Australian federal election, 1910

Federal elections were held in Australia on 13 April 1910. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Commonwealth Liberal Party (the result of a merger between the Protectionist Party and the Anti-Socialist/Free Trade Party) led by Prime Minister of Australia Alfred Deakin was defeated by the opposition Australian Labour Party led by Andrew Fisher.

Contents

• Results
• Seats changing hands
• References

The election represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first elected federal majority government; Australia's first elected Senate majority; the world's first Labour Party majority government at a national level; after the 1904 Chris Watson minority government the world's second Labour Party government at a national level; and the first time it controlled both houses of a bicameral legislature. It also remains the only election in Australia's federal history to have occurred following expiration of a full three-year parliamentary term by the 'effluxion of time'.

Two referenda to approve proposed amendments to the Constitution were held on the same day. The State Debts referendum was carried, but the Surplus Revenue referendum was not carried.

The 113 acts passed in the second Fisher government (1910–13) exceeded even the output of the second Alfred Deakin government over a similar period. At the time, it represented the culmination of Labour's involvement in politics. It was a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s under John Curtin and Ben Chifley.