1907 Victorian state election
Australian state election
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The 1907 Victorian state election was held in the Australian state of Victoria on Friday, 15 March 1907 to elect 45 of the 65 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.[1] The other 20 seats were uncontested.
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15 March 1907
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All 65 seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly 33 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The election was in one member districts, using first past the post (plurality) voting.
Background
Ministerialists were a group of members of parliament who supported a government in office but were not bound by tight party discipline. Ministerialists represented loose pre-party groupings who held seats in state parliaments up to 1914. Such members ran for office as independents or under a variety of political labels but saw themselves as linked to other candidates by their support for a particular premier or government.[citation needed]
The National Citizens' Reform League, led by Thomas Bent, had disbanded shortly after the 1904 state election, leading to the majority of Liberals and Conservatives sitting separately again.[2][3]
Bent formed the United Liberal Party in February 1907.[2] Without Liberal Ministerialists and Liberal Oppositionists competing against each other, three-sided contests were largely eliminated, causing Labor to lose the seats of Ballarat and Geelong.[4]
Results
| Party | Votes | % | Swing | Seats | Change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Liberal | 59,785 | 51.36 | +51.36 | 49 |  49 | ||
| Labor | 40,044 | 34.40 | +1.85 | 14 |  3 | ||
| Independent Ministerialists | 11,029 | 9.47 | +4.55 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Independent Labor | 2,795 | 2.40 | +1.03 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Independent | 2,754 | 2.37 | +1.75 | 0 |  | ||
| Formal votes | 116,407 | 99.41 | |||||
| Informal votes | 0.59 | ||||||
| Total | 65 | ||||||
| Registered voters / turnout | 261,080 | 61.27 | â9.70 | ||||
