Section 57 of the Constitution of Australia concerns how deadlocks between the two houses of the Commonwealth Parliament—the House of Representatives and the Senate—should be resolved. If the House of Representatives passes a bill that the Senate rejects, fails to pass, or proposes amendments that the House of Representatives will not agree to, and this repeats itself three months later with regards to the same bill, then the Governor-General can call a double dissolution of the Parliament, so long as the House of Representatives is not six months or less from its expiration.
The text of this section is:
If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.
If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.
The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent.
Reference list
- Saunders, C (2003). It's your constitution: governing Australia today (2nd ed.). Federation Press. pp. 74–75. ISBN 9781862874688.
- "Part V - Powers of the Parliament". www.aph.gov.au. Parliament of Australia. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.