Australian federal election, 1977

1975 ←

10 December 1977

→ 1980

All 124 seats of the Australian House of Representatives 63 seats were needed for a majority in the House 34 (of the 64) seats of the Australian Senate

	First party	Second party

Leader	Malcolm Fraser	Gough Whitlam
Party	Liberal/National coalition	Labor
Leader since	21 March 1975	8 February 1967
Leader's seat	Wannon	Werriwa
Last election	91 seats	36 seats
Seats won	86 seats	38 seats
Seat change	5	2
Percentage	54.60%	45.40%
Swing	1.10	1.10

Prime Minister before election

Malcolm Fraser
Liberal/National coalition

Subsequent Prime Minister

Malcolm Fraser
Liberal/National coalition

Federal elections were held in Australia on 10 December 1977. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives, and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate, were up for election.

The incumbent Liberal Party of Australia led by Malcolm Fraser with coalition partner the National Country Party led by Doug Anthony, in government since 1975, was elected to a second term over the Australian Labor Party Opposition led by Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam. While the Coalition suffered a five-seat swing, it still had a substantial 48-seat majority in the House. Whitlam was unable to recover much of the ground Labor had lost in its severe defeat of two years prior, and resigned as leader shortly after the election.

Independent: Brian Harradine

The government offering tax cuts to voters and ran advertisements with the slogan "fistful of dollars". The tax cuts were never delivered; instead a "temporary surcharge" was imposed in 1978. The election coincided with the retirement of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. Kerr had appeared drunk at the Melbourne Cup in November and the public outcry resulted in the cancellation of his appointment as Ambassador to UNESCO.

The 1977 election was held a year earlier than required, partly to bring elections for the House and Senate back into line. A half-Senate election had to be held by the middle of 1978, since the double dissolution election of 1975 had resulted in the terms of senators being backdated to July 1975.

...
Wikipedia