Social History

Victoria’s Parliament House reflects the evolution of Victoria’s colonial (later to become State) government from 1851 and Australia’s federal system, which came into being with the creation of the Commonwealth in 1901. The Commonwealth Parliament sat here until 1927. The Victorian Parliament is a living example of the Westminster traditions and practices that apply in all the Australian Parliaments and a number of other nations that were once part of the British Empire. The first Parliament of Victoria was elected on 21 November 1856. Since then, there have been a further 59 Parliaments elected. 

While Victoria was the last Australian State to enable women to vote in parliamentary elections and to allow them to be Members of Parliament, it had actually empowered women to vote just seven years after the opening of the first Parliament of Victoria. In a piece of faulty legislative drafting, the Electoral Act of 1863 enfranchised all ratepayers listed on local municipal rolls. By some oversight, the Parliament failed to notice earlier local government legislation that had permitted women to be added to the municipal rolls for local government elections. Those women therefore now had the vote and proceeded to use it in the general election of 1864. Shocked at such effrontery, and embarrassed by their inattention, Members of the Legislative Assembly hastily amended the offending clause early in 1865 by restricting the vote for parliamentary elections strictly to male ratepayers.