My “Parliament and Democracy” lecturer recently delved into the history of Australian parliaments. This is a fascinating area, beginning with the decades of campaigning for representative government prior to the establishment of the New South Wales Parliament in 1856. As fascinating as the big picture is, the side-stories can be just as worth studying. One remarkable episode concerns the four years during which University of Sydney graduates had their own member of parliament.
Background
From the University’s inception to the present day, it has been intimately connected with political affairs. The University was founded by an 1850 Act of the Legislative Council, at a time when New South Wales was soon to receive responsible government and lacked a university to teach civics to a population increasingly involved in public affairs. At this time, children of wealthier families sailed to Britain to complete their formal education, their schooling taking different forms based on sex, but both following a curriculum involving elements of the arts and humanities. The state primary education system in New South Wales had been set up in the preceding two years.
For our purposes, the Electoral Reform Act of 1858 is pivotal. It is most notable as a link in the historical expansion of the electoral franchise. While the previous 1851 Act instituted an income qualification on par with England’s, giving most men the right to vote, the 1858 Act took this further. It decreed that every man over the age of twenty-one would be enfranchised, given they had “resided in this Colony for three years.” Those receiving charitable aid, which included residents of Aboriginal reserves, were simultaneously disenfranchised. The Act also provided for the University of Sydney to have its own MP.
University constituencies had a long history. Three universities gained parliamentary representation in the early seventeenth century: Cambridge and Oxford in 1603, and the University of Dublin in 1613, while others came much later. The University of Dublin and the National University of Ireland continue to boast parliamentary representation in Ireland.
The Act decreed that “the University of Sydney shall be entitled to return a Member” to the Legislative Assembly upon accruing a body of 100 graduates, who would form the electorate.
When one considers the reasons for the University of Sydney’s founding, to promote the enlightenment and welfare of the growing colony, it becomes understandable that it too was afforded a seat of its own. Education was in vogue.
Establishment
When the required body of graduates had been attained, the Governor was petitioned and the seat was formally established. At the first election in 1876, some matter was made of the expectation for graduates to dress in formal academic wear, with the registrar writing “there is no legal necessity for members of the University who take part in the Election of a Representative to appear in academic costume,” but that observance of the practice was requested.
By the next day, however, it had been determined that academic costume was required with the notice amended as such. Voting took place in the room adjoining the Great Hall.
There were only two members elected for the University in the electorate’s four-year existence, both of whom would later be knighted. The first was William Charles Windeyer, whose prior legislative career had seen a few setbacks. As an MP, he was twice briefly the Attorney-General under Henry Parkes, and he showed an interest in education. He was appointed to the Supreme Court as acting judge, and resigned from his seat in 1879.
His replacement was Edmund Barton, whom he had defeated for the seat in 1876 and who would go on to be Australia’s first Prime Minister, and, before that, University of Sydney Union president. This was his first political office, and his next few offices were attained and held with less upset than Windeyer had seen. As the University of Sydney member, Barton was a strong supporter of the Public Instruction Act 1880 establishing compulsory education.
University and parliament today
The University continues to play an important role in the political affairs of the nation, and retains a relationship with the state and national parliaments. It is often observed that many members of parliament, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, were once characters in the student political sphere.
Yet the University of Sydney electorate was abolished in 1880. In 2019, Pranay Jha theorised that if it still existed it would incentivise participation in student politics. But really, I think it’s likely they would’ve been two separate things, so long as student politics remained a microcosm of its own.
The Irish experience
What does Ireland, where university representation survives, make of it? Professor David Farrell specialises in the Irish electoral system at University College Dublin, a constituent college of the National University of Ireland, which remains represented in Ireland’s parliament. Irish citizens who have received a degree from the university are eligible to vote.
He notes that Ireland’s constitution, adopted in 1937, was influenced by Catholic social teaching. This, as well as the long British tradition, explains the continued presence of university seats in Ireland. It is also noted that Trinity College Dublin is a Protestant university, and there may have been a concern about providing protections for Ireland’s Protestant minority.
“A common theme in Catholic social teaching in the 1930s was vocational representation, and you see it with the fascist regimes at the time in Europe that to varying degrees, they adopt this notion of vocational representation,” Farrell noted. While the Irish upper house was designed with various vocations represented, the universities are an outlier in that the others were not properly set up.
Just before we spoke, discussion about reform had been forced by a judicial ruling declaring that all universities must be represented, and that per a 1979 referendum the exclusion of students from non-represented universities constitutes disenfranchisement.
The university seats are not broadly unpopular, but they are little-known amongst the general population, with the upper house having limited power. Nonetheless, Farrell notes they have tended to produce good politicians, including former president Mary Robinson, who got a start running on a feminist platform. In Australia and Ireland, university electorates have provided a launch pad for some of the most well-known and consequential politicians.
Takeaways
“The member for University of Sydney has the floor” is not a phrase to be heard anytime soon. Unless there is some revision in how our electoral system has evolved, we will not witness the reintroduction of our dear seat, but there is a lesson nonetheless.
When governments value education, society prospers. The eagerness of parliament and politicians to promote it in the past must be a guiding light for government today. Presently in Australia, some students are forced to drop out because of the severity of the cost of living. With such circumstances, none of us are as well off as we could be.
