A federal election was held in Australia on 1 December 1984. All 148 seats in the House of Representatives (24 of them newly created) and 46 of 76 seats in the Senate (12 of them newly created) were up for election. The incumbent Labor Party led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke defeated the opposition Liberal–National coalition, led by Andrew Peacock.

The election was held in conjunction with two referendum questions, neither of which was carried.

Background and issues The election had a long campaign and a high rate of informal voting for the House of Representatives, but decreased rate in the Senate (due to the introduction of the Group voting ticket). Although a House election was not due until 1986, Hawke opted to call an election 18 months early in part to bring the elections for the House and Senate back into line following the double dissolution election of 1983.

The legislated increase in the size of the House by 24 seats and the Senate by 12 seats came into effect at the 1984 election. Prior to 1984 the electoral commission did not undertake a full distribution of preferences for statistical purposes. The stored ballot papers for the previous 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.

Results House of Representatives

Senate

Seats changing hands Seat Pre-1984 Swing Post-1984 Party Member Margin Margin Member Party Farrer, NSW  Liberal Wal Fife 7.4 N/A 12.95 Tim Fischer National  Flinders, Vic  Labor Bob Chynoweth 0.3 1.47 1.17 Peter Reith Liberal  Forde, Qld  Labor notional – new seat 2.7 2.74 0.04 David Watson Liberal  Gilmore, NSW  Labor notional – new seat 0.5 1.72 1.22 John Sharp National  Hinkler, Qld  Labor notional – new seat 0.6 0.79 0.19 Bryan Conquest National  Hume, NSW  National Stephen Lusher 4.3 N/A 7.65 Wal Fife Liberal  Macquarie, NSW  Labor Ross Free 0.5 1.89 1.39 Alasdair Webster Liberal  Northern Territory, NT  Labor John Reeves 1.9 3.29 1.39 Paul Everingham Country Liberal  Petrie, Qld  Labor Dean Wells 1.5 2.13 0.63 John Hodges Liberal  Riverina-Darling, NSW  Labor notional – new seat 1.3 5.90 4.60 Noel Hicks National  Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.

Analysis

The results of the election surprised most analysts; the expectation had been that Bob Hawke – who had been polling a record ACNielsen approval rating of 75 percent on the eve of the election – would win by a significantly larger margin. Labor instead suffered a 2-point swing against it and had its majority cut from 25 to 16. Hawke blamed the result on the changes to Senate vote cards, which he believed confused people regarding their House of Representatives votes and contributed to the relatively high informal vote, the majority of which apparently was Labor votes. "Attracted to the simplicity of the Senate ballot, a number of voters thought they could mark their Lower House ballot in exactly the same way. Unfortunately for both them and us the informal vote for the House of Representatives swelled from 2 per cent to nearly 7 per cent. On the best surmise the bulk of the informals were Labor votes." However, analysis by the Australian Electoral Commission found that informal voting only slightly reduced Labor's primary vote and did not change the result in any division.

Andrew Peacock did well from a good performance in the one leaders' debate, held on 26 November 1984, which was the first televised leaders' debate in Australia. It was because of Peacock's performance at the leaders' debate that Hawke refused to debate John Howard for the 1987 election. Ironically when Hawke agreed to do the leaders' debate for the 1990 election it was again with Peacock.

See also Candidates of the 1984 Australian federal election Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1984-1987 Members of the Australian Senate, 1985-1987

References

External links University of WA election results in Australia since 1890 AEC 2PP vote AustralianPolitics.com election details