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Who’s Left – The Surviving Members Of Every House Of Representatives Since 1949

*** CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST UPDATED VERSION OF THIS PAGE ***

Detailed information on the surviving members of the House of Representatives since 1949 is now available on this site. They include the members’ seats, parties, terms, dates of birth, ages and deaths.

All members of parliament who served in the first 18 parliaments from 1901 until the end of 1949 are now deceased.

There are two surviving members of the 19th Parliament that was elected on December 10, 1949. Both “forty-niners” are in their late 90s. One, Henry Pearce, will turn 100 in September this year.

Just four members of the House during the 1950s are still living.

For the entire Menzies era (1949-1972), there are 29 surviving members. All but four of them served together in the 27th Parliament between 1969 and 1972.

The table below provides a summary of how many members have served in the 19th to 45th parliaments. It shows how many are still living and what parties they belong to. There are links to more detailed information on each parliament since 1972.

Note: The data is structured around the parliaments since 1949. The numbers cannot be aggregated. Most surviving members served in more than one parliament.

Disclaimer: I am confident that the data shown here is correct. However, I rely on media reports and announcements in parliament for information on deaths of former members. I sincerely hope I haven’t killed or resurrected anyone. I am happy to receive corrections from readers.

House of Representatives – Members Still Living Since 1949
(Listed by Parliament No. and Years)
No. Years Size Members
Still
Living
% Oldest Surviving
Member
ALP Lib CP/
Nat
Oth
19th
1949-1951
121
2
1.65
Henry Pearce (99)
2
20th
1951-1954
131
2
1.52
Henry Pearce (99)
2
21st
1954-1955
122
1
0.81
Henry Pearce (99)
1
22nd
1955-1958
127
3
2.36
Henry Pearce (99)
2
1
23rd
1958-1961
128
3
2.34
Henry Pearce (99)
2
1
24th
1961-1963
125
5
4.00
Jim Forbes (93)
2
1
2
25th
1963-1966
129
9
6.97
Wylie Gibbs (94)
2
4
3
26th
1966-1969
130
17
13.07
Mervyn Lee (96)
5
9
3
27th
1969-1972
128
24
18.75
Doug Everingham (93)
11
9
4
28th
1972-1974
126
33
26.19
Doug Everingham (93)
17
10
6
29th
1974-1975
128
44
34.37
Doug Everingham (93)
18
17
9
30th
1975-1977
128
57
44.53
Clarrie Millar (91)
10
36
11
31st
1977-1980
126
66
52.38
Doug Everingham (93)
18
38
11
32nd
1980-1983
131
81
61.83
Doug Everingham (93)
33
35
13
33rd
1983-1984
131
90
68.70
Doug Everingham (93)
57
21
12
34th
1984-1987
149
111
74.49
Clarrie Millar (91)
64
31
16
35th
1987-1990
153
122
79.73
Clarrie Millar (91)
74
33
15
36th
1990-1993
150
131
87.33
Steele Hall (88)
72
44
13
37th
1993-1996
155
137
88.38
Steele Hall (88)
75
44
16
38th
1996-1998
150
139
92.66
Ian Sinclair (87)
49
69
18
39th
1998-2001
152
145
95.39
Garry Nehl (83)
68
61
16
40th
2001-2004
151
146
96.68
Frank Mossfield (81)
65
65
13
3
41st
2004-2007
151
147
97.35
Wilson Tuckey (81)
61
72
12
2
42nd
2007-2010
155
153
98.70
Wilson Tuckey (81)
83
56
11
3
43rd
2010-2013
150
148
98.66
Bronywyn Bishop (74)
72
59
12
5
44th
2013-2016
153
152
99.34
Bronwyn Bishop (74)
56
76
15
5
45th
2016-
150
150
100
Warren Snowdon (67)
69
60
16
5

 


Federal Election Results 1901-2014

This is a research paper from the Parliamentary Library with statistics on Australian Federal Elections since 1901.

The paper is part of the Research Paper Series 2014-15 and was written by Stephen Barber and Sue Johnson of the Statistics and Mapping Section of the Parliamentary Library.

The paper is shown under the terms of its Creative Commons licence.

It does not contains result of individual seats, but includes aggregate and state-by-state statistics for both Houses on primary votes, two-party-preferred votes, voter turnout, informal votes. It provides state-of-the-party tables for each House and Senate election since 1901. [Read more…]


The Malcolm Mackerras Six And The Question Of How To Define A Landslide

In a weekend newspaper article, the well-known psephologist and election analyst, Malcolm Mackerras, argued that there have been only six federal election “landslide” victories.

In his article, Mackerras nominated the six elections as: 1917, 1929, 1931, 1943, 1966 and 1975.

Mackerras quite rightly objected to the idea that “every second federal election” is a landslide. He described the 2013 election as a “respectable loss” for the ALP but not worthy of being called a landslide.

He said: “However, I have a more rigorous definition, the details of which I have not the space to elaborate now.”

How To Define “Landslide”

I would suggest two essential election statistics as criteria for defining a landslide:

  1. The proportion of House of Representatives seats held by the winning party or parties.
  2. The national two-party-preferred vote achieved by the winning party or parties.

The primary vote achieved by the election winners is also of some interest but since our system of compulsory preferential voting always provides us with a national figure of combined primary and preferred votes the primary vote alone doesn’t necessarily mean much. [Read more…]


Today’s Electoral Anniversaries: Hughes And Fraser

Today, December 13, is the anniversary of two federal elections, the first in 1919, the second in 1975.

On December 13, 1919, Prime Minister William Morris Hughes was re-elected, defeating the ALP led by Frank Tudor. Hughes had been prime minister since 1915, first for the Labor Party and then as leader of the Nationalist Party that was formed from the Liberals and Labor defectors after the ALP split over conscription.

The election is historic for a couple of reasons. It was the first general election to use preferential voting, instead of first-past-the-post. And it was the first general election contested by the newly-formed Country Party. Not yet a national party, it consisted of different organisations in the states, but it won 11 seats, eating into Hughes’s majority.

On December 13, 1975, Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser led the Liberal-Country party coalition to the biggest ever win in Australian federal history, before or since. The coalition parties won 91 seats in the 127-seat House of Representatives. The ALP won 36 seats, a loss of 30.

Fraser had been prime minister for one month and two days, having been appointed caretaker prime minister on November 11, following Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s dismissal of Gough Whitlam.