Welcome to "THE VERDICT: Australia 2016" homepage, hosted here at
kortjackson.org! Here you will find information regarding the election
that has been called for July 2, 2016 to constitute the 45th Parliament
of Australia. Unlike most elections, this upcoming election is a double
dissolution election, in which the entire Australian
Senate (all twelve seats from each state, and both seats in each of the
Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory for a total of 76
seats) as well as the entire House of Representatives (150 seats) are
up for election. This is in contrast to a standard election, which has
the entire House and only half of the seats in each state (6) and the
four territory senators up for election in the Senate, provided that
all timeframes are met so as not to desynchronize the election process.
So, how does a double dissolution election take place? A double
dissolution election may be
called by the Prime Minister upon formal advice to the Governor-General
if (a) at least six months remain in the parliamentary term, (b) The
House has passed a bill that the Senate has either amended to render
unacceptable to the House for passage to the Governor-General for Royal
Assent (final approval) or has outright rejected the bill and (c) after
a three month period, the House has passed the same bill, and the
Senate effectively takes the same action as before. This in turn
creates a trigger that the
Prime Minister may include in advice to the Governor General to call an
election upon the grounds of Section 57 of the Australian Constitution.
This does not mean the Prime
Minister has to call for a
double dissolution, it merely means they
have the ability to. The ability is lost however, if there is
less than six months remaining in a parliamentary term.
How many Double Dissolution
elections has Australia had? Despite the propensity for double
dissolution elections to occur (thanks in large part to a Senate that
is rarely under majority control of any one party), double dissolution
elections have been called just six times prior to this election (2016
makes it seven). The batting
average for governments is three wins, two losses, and one election
that is a technical win for the Fraser Coalition government in 1975 due
to the Constitutional crisis that year that saw the Governor-General
(Sir John Kerr) dismiss the last elected Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam.
So, how did we get to this
election? In 2013, the ALP (Australian Labor Party) government
lead by Julia Gillard was heading for electoral oblivion. Internal
party discord (thanks to a failed leadership challenge by Kevin Rudd in
2012 and a leadership challenge in March 2013 that fizzled before the
vote) left voters dissatisfied. In addition, the carbon tax and mining
tax schemes as well as the asylum seeker policy also fueled voter
discontent. In June 2013, Kevin Rudd mounted a second challenge for the
leadership versus Julia Gillard that was successful in returning him to
the post of Prime Minister. For a time, voters began to warm back to
the ALP, and it appeared the country was heading for a knife edge
election for a second straight electoral cycle. This was not to be, as
Tony Abbott lead the Coalition (consisting of the Liberal Party of
Australia, National Party of Australia, Liberal National Party of
Queensland and Country Liberals of the Northern Territory) to a strong
victory, seemingly almost without a hitch. That was, until a thousand
ballot papers were lost in Western Australia (WA) in pertinence to the
six Senate seats up for election there. After a thorough investigation,
the Court of Disputed Returns voided the Senate result in WA and called
a special Senate half-election for those six seats, which were filled
in time for the Senators to take their seats as proscribed in the
Constitution on July 1.
As for the Coalition Government, the polls were initially supportive of
Tony Abbott, especially as Labor scrambled to elect a new leader
(through a membership vote weighted equally with the parliamentary
caucus vote). Even as Labor elected Bill Shorten, the Coalition
continued to enjoy small leads, alternating with Labor leads in the
polls. But as the honeymoon period faded, so did Abbott's lead, and
eventually the Labor Party, despite losing seventeen seats in 2013
gained a consistent and strong lead. A warning shot signal to Tony
Abbott's leadership appeared in February 2015 in the form of a failed
Leadership spill motion that would have triggered a leadership election
for the Liberal Party of Australia (and as the senior party of the
Coalition, a potential change in the Prime Minister position). Despite
Tony Abbott prevailing (and somewhat chastened by the attempt), polls
continued to show the voting populace dour attitude to the ruling
Coalition. By September 2015, the bad polls and the potential of losing
an otherwise fairly safe seat in a by-election in Western Australia
were too much for the Liberal Party and the Coalition. Malcolm Trumbull
routed Tony Abbott for the leadership, and thus became Prime Minister
as a result. The voters responded positively to Turnbull's leadership,
at least for a time. But as 2015 turned into 2016, the Turnbull
government found the voter population getting impatient. In addition,
the Senate created no fewer than four triggers during the parlimentary
term for a potential double dissolution. Sensing there was no better
alternative to call the election, Turnbull cited three of the four
trigger bills for calling for a double dissolution election, his advice
was accepted, and the 2016 Election is now underway, with the voters
rendering a verdict on the Turnbull government on July 2, 2016. |