South Australia's 1856 constitution makes its democratic election system among the most advanced in the world
South Australia's House of Assembly universal male suffrage for those over 21, with no property qualifications, from 1856 puts it well ahead of the United Kingdom where this right wasn't grant until 1918.
South Australia’s 1856 constitution gave it a democratic system that was Australia’s most advanced and among world leaders.
Free of the entrenched elite control, as operating in New South Wales and Victoria, South Australia’s 1856 constitution had echoes of original aims of the National Colonisation Society in 1830 for the province to have “goals of civil and religious liberty” and “their own government”. As The Times in London noted in October 1856, it was an “odd position for a new community … to awake one fine morning and discover that it is no longer a colony but a nation”.
By giving the right to all males (including Aboriginal) aged over 21 to vote, without having to own property, for the lower chamber 37-member House of Assembly, South Australia in effect was ahead of the United States where the states of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky had adult suffrage for white males before 1800 and all states had almost universal adult male suffrage – again, for whites only – regardless of property ownership, also by 1856. The United Kingdom didn’t grant universal adult male suffrage until 1918 (and for women in 1928).
South Australia’s adoption of the one-man-one-vote principle removed the ability of a male to vote in any electorate where he owned property. The upper chamber, the Legislative Council of 18 members, with a required minimum age of 30 (six to face election every four years), was elected by property owners only. The qualification for Legislative Council candidates and electors was to hold £50 of freehold property or an annual value of £20.
The constitution for South Australia’s bicameral (two house) parliament was passed by its own legislators in 1855 and became official, with London’s approval, in October 1856. This gave the self-governing South Australian parliament full authority to enact laws, apart from a few acts requiring royal assent.
The colonies of Victoria (1857) and New South Wales (1858) followed South Australia but with property-owning qualifications for both candidates and voters. In New South Wales, the Legislative Council 21 members were elected for life at the end of a five-year term, while Victoria had 30 members with 10-year terms. In Victoria, a Legislative Council member needed £5,000 in freehold property or an annual value of £500, and electors £1,000 freehold property or £100 annual value.
