However, attempts to abolish the Council did not occur until Labor Premier Jack Lang's first term of office from 1925 to 1927.

On 23 December the Supreme Court of New South Wales in the case of Trethowan v Peden, upheld the injunction and ordered the government not to present bills to abolish the council for royal assent, unless ratified by the electors in a referendum.

[7] The bills repealing Section 7A and abolishing the Legislative Council could not therefore be presented to the Governor for assent until they had been passed in a referendum.

Heffron had long supported this policy from his Langite days, seeing the council as an outdated bastion of conservative privilege, a position that was echoed by trade union official and member of the Legislative Council, Tom Dougherty, who had pushed through a rule at the 1952 state conference that banned MLCs from becoming members of the state party executive.

This was passed with the support of seven Labor councillors crossing the floor (including Cyril Cahill, Anne Press and Donald Cochrane), who were all subsequently expelled from the party.

[9] On 6 April 1960, Heffron attempted to send the bill back to the council, which returned it to the assembly on the same grounds as before.

[14] The referendum, while defeated, sparked discussion on future reform of the then indirectly elected Council, culminating in the 1978 referendum which overwhelmingly endorsed the reforms proposed by the Neville Wran Labor Government including the direct election of members.