Australian Federal Elections: history Quiz

Answer: The first hung parliament

While the 2010 election did result in a hung parliament, it wasn't the first time this had happened. In 1940 both Labor and the United Australia Party/Country Party Coalition won 36 seats, with another two seats won by independents. The independents chose to support the Coalition, allowing the Menzies government to continue.

2010 saw the election of Ed Husic, the first Australian parliamentarian of the Muslim faith; Ken Wyatt, the first member of the House of Representatives to identify as an Indigenous Australian; and Adam Bandt, the first MP from the Australian Greens.

Answer: It's time

In the lead up to the election the Australian Labor Party released a range of major new policies focusing on health care, education, the economy, governmental reform, ending conscription and withdrawing Australian troops from Vietnam.

The campaign included a television ad featuring popular celebrities singing the jingle "It's Time".

Answer: Sir John Kerr

Sir John Kerr served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW before becoming Governor General of Australia in 1974 upon the retirement of his predecessor, Sir Paul Hasluck.

In 1975 the parliament was in deadlock. The opposition, who had a majority of votes in the Senate, blocked voting on supply bills in an attempt to force the government to call an election. However, Prime Minister Whitlam refused to move and some Liberals began calling on Kerr to dismiss the government. Decades later opinions are still heated as to how events transpired from here, so let's just say that on 11 November the Governor General dismissed Whitlam and installed Liberal Party leader Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister.

Answer: The Labor Party changed its leader

Labor Party leader Bill Hayden resigned in the face of a likely challenge from the popular Bob Hawke, who was subsequently unopposed. Hawke entered parliament just over two years earlier (at the election of October 1980) following a high profile career as the head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Fraser called the election hoping to capitalise on Hayden's lack of popular appeal, but his unfortunate timing helped contribute to the largest defeat of a sitting government since 1949.

Answer: He had never voted in a federal election before

Wyatt Roy, born 22 May 1990, was 20 years and 3 months old when he was elected to the seat of Longman as a representative of the Liberal National Party. At the time he became the youngest person to be elected to an Australian parliament. As the age of enfranchisement in Australia is 18, Mr Roy was ineligible to vote at the previous election, held in 2007.

Answer: Protectionist Party

The protectionists, led by Edmund Barton, won 37% of the primary vote in the House of Representatives. With the support of the Australian Labor Party, whose members received a combined 16% of the vote, the protectionists secured enough support to form government.

The Free Trade Party, led by later Prime Minister George Reid, received the second highest number of votes--about 30% of the total.

Answer: 1943

Dame Enid Lyons, widow of former Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, was elected to the House of Representatives for the United Australia Party. The same election saw Dorothy Tangney elected to the Senate on the Labor Party ticket.

Answer: The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18

Many countries lowered their voting age to 18 during the 1970s, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany in 1970, the Netherlands and the United States in 1971, and Finland and Sweden in 1972.

Australian citizens are eligible to enrol to vote from their 17th birthday.

Answer: John Howard

Bruce went on to contest the 1931 election and won his seat back. Two years later he resigned to assume the position of Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom; a role he held for 12 years. He served in the Imperial War Cabinet and in 1947 was made a hereditary peer, becoming the first Australian to sit in the British House of Lords.

Howard was 20 years older than Bruce was when he left politics, being 67 when he lost the election for the federal seat of Bennelong.

Answer: One Nation

One Nation was founded by Pauline Hanson, David Oldfield and David Ettridge in 1997. Its key policy aims were to reduce immigration, especially from Asian countries, oppose multiculturalism and end what it claimed was government discrimination in favour of Aboriginal people.

Within a few years the One Nation vote collapsed. The party secured 4-5% of the vote in the 2001 federal election, 1-2% in 2004 and less than half a percent in 2007 and 2010.