The Constitution Alteration (Mode of Altering the Constitution) Bill 1974, was an unsuccessful proposal to alter the Australian Constitution to make it easier to amend the constitution and give voters in the Australian territories the right to vote in referendums. It was put to voters for approval in a referendum held on 18 May 1974.
The bill to amend the constitution was passed by the House of Representatives however it was rejected by the Senate. Since federation, voters in territories had been excluded from voting in referendums. The proposal would have meant that their votes counted towards the national majority, but not towards any state total.
Question
Proposed law entitled "An Act to facilitate alterations to the Constitution and to allow electors in territories, as well as electors in the states, to vote at referendums on proposed laws to alter the Constitution".
Do you approve the proposed law?
Results
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Result
|- align=center
! rowspan="2" | State
! rowspan="2" | Electoral roll
! rowspan="2" | Ballots issued
! align=center colspan="2" | For
! align=center colspan="2" | Against
! align=center rowspan="2" | Informal
|-
! align=center | Vote
! align=center | %
! align=center | Vote
! align=center | %
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | New South Wales
| 2,834,558
| 2,702,903
| 1,367,476
!
| 1,295,621
| align="center" |48.65
| 39,806
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | Victoria
| 2,161,474
| 2,070,893
| 1,001,753
| align="center" | 49.22
| 1,033,486
!
| 35,654
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | Queensland
| 1,154,762
| 1,098,401
| 480,926
| align="center" | 44.29
| 604,816
!
| 12,659
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | South Australia
| 750,308
| 722,434
| 311,954
| align="center" | 44.26
| 392,891
!
| 17,589
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | Western Australia
| 612,016
| 577,989
| 240,134
| align="center" | 42.53
| 324,435
!
| 13,420
|- align="right"
! style="text-align:left;" | Tasmania
| 246,596
| 237,891
| 95,264
| align="center" | 40.72
| 138,674
!
| 3,953
|- bgcolor="#FFE0C0" align="right"
! style="text-align:left" | Total for Commonwealth
| 7,759,714
| 7,410,511
| 3,497,507
| align="center" | 47.99
| 3,789,923
!
| 123,081
|-
! style="text-align:left;"| Results
| colSpan="8" | Obtained majority in one state and an overall minority of 292,416 votes. Not carried
|}
Proposed changes to the text of the constitution
The proposal was to alter the constitution as follows (removed text stricken through; substituted text in bold):