Legal Studies in Action!

[costargh]

Double dissolutions
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23234048-662,00.html

PM hints at fiery showdown over IR

By Peter Veness
February 18, 2008 06:13pm

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has warned the Liberal Party it is playing with the "fire" of a double dissolution election if it continues to block workplace laws in the Senate.

The Government's workplace Bill is yet to arrive in the Senate but the opposition has already shown it is willing to use the last days of its upper house majority to frustrate Labor ambitions.

Today, Mr Rudd delivered his most strongly worded threat yet.

Asked whether the possibility of calling a double dissolution election had entered his mind, the Prime Minister did not directly address the question but delivered an opaque threat.

"The Liberal party are playing with fire," Mr Rudd told reporters in Canberra.

"They should just reflect on this. What did the Australian people say? The Australian people said 'get rid of Work Choices, get rid of AWAs'.

"How loud do you have to be for the Liberals to sit up and take notice. And I think the Liberal party should reflect on their own future when it comes to this extraordinary act of contempt."

Asked if the Liberals would "get burnt", Mr Rudd said that was "a matter for them".

"The Liberal Party are in grave danger of just losing their way. They are so internally divided on a whole range of policy questions."

A double dissolution election, which includes a full Senate election, can be called after a Bill has been rejected twice by the Upper House following a three-month break between the two votes.

Mr Rudd and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard today set about symbolically getting rid of Work Choices despite it still remaining law.

They visited a Canberra industrial site where tens of thousands of Work Choices pamphlets were being packed for shipping to a pulping factory.

"Today we are here to see the destruction of the remaining Work Choices propaganda," Ms Gillard said.

The deputy prime minister promised Labor would not copy the multi-million dollar Work Choices advertising campaign once its laws were passed.

"It won't be glossy booklets, it won't be TV advertisements," Ms Gillard said.

She admitted there would be some advertising spending.

"We, of course, will want to inform people about our new system.

"We understand that employer organisations, unions, employers themselves, employees will want something that explains to them what their rights are.

"It will be the kind of communications you genuinely do when you're trying to explain a new system to people."

[elaine]

ooo interesting, we learnt about double dissolutions yesterday
 has there ever been a re-election of the senate?

[Collin Li]

What do you mean by a re-election of the Senate?

After a double dissolution, you mean?

[costargh]

A double dissolution means that both houses of parliament are "dissolved" and all members and senators are re-elected. So the Senate is not only re-elected, but also the House of Representatives.

[Collin Li]

Other way around: the House of Representatives being re-elected is standard, but the double dissolution re-elects the entire Senate, which is interesting (the six year terms in the Senate mean that they are not all to be re-elected at each election).

[costargh]

I mean that Elaine asked  "has there ever been a re-election of the senate?" and I was just confirming that it is both houses, not just one that is re-elected. Just in case she misunderstood.

[Collin Li]

Oh okay. I'm wrong though, there have been elections that have only for the Senate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate_election%2C_1964
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate_election%2C_1967
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate_election%2C_1970

[costargh]

That's interesting I never knew that their were full Senate elections!