Source: https://elections.uwa.edu.au/elecdetail.lasso?keyvalue=867&summary=false
Timestamp: 2020-07-15 09:41:14
Document Index: 43203529

Matched Legal Cases: ['arty 90', 'arty 67', 'arty 9', 'arty 2', 'arty 92', 'arty 16']

Parliament of Tasmania, House of Assembly election results for 2 May 1964
Election of 2 May 1964
Eric Elliott Reece
Election held on 2 May 1964
Australian Labor Party 90,631 51.32 +6.82 19 0 54.29
Liberal Party 67,971 38.49 -2.57 16 0 45.71
Country Party 9,280 5.26 * 0
Independents 6,521 3.69 -6.73 0
Democratic Labor Party 2,096 1.19 -2.73 0
Communist Party 92 0.05 -0.04 0
Totals 176,591 100.00 35 0 100.00
Government in office at election: At the previous general election for the House of Assembly on 2 May 1959, the Australian Labor Party had won 17 of the 35 members in the enlarged House of Assembly; Reece was commissioned as Premier of an Australian Labor Party minority government supported by the Independent W G Wedd.
Government in office after election: The Australian Labor Party won 19 of the 35 House of Assembly members, and the Liberal Party 16. Reece was commissioned as Premier of an Australian Labor Party majority government.
Electoral system and voting: The Constitution Amendment Act 1906 '...reduced the number of Assembly districts to five, the boundaries of which were to be identical with the five Commonwealth electoral districts', Bennett and Bennett, p.12, (see 'Sources', below). The 1906 Act specified six members in each electoral district, but this was increased to seven from 1959, creating an Assembly of 35 members. The Electoral Act 1907 introduced proportional representation by the single transferable vote (STV) method to elect all members of the Assembly, a method which became known as the Hare-Clark system. For details of the adoption of STV and references on the operation of the electoral system, see the notes to the 1909 House of Assembly elections.
Country Party: This was only the second election at which the Country Party had contested seats for the House of Assembly, the first being the Assembly election of 1922.
The vote shown for Independents in the table above is the vote gained by the combination of both sets of Independent candidates. Four candidates ran as members of two groups of Independents and gained 2,272 first preference votes, with none being elected. In addition, seven 'ungrouped' Independent candidates gained 4,882 first preference votes (see notes below), none of whom was elected.
Communist Party candidate: M A Bound ran as a candidate for the Communist Party, as he had done for the previous two Assembly elections, and his votes are shown in the table above as votes for the Communist Party; see Bennett and Bennett, p.221 (see 'Sources', below). The Tasmanian Parliament website (see 'References', below) includes the votes for Bound with other ungrouped Independents. The result of listing this candidate separately means that the figures for the number of Independent candidates and the number of first preference votes for Independents shown in the table above differs from those shown on the Tasmanian Parliamentary website for this election.
Independent Liberal and Independent Labor candidates: Three sitting members of the House of Assembly ran as Independent candidates at this election after disputes with the parties to which they had previously belonged. W C Hodgman and W Jackson who had been previously elected as Liberal Party candidates, ran as Independent Liberals, and C B Aylett who had been elected as an Australian Labor Party candidate in 1959, ran as an Independent Labor candidate; Bennett and Bennett, pp 221-222 (see 'Sources', below). None of these candidates was elected. The votes for these candidates are included under 'Independents' in the table above; they are included with 'ungrouped' Independents as 'Others' on the Tasmanian Parliament website record for the 1964 election (https://bit.ly/2vaxgfe
References: For a brief survey of this election and its context, see Myron L Tripp, 'Tasmania', Australian Journal of Politics and History, Australian Political Chronicle, January-May 1964, 10 (2) August 1964: 240-244; for a survey of Tasmanian politics in this period, see W A Townsley, Tasmania: Microcosm of the Federation or Vassal State, 1945-1983, particularly pp 188-189 (Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1994, ISBN 0724623450), and Richard Davis, Eighty Years' Labor: The ALP in Tasmania, 1903-1983, (Hobart: Sassafras Books and the History Department, University of Tasmania, 1983, ISBN 0859012212).
Information for this election was taken from 'House of Assembly Election Results, 1909-2006', Tasmanian Parliamentary Library, Tasmanian Parliament website: https://bit.ly/2uvczZ8 ; Scott Bennett and Barbara Bennett, Tasmanian Electoral Handbook, 1851-1982, (Kensington, NSW: Reference Section of History Project Incorporated, University of New South Wales, 1983); Colin A Hughes and B D Graham, A Handbook of Australian Government and Politics 1890-1964, (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1968, SBN 708102700); and note Report on Parliamentary Elections, (Hobart: Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers, 1964), online at: https://bit.ly/2vaOBVa