1901 Australian federal election

29–30 March 1901 1903 →
elected members →
All 75 seats of theHouse of Representatives 38 seats were needed for a majority in the House All 36 seats of theSenate
Registered	977,993
Turnout	502,556(51.39%)[a]
First party Second party   Leader Edmund Barton George Reid Party Protectionist Free Trade Leader since 1901 1901 Leader's seat Hunter (NSW) East Sydney (NSW) Seats won 32 25 Popular vote 135,996 164,085 Percentage 27.52% 33.21%   Third party Fourth party   LAB IND Leader No federal leader N/A Party Labour Independents Leader since N/A N/A Leader's seat N/A N/A Seats won 16 2 Popular vote 90,174 103,832 Percentage 18.25% 21.01%
Results by division for the House of Representatives, shaded by winning party's margin of victory.
Prime Minister before election Edmund Barton Protectionist Subsequent Prime Minister Edmund Barton Protectionist

The1901 Australian federal election for the inauguralParliament of Australia was held in Australia on Friday 29 March and Saturday 30 March 1901. The elections followedFederation and the establishment of theCommonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. All 75 seats in theAustralian House of Representatives, six of which were uncontested, as well as all 36 seats in theAustralian Senate, were up for election.

After the initial confusion of theHopetoun Blunder, the firstPrime Minister of Australia,Edmund Barton, went into the inaugural 1901 federal election as the appointed head of aProtectionist Partycaretaker government. While the Protectionists came first on seats, they fell short of a majority. The incumbent government remained in office with the parliamentary support of theLabour Party, who held thebalance of power, while theFree Trade Party formed theopposition. A few months prior to the1903 election, Barton resigned to become a founding member of theHigh Court of Australia, and was replaced byAlfred Deakin.

Edmund Barton entered parliament at this election, as did six future prime ministers – Alfred Deakin,Chris Watson,George Reid,Joseph Cook,Andrew Fisher, andBilly Hughes – and future opposition leaderFrank Tudor.

Thefederation of the colonies ofNew South Wales,Queensland,South Australia,Tasmania,Victoria andWestern Australia came into effect on 1 January 1901 to form theCommonwealth of Australia. An election was held on Friday 29 March in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, and on Saturday 30 March 1901 in South Australia and Queensland, to elect the inaugural members offederal parliament. Floods in Queensland delayed polling in parts of the state until April.

The 1901 election was one of two occasions in Australia's history that the entire country did not go to the polls on the same day in a general election, the second occasion being the 1993 "supplementary election" in theDivision of Dickson. The 1903, 1906, and 1910 elections were held on a Wednesday, and all subsequent elections have been held on a Saturday.

In what would later be known as theHopetoun Blunder, in December 1900 theGovernor-General, the7th Earl of Hopetoun commissionedWilliam Lyne, thePremier of New South Wales, to form the first Commonwealth Government from 1 January 1901. The government was to conduct itself on acaretaker basis in the absence of a parliament. Lyne was unpopular and was unable to gain support, so he returned his commission.Edmund Barton was then called upon to form the interim government. Barton was sworn in as the inauguralPrime Minister, and his cabinet contested the poll as the incumbent government.

Some candidates were still sitting members of a state parliament. William Lyne was a minister in Barton's interim government and a candidate for theDivision of Hume while still Premier of New South Wales, and used his official premier's car during the campaign, resigning on 27 March.

The parties contesting the election were theProtectionist Party, led byPrime Minister of AustraliaEdmund Barton, and theFree Trade Party, unofficially led by formerNew South Wales PremierGeorge Reid. There would not be a federalLabour Party until two months after the election, but in five of the six states local Labour parties contested the elections - in Tasmania, where there was no Labour party,King O'Malley was elected as an independent Labour candidate. There were also a number of independents of various political leanings and a New South Wales Senate ticket called the "Socialist Six", comprising Labour members in conflict with the official party.

The Protectionists advocated the protection of local industries through the imposition oftariffs on imported goods, the construction of a transcontinental railway, a uniform railway gauge, uniform suffrage, aged pensions and defending the Australian constitution from radicals. The party used the colour red throughout the campaign. In addition to Barton, Protectionist candidates included many of the leading political figures from colonial Australia, includingCharles Kingston, SirJohn Forrest, and future Prime MinisterAlfred Deakin.

The Free Traders (their official title was "Australian Free Trade and Liberal Association") advocated the dismantling of the tariff system, a transcontinental railway, and believed that aged pensions should be left to the states. As many of the policies of the Protectionists and Free Traders were similar, the Free Traders campaigned heavily on tariffs, with Reid stating that he wanted the election to be a plebiscite on tariffs. The party used the colour blue throughout the campaign. In addition to Reid, who believed he should have been appointed Prime Minister^[1] instead of Barton as he considered himself the bigger political figure, Free Trade candidates included Reid's unofficial deputyPaddy Glynn,William Irvine, and formerstate Labour leader and futureCommonwealth Liberal Party Prime MinisterJoseph Cook.

Labour advocated old age pensions, electoral reform, a national army, compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes and a national referendum to decide issues that would otherwise lead to adouble dissolution of parliament. Senior Labour candidates included future Prime MinistersChris Watson,Andrew Fisher andBilly Hughes. Labour candidates were elected as individual state-based candidates, who met before the first sitting of Parliament on 8 May 1901 and agreed to form a federal Labour Party. Chris Watson, a Sydney printer and former member of theNew South Wales Parliament, was elected the inaugural leader of the Party.

All parties were in support of aWhite Australia as was the norm at the time, with only a single parliamentarian, Free TraderBruce Smith, fully opposing the legislation.^[2]

Voting franchise was according to each state's specific electoral laws. South Australian and Western Australian women were enfranchised, but in the other states, they could not vote. Tasmania retained a small property qualification for voting, but in the other states, all males over 21 were eligible to vote. In several statesIndigenous Australians were technically allowed to vote, however, they facedvoter suppression. InNew South Wales for instance, Aboriginal men who voted were arrested by police for "double voting" with very little evidence to back up the case.^[3]

Voting was voluntary throughout Australia and in most states candidates were elected by a "first past the post" voting system. In South Australia, voters were required to mark the box opposite their preferred candidates, while in other states voters were required to cross out the names of non-preferred candidates.

The following table describes the varying electoral systems used to elect members of the House of Representatives.^[3]

State	Divided electorates (versus at-large)	Voting system	Women franchise	Chinese franchise	Aboriginal franchise	Non-white franchise	Other
New South Wales		First past the post
Victoria		First past the post
Queensland		Contingent vote					If no candidate gained majority,contingent vote was applied.[4]
South Australia	at-large	First past the post					InNorthern Territory (managed by South Australia), Indigenous Australians could not vote.
Western Australia		First past the post
Tasmania	at-large	Hare-clark

All seats were to be filled − 75 in theHouse of Representatives and 36 in theSenate. Six House seats were uncontested.

There were 75 House of Representative seats to be filled. The initial number of seats for each state were set out in the Australian Constitution. New South Wales was allocated 26, Victoria 23, Queensland 9, South Australia 7, Western Australia 5 and Tasmania 5. The South Australian and Tasmanian colonial parliaments had not legislated for single-member electorates, so their House of Representative members were elected from a single statewide electorate. In South Australia, each elector cast seven votes, while in Tasmania, each elector cast one vote.

Each state elected six Senators, in accordance with the Constitution. Senators in each state were elected on a statewide electorate basis bybloc voting rather than theproportional representation andsingle transferable vote systems used in later elections.

The campaign period officially commenced on 17 January 1901, although some candidates, particularly Reid, had been unofficially campaigning since December the previous year. The campaign was delayed due to the death ofQueen Victoria on 22 January, but soon got into full swing again as candidates travelled widely to address lively public meetings. Reid drew the biggest crowds, including 8,000 to a rally inNewcastle and he campaigned widely, travelling to Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania, whilePaddy Glynn organised the Free Trade campaign in South Australia.^[1]

The Protectionists were forced to modify their immigration policy following an outcry from Queensland Protectionist candidates who feared that aWhite Australia policy would impinge on the importation ofKanakas to work on Queensland sugar plantations. Their policy was revised to read that Kanakas would be only be sent back to their country of origin when they were no longer of any use to the sugar industry. On the whole, however, a white Australia was extremely popular with the electorate and most candidates outdid themselves to prove how much they supported it. It was left to Free Trade candidate forParkes,Bruce Smith (a leading representative of the employers), to oppose anti-immigration measures.Andrew Fisher argued that any Kanaka who had converted to Christianity and married should be allowed to remain in Australia. Both were elected comfortably.

The Free Traders also had to modify part of their election platform when they realised that to advocate for the removal of all tariffs protecting Australian industries would be political suicide. Many employees in these industries considered the removal of tariffs as likely to mean the end of their jobs.

The Protectionists enjoyed the support of the powerfulAustralian Natives' Association (ANA) throughout the campaign as well as the endorsements ofThe Age andThe Sydney Bulletin, while Free Trade received support from business interests and the endorsements ofThe Sydney Morning Herald,The Daily Telegraph,The Brisbane Courier, Melbourne'sThe Argus andThe Adelaide Register. Labour could only rely on union-owned newspapers, although some of these enjoyed a great level of influence in some electorates (theGympie Truth for example is considered to have played an important role in the election of its part-owner, Andrew Fisher, inWide Bay).

Only two cars were used in the 1901 election campaign:William Lyne, who was a candidate for theDivision of Hume while still Premier of New South Wales, used his official Premier's car to great advantage; and the shipping magnate and candidate forMelbourne SirMalcolm McEacharn enjoyed the use of his car while travelling around his electorate.

Complaints were received by polling officials about the earlier-than-advertised closing of polling booths in some electorates, the poor-quality pencils supplied to fill in ballot papers (they apparently blunted easily, leaving many votes incomprehensible to officials) and the Senate ballot paper in New South Wales which listed 50 candidates, confusing many voters and leading to a significant number of informal votes.^[5]

These complaints aside, the administering of the first federal election was seen as a great success and a credit to the polling officials who, in some cases, were responsible for electorates larger than some European countries.

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Protectionist[b]	135,996	27.52	32
	Free Trade Party	164,085	33.21	25
	Labour[c]	90,174	18.25	16
	Independent	103,832	21.01	2
Total		494,087	100.00	75

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Free Trade Party	946,684	35.54	17
	Protectionist Party	795,889	29.88	10
	Labour Party	325,875	12.23	7
	Socialist Labor Party	27,347	1.03	–
	Independent Protectionist	397,631	14.93	2
	Independent Free Trade	127,011	4.77	–
	Independent	43,597	1.64	–
Total		2,664,034	100.00	36

The Free Traders won most of the seats in New South Wales, apart from the border areas where the Protectionists were strong. The Protectionists won most of the seats in their stronghold, Victoria. Labour won some inner urban seats but most of its members represented pastoral and mining areas. In the smaller states many members had no fixed party loyalty and saw themselves as representing the interests of their states. Seven Prime Ministers of Australia (Barton,Deakin, Watson, Reid, Fisher, Joseph Cook and Hughes) were elected at this election, as were a number of influential former state Premiers (SirJohn Forrest, Lyne, George Turner,Anderson Dawson,Philip Fysh and Charles Kingston among them).

With no past to live down, Barton's Protectionist ministry had all the advantages of incumbency with none of the problems, which meant that a Protectionist victory was almost a certainty, and Barton had been confident of obtaining a comfortable majority in parliament.^[6] However, while Barton and his ministry were returned, they had to rely on Labour support to pass legislation. Although the Protectionists remained in government, however, many observers saw the result as a moral victory for Free Trade (who won more seats than the Protectionists in the three smallest states of South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia). Labour also performed better than expected, particularly after the post-election recruitment of O'Malley. Labour was the smallest of the three parties in the House but held the balance of power. Chris Watson pursued the same policy as Labour had done in the colonial parliaments. He kept theProtectionist governments of Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin in office, in exchange for legislative concessions including the immensely popular White Australia policy. Such was the overwhelming support for a White Australia by the electorate and the three political parties that theImmigration Restriction Act 1901 was the seventeenth piece of legislation passed by the nascent parliament.^[7][8]

The average national voting turnout was 60% of enrolled voters, with theDivision of Newcastle achieving the highest turnout on 97%, while theDivision of Fremantle recorded the lowest turnout on 30%.

Of the two elected independents, both were fromQueensland.James Wilkinson, elected to the seat ofMoreton, was a former member of the Labour Party, and rejoined the party in 1903.Alexander Paterson, representingCapricornia, had no political affiliation, and retired in 1903.

South Australia andTasmania went to the election as single multi-member constituencies. South Australia elected seven members, each elector casting seven votes: four Free Traders (Paddy Glynn, 59.5%;Frederick Holder, 59.5%;Alexander Poynton, 41.1%; andVaiben Louis Solomon, 43.0%), two Protectionists (Charles Kingston, 65.9%;Langdon Bonython, 62.7%) and one Labour member (Lee Batchelor, 50.3%). Tasmania elected five members, each elector casting one vote: three Free Traders (Edward Braddon, 26.2%;Norman Cameron, 11.6%;Frederick Piesse, 10.1%), one Protectionist (Philip Fysh, 9.9%) and one Independent/Labour member (King O'Malley, 21.9%).

• Candidates of the 1901 Australian federal election
• Results of the 1901 Australian federal election (House of Representatives)
• Results of the 1901 Australian federal election (Senate)
• Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1901–1903
• Members of the Australian Senate, 1901–1903

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