What's a double dissolution?

 

Are you teaching your Aussie teens what makes July's election different?

The 2016 federal election will be a relatively rare double dissolution election, meaning that Malcolm Turnbull has been to the Governor General as required by Section 5 of the Australian Constitution who has granted permission to dissolve both the Senate and House of Representatives. Section 12 of the Constitution also requires the state governors to issue the writs for the election of the senators in their own states. This will be the 7th double dissolution election since federation.

In a normal election, we vote for all the members of the House of Representatives but only half of the Senate. Generally, Senators hold their seats for six years, and half of them fall vacant every three years. In a double dissolution election, all the 76 Senate seats fall vacant at the same time. So that's what we're doing this year.

Here are the resources we've been using to make ourselves clever:

Section 57 of the Australian Constitution

Parliament of Australia Info Sheet

Parliamentary Education Office Learning

Printable Fact Sheet

Parliamentary Library Flagpost

Learning about things like this fits into Current Affairs, Politics, Citizenship and more. It is also quite interesting when it is actually happening. Let me know if you've used any other useful resources with your teens!