1996 Australian federal election
The 1996 Australian federal election was held to determine the members of the 38th Parliament of Australia. It was held on 2 March 1996. All 148 seats of the House of Representatives and 40 seats of the 76-seat Senate were up for election. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition led by Opposition Leader John Howard of the Liberal Party and coalition partner Tim Fischer of the National Party defeated the incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party government led by Prime Minister Paul Keating in a landslide victory. The Coalition won 94 seats in the House of Representatives, which is the largest number of seats held by a federal government to date, and only the second time a party had won over 90 seats at a federal election.
All 148 seats in the House of Representatives
75 seats were needed for a majority in the House
40 (of the 76) seats in the Senate
11,740,568 
3.13%
11,244,017 (95.77%)
(0.02 pp)
The election marked the end of the five-term, 13-year Hawke-Keating Government that began in 1983. Howard was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Australia on 11 March 1996, along with the First Howard Ministry. This election was the start of the 11-year Howard Government; the Labor party would spend this period in opposition and would not return to government until the 2007 election.
This was the first federal election that future Prime Minister Tony Abbott contested as a member of parliament, having entered parliament at the 1994 Warringah by-election. Future Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and future opposition leader Brendan Nelson also entered parliament at this election.
Future Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were unsuccessful candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate respectively at this election and would eventually be elected to the House of Representatives at the next election in 1998.
Howard became the first Liberal leader to win an election from opposition since Robert Menzies in 1949. (Malcolm Fraser was caretaker prime minister in the 1975 election.) The victory also saw the Liberal Party gain enough seats to not require the support of the National Party, though John Howard opted to stay in the Coalition. As of 2023 this is the last time the Liberal Party has won an overall majority of seats in federal parliament and also the last when both major party leaders born prior to 1946, the first year of the Post-war era.
Background[edit]
John Howard, who had previously led the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1989, returned to the leadership in January 1995 following the party's disastrous eight months under the leadership of Alexander Downer. Downer and Peter Costello had succeeded John Hewson and Michael Wooldridge early in 1994 and were touted as the leaders of the new-generation Liberals. In the end, the party opted for the seasoned Howard, perhaps an acknowledgment that he was the only one left standing after a decade of party infighting.
Howard approached the campaign with a determination to present as small a target as possible. Throughout 1995 he refused to detail specific policy proposals, focusing the Coalition's attacks mainly on the longevity and governing record of the Labor government. By 1996, however, it was clear that the electorate had tired of Labor and in particular of Paul Keating. The line "The recession we had to have" resonated with deadly force throughout the electorate. Although Keating's big-picture approach to republicanism, reconciliation with Australia's Indigenous peoples and engagement with Asia galvanised support within Labor's urban constituencies, Howard was able to attract support amongst disaffected mainstream Australians, uniting middle-class suburban residents with traditionally Labor-voting blue-collar workers. He also promised to retain Medicare and hold a constitutional convention to decide whether Australia would become a republic.
The election-eve Newspoll reported the Liberal/National Coalition held an estimated 53.5 percent two-party-preferred vote.[1]