26 November, 1966
25 October, 1969
2 December, 1972
18 May, 1974
13 December, 1975
10 December, 1977
18 October, 1980
5 March, 1983
1 December, 1984
11 July, 1987
24 March, 1990
13 March, 1993
2 March, 1996
3 October, 1998
10 November, 2001
Some by-election results have also been included, but these are, at present, incomplete after 1984. The only seats which have changed hands since 1984 as a result of by-elections have been Adelaide (Labor to Liberal, 1988), Groom (National to Liberal, 1988), Wills (Labor to Independent, 1992) and Canberra (Labor to Liberal, 1995). Results are included for all of these except Wills.
There have been boundary changes between most elections. The most significant of these were in 1984, when the House was expanded from 125 to 148 members. All states were affected by the 1984 redistribution. There have been further redistributions in 1969 (all states), 1974 (Western Australia), 1977 (all states), 1980 (Western Australia), 1990 (Victoria and Western Australia), 1993 (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania), 1996 (Victoria, Queensland and the ACT), 1998 (Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT) and 2001 (NSW, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and NT). An attempt is made to estimate the effect of redistributions after 1980, although this is necessarily approximate. (These are expressed in terms of the effect on the Labor vote, to avoid complications caused when either the Liberal or National Parties do not contest a seat). This does not take into account demographic change within an area, a particular issue in electorates on the urban fringe. Where a seat is listed as 'created' or 'abolished', this refers to the year in which the seat was first contested or not contested as appropriate. All seats without a date of creation listed existed in 1966.
A list of party abbreviations is available. This contains a list of all (I hope) parties which have contested House of Representatives elections since 1966, along with a few others. Since 1984, party designations have appeared alongside candidates on the ballot paper. I have listed all candidates who did not nominate a party as 'Independent', whether they described themselves as an independent or not. (Among other things, candidates occasionally represent a party which is not registered, and therefore cannot have it listed on the ballot paper). Parties which contested the Senate only are not yet included in the list (anyone remember the husband-and-wife team who were the standard-bearers for the Party To Expose The Petrov Conspiracy?). Prior to 1984, two candidates would occasionally contest a seat for the same party. In general, I do not know who was the endorsed candidate (although it is often easy to guess from the share of the vote each received).
Also between 1984 and 1996, votes which indicate a valid first preference but have two or more preferences equal further down the list count as formal first-preference votes, but their preferences are not distributed beyond the point where equal preferences are expressed. (While it was legal to vote this way, it is not legal to advocate its use, and Albert Langer was jailed for breaching a court order not to do so in 1996. Needless to say, the effect of this move was that the number of such votes cast in 1996 was about four times the number at any previous election). Hence, the total number of two-party preferred votes will be less than the number of first-preference votes.
I have made subjective judgements as to what category a seat falls in in the list below, and as to whether a seat has been renamed (as opposed to being abolished and a new seat created). Seat categories are based on the 1996 boundaries; some have changed with time, either from boundary or demographic change. Some seats, especially in Queensland, are very difficult to classify.
There are still a few details missing, apart from by-elections; in particular, I do not have the first names of candidates in 1984, or in 1980 and previous years (obviously there are some which are well-known, but I will not include them until I have a full list). Prior to 1983 preferences were only distributed if no candidate reached 50% of the primary vote. In seats where preferences were not distributed I have included an estimate of the two-party preferred vote. This estimate was, in general, derived from the average distribution of preferences from the party concerned in those electorates in the state that year where preferences were distributed. Unless I had good reason to suspect otherwise, it was assumed that preferences from independents split 50-50, and it was assumed that the 'donkey vote' (see below) made up 1% of the total.
As the results in my sources frequently give the candidate's full name, it is possible that some errors may have been made where a candidate uses a name other than his first given name (e.g. John Malcolm Fraser).
Except for some seats in 1993, results are given with candidates listed in the order in which they appeared on the ballot paper. Prior to 1984, this was alphabetical; since then, it has been decided randomly. In the pre-1984 era a proportion of voters (usually 1-2%) numbered their ballot papers straight down the list (the so-called 'donkey vote'), so it was considered an advantage to be listed first on the paper. Since 1984 candidates' parties have been listed on ballot papers along with their names, and the 'donkey' vote has almost disappeared (scrutineering in 1996, I only saw one all night).
Results are also available sorted by year and state .