Editing Australian Senate (section)

=== Double dissolutions and joint sittings ===
If the Senate rejects or fails to pass a proposed law, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the Senate refuses to pass the same piece of legislation, the government may either abandon the bill or continue to revise it, or, in certain circumstances outlined in section 57 of the [[Constitution of Australia|Constitution]], the Prime Minister can advise the Governor-General to dissolve the entire parliament in a [[double dissolution]]. In such an event, the entirety of the Senate faces re-election, as does the House of Representatives, rather than only about half the chamber as is normally the case. After a double dissolution election, if the bills in question are reintroduced, and if they again fail to pass the Senate, the Governor-General may agree to a ''joint sitting'' of the two Houses in an attempt to pass the bills. [[Joint Sitting of the Australian Parliament of 1974|Such a sitting]] has only occurred once, in 1974.<ref>{{Cite Legislation AU|Cth|act|coaca430|Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act|57}}</ref>

The double dissolution mechanism is not available for bills that originate in the Senate and are blocked in the lower house.

On 8 October 2003, the then Prime Minister [[John Howard]] initiated public discussion of whether the mechanism for the resolution of deadlocks between the Houses should be reformed. High levels of support for the existing mechanism, and a very low level of public interest in that discussion, resulted in the abandonment of these proposals.<ref>{{cite web
| url         = http://dpmc.gov.au/conschange/report/docs/report.pdf
| archive-url = https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080117110700/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79623/20080117-2207/dpmc.gov.au/conschange/report/docs/report.pdf
| url-status  = dead
| archive-date = 2008-01-17
| title       = Resolving Deadlocks: The Public Response
| author      = Consultative Group on Constitutional Change
| date        = March 2004
| page        = 8
}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
</ref>