Posted on 05/07/2016 9:29:20 PM PDT by naturalman1975
Australian Prime Minister has just officially announced Australia will go to the polls on 2nd July 2016 in a double dissolution election. This has been known for a while, but now it's official - he's visited Governor General and asked for Parliament to be dissolved and the writs will be issued.
A Double Dissolution election is an unusual one.
The ‘Double Dissolution’ is a piece of arcane Australian Parliamentary and constitutional procedure.
Australia’s system of government is to some extent a hybrid because it took the British Westminster Parliamentary system as its main model, but incorporated some ideas from the US model.
So we have a Prime Minister who is the person whose party (or coalition of parties) controls the lower House of a two chamber Parliament (as in the UK) but our two Chambers are called the ‘House of Representatives’ and ‘Senate’ as in the US. And as in the US, while the House of Representatives consists of individual representatives representing a particular area each (of something close to similar population), the Senate has an equal number of Senators for each state (we also have two territories which get a smaller number of Senators).
The House of Representatives goes to the polls simultaneously typically about every three years (but it is variable) while the Senate has fixed terms of six years, with half the Senators facing re-election every three years.
So most of the time, an Australian election constitutes a full election of the House of Representatives and a half-Senate election of half the Senators - Prime Ministers try to aim for this in order to keep the cost of elections to a minimum. But it is possible (and has occasionally happened) for a House election to happen without a Half-Senate election, or for a Half-Senate election to happen without a House one.
But we also have the ‘Double Dissolution’ election.
As in the US, for a law to pass it has to pass the House and the Senate. The Double Dissolution election exists in the Australian Constitution to resolve a deadlock between the House and Senate - when the House has repeatedly passed a law and the Senate has repeatedly blocked it.
Our current (broadly conservative) government has faced one of the oddest and most hostile Senates in Australian history - generally an Australian Senate has been mostly made up by the two main groups (the Liberal/National Coalition and Labor) that can form government with perhaps one minor party and a couple of independents to deal with.
Our current Senate is very different. It has 33 government (Liberal/National) Senators, 25 Labor Senators, 10 Greens Senators, 1 Liberal Democrat Senator, 1 Family First Senator, 1 Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party Senator, 1 Palmer United Party Senator, and 4 Independents (two of whom were Palmer United Party Senators, one of whom was a Democratic Labor Party Senator, and one who has always been Independent). Labor and the Greens (both left wing parties) tend to block a lot of government legislation, which leaves the government having to try to persuade at least six of the other eight ‘individuals’ to support anything. With a lot of stuff this hasn’t happened.
So how does a double dissolution work?
First of all, the Prime Minister needs a ‘trigger’. He can’t just call one.
The trigger is a piece of legislation. If the House twice passes a Bill and the Senate twice rejects that Bill, with the rejections occurring at least three months apart, but within two Parliamentary sessions, a trigger exists - the Prime Minister can ask the Governor-General for a double dissolution election.
At this point an election is called for both the House and the entire Senate.
The reason this allows a chance for the deadlock to be removed is first of all, it is likely to create a situation where the government that controls the House of Representatives also controls the Senate, and so can now pass its Bill. But in the event, the Senate still blocks the Bill, after a Double Dissolution election, a joint sitting of the House and Senate can be held on those trigger bills (which cannot be amended - they must be the same bills rejected at the second time) and they can vote as one to pass the Bill or reject it. Constitutionally the size of the Senate is set at about half the size of the House so in a joint sitting, the House has a numerical advantage over the Senate, and also, the public has just had the power to elect a new government with a specific mandate to deal with the bills.
A Prime Minister is only likely to call a double dissolution if they think they are likely to win - that is, if they believe the Australian people support what they are doing over the actions of the obstructionist Senate.
There have been six Double Dissolutions in Australia’s history. Only one has lead to a joint sitting.
In two cases, the government that initiated the election lost the subsequent election. In two cases, the government that initiated the election gained control of the Senate and so no joint session was needed to pass their legislation. In one case, the Senate still blocked the legislation, so a joint sitting was held which passed it.
In the sixth case (the most recent in 1987) no joint sitting was held because after the election, somebody realised that the trigger bill was flawed in a way that would prevent it taking effect even if it was passed - and because the rules do not allow a double dissolution Bill to be amended in anyway, this could not be fixed - so the re-elected Prime Minister did not proceed with the joint sitting.
and here it is again!
Fred; what’s your take on this? Good, bad, neutral?
The Greens - even further left than Labor - are not capable of forming government but have become a significant 'third party' and if they country goes towards the left, it will likely be more Greens as well as more Labor - and a very different government.
I was in Australia three months ago, and the impression I got was that Turnbull was generally regarded by most people I bumped into....as a joke. But just about everyone is cynical and sarcastic about politics in the country.
Fantastic explanation, again.
Very interesting.
Thanks!
Sounds almost as ominous as double secret probation!
I just reclaimed my AU citizenship last year and look forward to voting against Labour. However, I’ll be out of the country from July 1 thru the 15th. How do I go about voting early or absentee
Isn't it nice how these Prime Ministers can decide when to call an election, in order to take advantage of specific political events and trends?
Vote Trump
I sure am glad that we don't have these Parliamentary systems here in America. Having elections scheduled at regular intervals seems like a better way to do things.
Notice how this arrangement in these "Parliamentary Democracies" essentially makes it easier for Tyranny to occur, by allowing the PM to reshuffle the legislature (under certain conditions) and get yet another chance to pass a bill that has already failed to pass twice.
No thanks.
America truly is the best system on earth. Don't let anyone tell you different...
Vote Trump!
Not good nor bad, just as long as the ex union boss Shorten isn’t our next Prime Minister.
You’ll have two easily accessible options.
The first is a postal vote. Generally speaking the major party candidates will mail you a postal voting form in the hope you will use it to vote for them.
You’ll also be able to attend a pre-poll voting station. There’ll be information about where they will be located appearing in the press as the AEC gets organised.
I sure am glad that we don't have these Parliamentary systems here in America. Having elections scheduled at regular intervals seems like a better way to do things.
Notice how this arrangement in these "Parliamentary Democracies" essentially makes it easier for Tyranny to occur, by allowing the PM to reshuffle the legislature (under certain conditions) and get yet another chance to pass a bill that has already failed to pass twice.
There are safeguards in place that deal with those types of risks.
First of all, under normal circumstances, the Prime Minister has only limited control over the timing of elections for the Senate because the Senate does have fixed terms. You can only have a half-Senate election in the twelve month period before the expiry of a Senate term. As half the Senate is elected at a time, and they have six year terms, half-Senate elections occur about three years apart. A Prime is expected under normal circumstances to have a half-Senate election at the same time as the House of Representatives election. In practical terms, this means it is unusual for elections to occur more than once every three years under normal circumstances. That is the normal term, that is the expected term.
Since the first Australian election in 1901, we've had 44 Parliaments in 115 years - that's an average of 2.6 years between elections - close to the three year terms, mostly because of that expectation.
It's also important to understand that the Prime Minister does not have the final say as to the timing of the election. The Prime Minister only gets to request an election - the Governor General makes the decision as to whether the election is held. Some people seem to think that this is just a rubber stamp - it isn't. The Governor General's power to refuse an election is real. Because it is real, a Prime Minister knows that the Governor General will not approve an election without a good reason, and so Prime Ministers do not ask for such elections without good reason in practice, but that is a sign of the process working properly as designed. A Governor General of Australia has only had to use the reserve powers on one occasion - in 1975 when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was acting outside of constitutional convention, the Governor General dismissed his government which is the clearest indication that the Governor General's powers to intervene if a government is, in any way, acting outside constitutional practice, are real. They've been used in the only case where a Prime Minister tried to do that. They have also been used a couple of times at state level (the individual Australian states have similar systems of government).
(In Canada, a Governor General actually refused a request for an election in 1926 but they've never done that specifically in Australia, because they've never had to).
The 'double dissolution' option exists to resolve a deadlock between the House and Senate. It does not allow for tyranny because that deadlock will only be resolved in the government's favour if the people decide they want that. It places the decision back in the hands of the voters. If the people do not want the government's agenda passed, they have the right to elect the opposition to government in its place.
The fundamental purpose of a double dissolution election is to resolve a deadlocked Parliament in favour of one side or the other. It can easily put the opposition in power if the Prime Minister's policies are not popular. I can see that happening this time.
bkmk
Thanks for explaining that so succinctly. I never really understood some of the terminology. Good luck to conservatism in Australia. I think what’s happening in America now could have some reverberations for Turnbull and his faction that he couldn’t have expected.
There probably won’t be, at least not directly. The Australian political establishment is immigrationist, abortionist, gun-grabbing, one-sided “free” trade deal making, high spending and high taxing, nd they have a stranglehold on power and on the media. They differ on what they want to spend the money on and on how the biased media treats it.
There’s an extremely strong whip system that essentially precludes intra-party dissent. There’s virtually no point petitioning your member of parliament in Australia because no matter what their constituents want, they always (100% of the time) vote on party lines. (Labor party MPs actually sign a pledge to that effect; the others do it as a matter of course) Politicians who dare to deviate from party-line votes are so rare as to be individually noteworthy, and risk potentially being ejected from their party or having it install someone else to run for their seat at the next election.
Anti-Australian political philosophy is so widespread that there is probably nobody with any substantial stature who thinks differently, and there is certainly nobody with the stature of Trump who would be able to overcome Australia’s one-sided media, no room for a Trump in any political party, no grassroots political infrastructure, and it’s fundamentally impossible for such a person to run as an independent/third party and lead the country, or even be a possible election spoiler.
Now what on earth would make me think you were describing the current US Administration?
Thanks for a very informative thread.
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