Referendum on the secession of Western Australia in 1933
On April 8, 1933, a referendum took place in the Australian state of Western Australia , in which voters voted on whether the state should withdraw from the Commonwealth of Australia , the Australian Confederation. Almost two-thirds of those who voted spoke in favor of secession for Western Australia. The vote, however, remained largely inconsequential as it was recognized neither by the Australian federal government nor by the British parliament.
Historical background
Reluctant accession of Western Australia to the Australian Confederation in 1901
Historically, the various states of Australia were settled by European immigrants at different times. The first colony was established in 1778 in eastern Australia in what is now New South Wales . Further colonies in what is now the states of Tasmania , Victoria and Queensland followed. In 1836 the first European settlement was established in South Australia . The first European settlement in Western Australia began in 1829. Due to the distances of several thousand kilometers, the individual colonies initially developed relatively independently of one another. Western Australia's population grew slowly. The gold discoveries at Kalgoorlie after 1893 gave a strong economic boost. Between 1890 and 1900 the population of Western Australia increased by a leap from 47,000 to 179,000 to more than threefold. In 1890 Western Australia received limited self-government under the British Empire .
Towards the end of the 19th century the idea of forming a federation came up in the various Australian colonies in order to pursue common interests within the framework of the British Empire. This federation idea was popularly different in the individual colonies. In Western Australia it was feared that the abolition of customs borders associated with a federation would lead to a significant loss of income. The feeling of belonging to a common Australian nation was also not very widespread. The distance between Perth , the capital of Western Australia, and Melbourne and Sydney was more than twice the distance from New Zealand to these two cities - and New Zealand had decided against participating in the Australian Confederation. Because of these reservations, Western Australia did not take part in the referendums held in the rest of Australia in advance of the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia , and the preamble to the Constitution Act , which was to inaugurate the Australian Confederation, did not mention Western Australia in its original version, but named it only the five eastern colonies.
Ultimately, however, Western Australia made a last-minute decision to join the Australian Federation. A key point here was the massive agitation of the gold diggers around Kalgoorlie, who had mostly immigrated from other parts of Australia and who still felt connected to their home colonies, for accession. The British Colonial Secretary at the time, Joseph Chamberlain , sent a telegram to the Governor of Western Australia urging membership, with reference to unrest in the gold fields. A petition signed by thousands of gold miners to the British government called on them to form a new colony "Auralia" from the gold mining areas of Western Australia. A loss of the gold fields in the east no longer seemed impossible, which would have meant an economic disaster.
As a result, a law on a referendum to be held was hastily prepared. The original draft of the West Australian Prime Minister John Forrest stipulated that only persons who were entered in the electoral register (which was last updated a few years ago) should be allowed to vote. This would have excluded a large number of the recently immigrated gold diggers from participating. However, anyone who had been resident in Western Australia for at least 12 months was later allowed to vote.
In the referendum on July 31, 1900, 44,800 (70%) voted for the adoption of the draft constitution and thus for accession to the Australian Federation and 19,691 (30%) against. In the gold rush areas, there was a voting ratio of 26,330 (94%) to 1813 (6%) for membership. If these votes had not been counted, there would have been a much narrower majority of 18,470 (51%) to 17,878 (49%) votes in favor of joining.
Western Australia was granted transitional arrangements when it joined the rest of Australia. The Australian domestic tariffs were not abolished immediately, but were reduced over a period of five years. In the agricultural sector of Western Australia in particular, there was still considerable skepticism towards Eastern Australia.
Disputes over the customs policy of Australia after 1901
A central point of contention in the newly created Commonwealth of Australia was the question of which customs policy the new Dominion should pursue. Supporters of a protectionist high tariff policy were found mainly in industry and commerce, while supporters of a free trade policy came mainly from agriculture. Above all, the latter promised better export opportunities for agricultural products to other free-trade states and easier imports of agricultural capital goods. After 1901, Australia pursued a more protectionist policy aimed at protecting its own emerging industry.
Western Australia was predominantly structured in a rural way and had hardly any manufacturing industries. The new customs tariff meant that foreign goods were hardly imported any more and more expensive industrial goods from eastern Australia had to be used instead. Due to the internal Australian customs exemption, Western Australia was not able to build up its own industry protected by customs barriers. In several resolutions the parliament of Western Australia turned against the customs policy, but without being able to effect changes. Several Commission reports confirmed the difficult economic situation in the following two decades and even recommended in some cases the temporary relocation of Western Australia from the common customs area, which the Australian central government rejected.
In the following decades, various court rulings strengthened the position of the Australian central government vis-à-vis the individual states, so that they had less and less leeway. A major factor that favored this development was the First World War , which led to the central government being given more and more powers.
Referendum 1933
The way to the referendum
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After no constitutional changes seemed possible that could have improved the situation in Western Australia within the Australian Confederation, the supporters of the idea of secession gained increasing weight in the political debate. The decisive impetus was the onset of the global economic crisis from 1929 onwards. On the one hand, prices for agricultural products fell and, on the other hand, credit became scarcer. The economic livelihood and standard of living of farmers in Western Australia deteriorated significantly. On July 30, 1930, the Dominion League was formed in Perth , the aim of which was to split off Western Australia from the rest of Australia and to promote the establishment of its own Dominion Westralia as part of the British Commonwealth. The Dominion League declared itself impartial. Of the three major parties in Western Australia, it received support from the Country Party , while the Labor Party rejected it. The National Party was divided on its stance on secession.
The Prime Minister of Western Australia, newly elected after the 1930 election, James Mitchell , publicly announced in November 1930 that he personally supported the secession of Western Australia. After some hesitation, his government passed a referendum bill in November 1931. However, this failed in parliament and in December 1932 a modified second draft law was passed by parliament. The law provided for a referendum that would ask two questions:
Are you in favor of the State of Western Australia withdrawing from the federal Commonwealth established under the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Imperial)?
"Are you in favor of Western Australia's withdrawal from the Australian Confederation, as established by the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (Imperial) ?"
Are you in favor of a convention of representatives of equal number from each of the Australian States being summoned for the purpose of proposing such alterations in the Constitution of the Commonwealth as may appear to such convention to be necessary?
"Are you in favor of calling an assembly of an equal number of MPs from each Australian state to discuss what constitutional changes in the Australian Confederation seem necessary?"
The second question was added mainly at the insistence of the Labor Opposition, which then no longer opposed the draft law. The second question was intended to give dissatisfied voters the opportunity to choose the option of a constitutional conference instead of secession.
April 8, 1933 was set as the day for the referendum. The parliamentary elections of Western Australia took place on the same day. In the election campaign between December 1932 and April 1933, the secession issue was the most important issue. The Dominion League dominated the debates and had the majority of public opinion behind it. Individual politicians in the Australian federal government, such as Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and former Prime Minister Billy Hughes , who traveled to Western Australia to present their political positions, encountered a largely hostile to hostile audience and struggled to make themselves heard.
Referendum result
The referendum resulted in the following voting result:
| question | Yes | No | Invalid | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| number | % | number | % | number | % | |
| 1. Secession | 138,653 | 63.8 | 70,706 | 32.5 | 7921 | 3.6 |
| 2. Constitutional Assembly | 88,275 | 40.6 | 119.031 | 54.8 | 9974 | 4.6 |
217,280 voters took part in the vote, which corresponded to a turnout of over 91% (subject to mandatory voting). In relation to the total number of valid votes, 66.2% of those who voted had answered the first question with “Yes” and 57.4% answered the second question with “No”. In summary, a clear majority had spoken out in favor of the secession of Western Australia and against constitutional reforms within Australia.
Attempt to petition the UK Parliament
Paradoxically, the election to parliament in Western Australia on the same day had emerged as the strongest party in the Labor Party, which had spoken out against secession. Philip Collier became the new Prime Minister of Western Australia. The new government was faced with the difficult task of implementing a political project that it was not convinced of its usefulness. However, the Labor government felt committed to the expressed will of the people. Since the preamble to the Constitution Act of 1901 spoke of an indissoluble Federal Commonwealth , only the British Parliament in London could change this act it had passed . On the other hand, paragraph 128 of the act stipulated that this could only be changed if both an absolute majority of both houses of the Australian federal parliament, as well as a majority of all Australian voters and a majority of the Australian states approved the change. Since the Australian federal government and the governments of the other states rejected the dissolution of the Australian Commonwealth, this last path seemed impassable.
The Western Australian government therefore took an alternative path: it petitioned the British Parliament directly, which, as the higher-level legal authority, had the opportunity to amend the Constitution Act , dissolve the Commonwealth of Australia by law and create a new Dominion Westralia .
On 29./30. August 1933, the Western Australian Parliament passed a resolution asking King George V to appoint a commission from both Houses of the British Parliament to deal with these issues. The Western Australian government had a 489 page booklet “The Case for Secession” printed and distributed to members of the British Parliament. The Australian government did the same with a writing "Case For Union" ("Arguments for the Union").
On June 15, 1934, the Secession Act came into force, which included a petition to the British King. This asked him to have the matter dealt with by the British Parliament. Four delegates were sent to London to present the petition: former Conservative Premier of Western Australia, Hal Colebatch , owner of the pro-secessionist Sunday Times James MacCallum Smith, lawyer and politician Matthew Moss and Dominion League president Keith Watson. Some later commentators classified the delegation as a "B-Team"; H. Personalities who did not have the greatest political weight.
The British Parliament first appointed a commission to deal with the question of its jurisdiction. In particular, it had to be clarified whether Parliament could even accept the petition. At a number of Imperial Conferences of the British Empire in recent years, the Dominions had been granted ever more powers and autonomy rights, most recently in the 1931 Statute of Westminster . Legal experts stressed that the British Parliament was above the law and could not restrict its own rights by passing a law. This means that the Westminster Statute is not a legal obstacle. On the other hand, it was considered a longstanding constitutional practice that the British Parliament only takes action in Dominion affairs if it has been explicitly requested to do so by them. The Commission listened at length to the arguments of the representatives of Western Australia and the representatives of the Australian Federal Government. After lengthy deliberations, the commission announced its decision on May 22, 1935. In a strictly legalistic argument, the commission came to the conclusion that the British Parliament was not competent for the petition because ultimately such a petition could only be made by the entire Australian Commonwealth.
Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons expressed his relief in reactions to the decision . Western Australia's problems would have to be resolved within Australia. The followers of the Dominion League expressed their disappointment. In a statement on May 29, 1935, the delegation described the Commission's decision as "fundamentally wrong and unwise". After the British Parliament issued a declaration in November 1935 that the petition could not be formally accepted, the League called on the West Australian federal government to unilaterally declare independence, but this did not happen.
After the failed petition, the Dominion League quickly lost its importance. Her supporters apparently came to the conclusion that there was no realistic prospect of a split at the moment. In addition, Western Australia was increasingly recovering from the economic crisis. This recovery was also facilitated by increased financial contributions from the federal government, which had existed since 1934.
Later aftermath
The secession issue has never completely disappeared from the consciousness of the Western Australian public and politics since Western Australia joined the Australian Confederation. Secessionist tendencies revived in the 1970s when the mining magnate Lang Hancock launched a campaign against the federal government in Canberra under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam , who he accused of unfair treatment of Western Australia. During the 1999 referendum in which Australian voters were asked whether Australia should become a republic, secessionists spoke out against the republic, which they accused of inappropriately centralized. In August 2017, press reports made the rounds that the Liberal Party in Western Australia intended to set up a committee to determine the costs and benefits of a "WAxits" (West Australia Exit) , ie a withdrawal of Western Australia from the Federation.
Legal experts have emphasized that Western Australia's secession is legally possible - regardless of the preamble, which speaks of an “indissoluble Commonwealth”. Even the British parliamentary commission of 1935 saw no fundamental obstacle in the clause, as it was a statutory preamble. The likelihood of a secession in Western Australia in the future is assessed as low.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Thomas Musgrave: The Western Australian Secessionist Movement . In: Macquarie Law Journal . tape 3 , 2003, p. 95–129 (English, PDF ).
- ↑ Auralia. State Library of Western Australia, accessed September 1, 2018 .
- ↑ 1900 Popular Referendum on Australian Federation. Western Australia Electoral Commission, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ^ FR Beasley: The Secession Movement in Western Australia . In: Australian Institute of Policy and Science (Ed.): The Australian Quarterly . tape 8 , no. March 29 , 1936, p. 31-36 , doi : 10.2307 / 20629298 , JSTOR : 20629298 (English).
- ^ H. Gregory: Why Western Australia Should Secede . In: Australian Institute of Policy and Science (Ed.): The Australian Quarterly . tape 5 , no. June 18 , 1933, p. 20-32 , JSTOR : 20629053 (English).
- ^ A b c The History of the Secession Movement in Western Australia. Government of Western Australia, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Secession Act 1934. Ministry of Justice of the Government of Western Australia, June 15, 1934, accessed September 1, 2018 .
- ↑ Hal Colebatch: The secessionist road is long and winding ... and WA voted for it once before. The West Australian, September 10, 2017, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ↑ Stopping the Canberra grave. Government of Western Australia, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ^ Echoes of secession. State Library of Western Australia, accessed September 1, 2018 .
- ^ Secession in the Future. Government of Western Australia, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Dr. Dianne Heriot: Western Australia: a state of secession? Australian Parliament, September 1, 2017, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ↑ Jacob Kagi: Would a WAxit really happen? WA Liberals to debate secession motion at state conference. ABC News, August 31, 2017, accessed August 31, 2018 .
- ^ Daniel Harrop: The Republic of Western Australia: The legal possibility of Western Australia's secession from the Australian Federation . In: The Western Australian Jurist . tape 2 , 2011, p. 233–249 (English, PDF ).