1963 Australian federal election

← 1961 30 November 1963 1966 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 124[a] seats of theAustralian House of Representatives 62 seats were needed for a majority
Registered	5,824,917 3.07%
Turnout	5,575,977 (95.73%) (0.46pp)
First party Second party   Leader Sir Robert Menzies Arthur Calwell Party Liberal–Country Coalition Labor Leader since 23 September 1943 7 March 1960 Leader's seat Kooyong (Vic.) Melbourne (Vic.) Last election 62 seats 60 seats Seats won 72 50 +NT +ACT Seat change 10 10 Primary vote 2,520,321 2,489,184 Percentage 46.04% 45.47% Swing 3.95 2.43 TPP 52.60% 47.40% TPP swing 3.10 3.10
Results by division for the House of Representatives, shaded by winning party's margin of victory.
Prime Minister before election Sir Robert Menzies Liberal/Country coalition Subsequent Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies Liberal/Country coalition

Afederal election was held in Australia on 30 November 1963. All 122 seats in theHouse of Representatives were up for election. There was no Senate election until the1964 Australian Senate election. The incumbentLiberal–Country coalition government, led by Prime MinisterSir Robert Menzies, won an increased majority over the oppositionLabor Party, led byArthur Calwell.

This was the only time that a Federal Government won a seventh consecutive term in office.

The election was held following the early dissolution of the House of Representatives. ThePrime Minister of Australia,Sir Robert Menzies, gave as his reason for calling an election within two years that there was an insufficient working majority in the House.^[1] The1961 election had been won with a substantially reduced majority of only two seats. One of the consequences of an early House election was that there were separate Senate and House elections until1974. This became a factor in theGair Affair.

The Coalition government of theLiberal Party led by Sir Robert Menzies and theCountry Party led byJohn McEwen was returned with a substantially increased majority over theAustralian Labor Party led byArthur Calwell.

Indigenous Australians could vote in federal elections on the same basis as other electors for the first time in this election following an amendment to theCommonwealth Electoral Act becoming law on 1 November. The amendment enfranchised Indigenous people in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Indigenous voting rights in other states had been in place since 1949.

The election was notable for the issue of state aid to non-government schools being finally resolved. There was aschool strike in Goulburn, New South Wales in 1962. Health officials had requested the installation of three extra toilets at aCatholic primary school. The Catholic Church declared it had no money to install the extra toilets. Thearchdiocese closed down its schools and sent the children to government schools. Nearly 1,000 children turned up to be enrolled locally and the state schools were unable to accommodate them. The strike received national attention. The Laborpremier of New South Wales,Robert Heffron, had promised money for science labs at non-government schools. This policy was overturned by a meeting of the Labor Party's federal executive. Under ALP rules the federal executive had responsibility for party policy when the party's national conference was out of session. Menzies called a snap election with state aid for science blocks and Commonwealth scholarships for students at both government and non-government schools as part of his party's platform. This tended to woo Catholic voters away from the Labor Party which they traditionally supported; the wedge driven between the ALP and its Catholic constituency took nearly a decade to overcome. Most non-government schools were Catholic. The Labor Party suffered a first-preference swing of −2.43% and the loss of ten seats. The Country Party vote was higher than theDemocratic Labor Party (DLP) vote for the first time since1955; the DLP had evolved from the Catholic wing of the ALP. The Liberal Party was, however, not dependent on the state-aid issue to win the election;^[2] other issues, such as the "36 faceless men" gibe, also did damage to the ALP.

Other key issues in the election included the proposal by the United States to build theNorth-west Cape communications facility which would support theUS nuclear submarine capability. A special federal conference of the ALP was called in March 1963 which, by a narrow margin, supported the base. TheLeft faction was opposed to a foreign base on Australian soil, especially one which supported America's nuclear weapons capability.^[3]

During the ALP Federal Conference in March 1963, journalistAlan Reid commissioned a photograph of Arthur Calwell andGough Whitlam standing outside the conference venue atKingston, a suburb ofCanberra. Although Calwell was the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives and Whitlam was his deputy, neither man was eligible to attend the conference, which consisted of six members elected by each state ALP branch. Reid jibed that the ALP was ruled by "36faceless men" – an accusation that was picked up by Menzies and the Liberal Party in its election material, and is still remembered more than 40 years later.^[3][4][5]

The week before the election, on 22 November 1963,John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, was assassinated.Alister McMullin,President of the Senate, represented Australia at thefuneral in Washington.^[6] It has been suggested that this tragedy helped to consolidate Menzies' position.^[7]

House of Reps (IRV) – 1963–66—Turnout 95.73% (CV) – Informal 1.82%

Party			First preference votes	%	Swing	Seats	Change
	Liberal–Country coalition		2,520,321	46.04	+3.95	72	+10
		Liberal	2,030,823	37.09	+3.51	52	+7
		Country	489,498	8.94	+0.43	20	+3
	Labor		2,489,184	45.47	–2.43	52[b]	–10
	Democratic Labor		407,416	7.44	–1.27	0	0
	Communist		32,053	0.59	+0.11	0	0
	Independents		25,739	0.47	–0.21	0	0
	Total		5,474,713			122
Two-party-preferred (estimated)
	Liberal–Country coalition		Win	52.60	+3.10	72	+10
	Labor			47.40	–3.10	50	–10

See1961 Australian federal election and1964 Australian Senate election for Senate compositions.

• Candidates of the Australian federal election, 1963
• Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1963–1966

• University of WAArchived 18 January 2015 at theWayback Machine election results in Australia since 1890
• AEC 2PP vote
• Prior to 1984 the AEC did not undertake a full distribution of preferences for statistical purposes. The stored ballot papers for the 1983 election were put through this process prior to their destruction. Therefore, the figures from 1983 onwards show the actual result based on full distribution of preferences.

• Federal elections in Australia
• 1963 elections in Australia
• November 1963 in Australia

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Australian English from April 2024
• All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
• Use dmy dates from January 2023
• Pages using bar box without float left or float right
• Webarchive template wayback links