) is a former Australian trade union leader turned politician who became the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia. ... Paul John Keating (born January 18, 1944), was an Australian politician and the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996. ...

Their power was weakened in 1996 when the Howard government was elected, and Mal Colston later resigned from the Labor party. The Coalition were then not forced to deal with the Democrats, but were able to pass legislation by negotiating with Colston and Brian Harradine. After the 1998 election the Democrats again held the balance of power, until the Coalition gained a Senate majority at the 2004 election. John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939), Australian politician, is the Prime Minister of Australia. ... Dr Malcolm Arthur Colston (1938 – 2003), Australian politician, was a Senator in the Parliament of Australia representing the state of Queensland between 13 December 1975 and 30 June 1999. ... Brian Harradine (born January 9, Australian politician, has been an independent member of the Australian Senate since 1975, representing the state of Tasmania. ... Legislative elections were held in Australia on 9 October 2004. ...

The Hawke and Keating governments pursued economic rationalist neoliberal policies, and the Democrats positioned themselves to the left of the ALP government and thus at the left end of mainstream Australian politics. However, the party's progressive-liberal politics remained attractive to middle class Liberal supporters ("wet" Liberals) who were disaffected by the Liberal party's social conservatism. Economic rationalism is an Australian term in discussion of microeconomic policy, applicable to the economic policy of many governments around the world, in particular during the 1980s and 1990s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party. ...

The 1990 federal election heralded the party's rebirth, with a dramatic rise in its primary vote. This was at the same time as an economic recession was taking hold in Australia, with a sizable minority of voters looking leftward to improve things. A recession is traditionally defined in macroeconomics as a decline in a countrys real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more successive quarters of a year (equivalently, two consecutive quarters of negative real economic growth). ...

1990 also saw the failure of then-leader Janine Haines to win a House of Representatives seat, which led to a leadership change; her successor, Janet Powell, was too radical for many in the party and lacked electoral appeal. After an affair with another Senator, she lost the support of much of the caucus. These internal divisions damaged the party in the early 1990s, although recovery occurred under Cheryl Kernot. Janine Haines AM (8 May 1945 – 20 November 2004), Australian politician, was the first woman to lead a political party in Australia. ... The Division of Kingston is an Australian Electoral Division in South Australia. ... Janet Frances Powell (born September 29, 1942) in Nhill, Victoria, is an Australian politician. ... Cheryl Kernot (Pronounced Ker-no) (born December 5, 1948) is a former Australian politician. ...

After the election of the Howard government in 1996, there was no longer a single obvious location for the party on the political spectrum. The left of the party was horrified by John Howard's policies, and wanted to undermine and block them whenever possible. Others wanted to engage with the government, using the Senate balance of power to negotiate with it and moderate its legislation. The question was whether the Democrats should be an economically centrist party (while socially liberal and environmentalist), ready in most cases to negotiate with the government of the day (the position suggested by the party's "wet Liberal" roots); or a left-wing party, to the left of both mainstream parties on economic as well as social policy, in strong opposition to the Liberals and willing to take an obstructionist approach in the Senate.^{[citation needed]} John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939), Australian politician, is the Prime Minister of Australia. ...

These two positions formed as factions within the party and its broader supporter base. The second position had been clearly adopted by the emerging Greens by this time, which attracted many Democrats supporters during the Howard era.^{[citation needed]} The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, is the Green political party in Australia. ...

References

• University of WA election results in Australia since 1890
• AustralianPolitics.com election details

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