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All 75 seats in the House of Representatives 38 seats were needed for a majority in the House 18 (of the 36) seats in the Senate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Registered | 2,109,562 ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 1,001,593 (47.48%)[a] ( ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results by division for the House of Representatives, shaded by winning party's margin of victory. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1906 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 12 December 1906. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Protectionist Party minority government led by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin retained government, despite winning the fewest House of Representatives votes and seats of the three parties. Parliamentary support was provided by the Labour Party led by Chris Watson, while the Anti-Socialist Party (renamed from the Free Trade Party), led by George Reid, remained in opposition.
Watson resigned as Labour leader in October 1907 and was replaced by Andrew Fisher. The Protectionist minority government fell in November 1908 to Labour, and a few days later Reid resigned as Anti-Socialist leader, being replaced by Joseph Cook. The Labour minority government fell in June 1909 to the newly formed Commonwealth Liberal Party led by Deakin; this Party was formed on a shared anti-Labour platform as a merger organised between Deakin, the leader of the Protectionists, and Cook, the leader of the Anti-Socialists, to counter Labour's growing popularity. The merger did not sit well with several of the more progressive Protectionists, who defected to Labour or sat as independents.
The merger would allow the Deakin Commonwealth Liberals to construct a mid-term parliamentary majority, however less than a year later, at the 1910 election, Labour won both majority government and a Senate majority, representing 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, and after the 1904 Watson minority government, the world's second Labour Party government at a national level.
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