(19) Post-War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights

Question

Do you approve of the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled ‘Constitution Alteration (Post-War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights) 1944’?

Constitution Alteration (Post-War Reconstruction and Democratic Rights) 1944, the ‘Fourteen Powers’ or ‘Fourteen Points’ Referendum, sought to give the Commonwealth Parliament power, for a period of five years, to legislate with respect to the fourteen specified matters, which included the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen, national health, family allowances and ‘the people of Aboriginal race’ as well as, in some form, many of the matters on which powers to legislate had been sought in 1911 (that is, corporations, trusts, combines and monopolies). There were also to be inserted constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and religion and safeguards against the abuse of delegated legislative power. All of these proposed alterations were put to voters in the form of one question.

Australia. Referendum, 1941

State	Number on rolls	Ballot papers issued	For (v)	For (%)	Against (v)	Against (%)	Informal
New South Wales	1 758 166	1 694 119	759 211	45.44	911 680	54.56	23 228
Victoria	1 266 662	1 227 571	597 848	49.31	614 487	50.69	15 236
Queensland	633 907	599 568	216 262	36.52	375 862	63.48	7 444
South Australia	403 133	392 443	196 294	50.64	191 317	49.36	4 832
Western Australia	278 722	272 339	140 399	52.25	128 303	47.75	3 637
Tasmania	143 359	139 411	53 386	38.92	83 769	61.08	2 256
Total for Commonwealth	4 483 949	4 325 451*	1 963 400	45.99	2 305 418	54.01	56 633

* Including 417 082 votes by members of the Forces, of which 218 452 were for, 195 148 against and 3482 informal.

Obtained majority in two States and an overall minority of 342 018 votes.
Not carried