The Power of People’s Voice: Referendum in Australia

7 min readFeb 3, 2023

Manglu Balasubramanian

If you are a resident of Australia and not living under a cave, you have certainly heard the phrases — First Nation’s Voice to Parliament and referendum numerous times. This short piece is a primer on the four Ws (Why, What, Who, and When) on referendums. We will use the upcoming First Nation’s Voice to Parliament as an example to help us better understand referendums along with answering the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) in this space.

What is a referendum?

A referendum is a vote used to approve a change to the Australian Constitution.

Why do we need a referendum?

Section 128 of the Australian Constitution states that the Constitution can be changed in a process called a referendum. This is one of the “checks and balances” principles whereby the constitution cannot be simply changed by just our representatives in the Parliament. The Citizens of Australia have a significant voice in this process to approve the changes to our constitution.

Who can initiate a referendum proposal?

In Australia, the decision to initiate a referendum rests exclusively with the Australian Government.

This is in contrast to some countries such as New Zealand that support both government-initiated referendums as well as Citizen initiated referendums.

When can a referendum be held?

There are no restrictions on when a referendum can be held. It can be conducted alongside an election (e.g federal election) or as a stand-alone exercise.

Figure 1 describes the high-level steps involved in the process.

Figure 1: High-Level Steps of the Referendum Process

First, the bill containing the change must be presented to the parliament. Once it successfully passes through the Parliament it sets into motion the rest of the process. The referendum must take place between 2 and 6 months after the bill is passed.

What is “First Nation’s Voice to Parliament”?

Before we go into details, let’s clarify that multiple terms are used in both the public and private domain to refer to this “First Nation’s Voice to Parliament”. You would hear the following terms being used to represent this:

Voice to Parliament
Indigenous Voice to Parliament
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.

For the purposes of this article, we will use the simpler version — “Voice to Parliament”.

A Voice to Parliament gives the Australian Government the opportunity to make policies with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, rather than for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

As this is a change to the Constitution, we need a referendum!

The draft words to be added to the Constitution are:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

When will the “Voice to Parliament” referendum be held?

At the time of writing this article (early February 2023), we can only speculate. The bill is yet to be introduced to the Parliament. An educated guess is this referendum will come up for a vote to electors in “Late 2023”.

Now that we know a bit more about “Voice to Parliament” and “referendum”, let’s attempt to answer some of the frequently asked questions.

1. Is Voting Compulsory in a referendum?

Yes, under the federal electoral law, it is compulsory for all eligible Australian citizens to enrol and vote in federal elections, by-elections and referendums.

2. Is the ballot paper similar to that of an Election?

No! The Ballot paper would contain a question that requires the eligible voters to respond with a YES or a NO.

You can refer to the following figure (as an example) that shows the Ballot Paper used for the last referendum held in 1999.

Figure 2: A Sample Ballot Paper from the 1999 Republic Referendum (Source: AEC)

The draft referendum question is “ Do you support an alteration to the Constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?”

Note: The question that you would see in the actual Ballot paper will be formalized/finalized in the coming months.

3. What is a “Double Majority”?

For a referendum to be successful, it requires a Double Majority which is defined as follows :

National majority of electors from all states and territories, AND
A majority of electors in a majority of the states (i.e. at least four of the six states).

The picture below illustrates the concept of a “Double Majority” using a few scenarios.

Figure 3: Referendum — Success/Failure Scenarios :Source: peo.gov.au

Notice that the Territory voters are only counted in the national majority.

If you thought that every vote (no matter where you lived — State or Territory) had the same value, then this is one example where it is not necessarily true!!

4. Is this the first referendum in Australian history?

No. A total of 19 referendums have been held so far and if this bill passes it would become the 20th referendum in our history.

The last national referendum (in Australia) was held in November 1999.

You can refer to the referendum dates and results held so far on the AEC website.

5. Should a referendum have only a single subject/proposal?

No. We have had 19 referendums so far in which 44 changes were proposed! Most of the referendums had multiple subjects/changes.

6. What’s the success rate for referendums in Australia?

Low! Based on our history of 19 referendums, proposing 44 changes to the Constitution; only 8 changes have been agreed to.

The last successful referendum was in May 1977 which proposed 3 changes all of which were carried out successfully.

7. Is the Referendum unique to Australia or is that also used by other countries across the Globe?

Many countries have embraced this concept of a referendum.

One of the popular referendums in recent memory is the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the Brexit referendum, which took place in June 2016.

Our neighbor New Zealand uses referendums for a range of issues, from changing the National Flag, and legalizing Cannabis to changing the Voting System!

Interestingly the biggest democracy in the World — India does not have a specific provision for or against a referendum!

The Second largest democracy, the United States of America, does not have a national-level referendum. However, the various states of the USA can (and indeed have conducted numerous ones) have a referendum.

8. Is a Referendum legally binding?

In Australia, Yes! The results of a Referendum must be carried out by parliament and are legally binding.

Interestingly, referendums are generally not binding in the UK. Even when the majority had voted for Brexit in 2016, the UK could have ignored the result and continued to stay in the European Union.

9. Is a Plebiscite the same as a Referendum?

In the Australian context, they are two different things!

A plebiscite is a vote by citizens on a matter of national significance, but one which does not affect the Constitution.

Also, plebiscites are normally advisory, and do not compel a government to act on the outcome.

Referendums, on the other hand, affect the constitution and are legally binding.

At the national level, we have conducted 3 Plebiscites so far. The Australian state governments have also used Plebiscites from time to time to deal with social or environmental issues.

10. Did we not have a same-sex marriage plebiscite in 2017?

What we had in 2017 is a Survey! It is officially referred to as the “Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, 2017”.

Some people mistook the 2017 event as a plebiscite such as the headline of this article in ABC News.

Figure 4: Source ABC News: (Incorrect usage of a Plebiscite)

A Survey is a distant cousin to Referendum and Plebiscite.

The 2017 Survey was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This Survey was voluntary (in contrast to a referendum which is compulsory) and the results of this Survey are not binding. It was more of an information-gathering exercise or gauging/assessing the public sentiment of the Australian public about the topic of same-sex marriage.

For those who are interested in the results of the survey, they are available in ABS’s archived contents.

Every responsible citizen/voter must educate themselves about the subject (“Voice to Parliament”) of the referendum. Please ensure that you go to good and trusted sources of information and do not rely simply on conversations with colleagues, friends, and relatives!

A few resources are provided in the references section. Please do your homework!

Here is your chance to make a difference and these opportunities to shape/change/amend a country’s constitution do not come often!