#double dissolution

We have now had 7 double dissolutions called. With the exception of 1975 all of them were called by the prime minister and leader of the party with the parlimentary majority. They were all called in the hopes of increasing the lower house majority and hopefully shaking up the upper house if not gaining a majority there. With the exception of 1975, it has failed. If the party who called the election form government they don’t have the kind of majority they wanted or they lose seats.

A double dissolution election put the lower house up for grabs like a regular election, but instead of a half-senate election it’s a whole one. The quota for a senator is also dropped making it easier for crazy parties (I’m looking at you OneNation) to get a senate seat.

So why the fuck did Malcolm Turnbull call a double dissolution election over an issue as unimportant as the Australian Building and Construction Commission?

Because 1975 that’s why. In 1975, The governor general John Kerr famously threw out the majority Labor Whitlam government and installed Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister.

Fraser wasn’t stupid, he knew that Whitlam opposition had the numbers to and would call a vote of no confidence. So he used the blocked bills that been reason for Whitlam’s government getting the sack as the trigger for a double dissolution election. The unpopular Whitlam opposition lost hard and Fraser got a majority in both houses.

So it would seem the government gambled and won right? Except Fraser’s government was about to lose office anyway, and by the numbers they weren’t government. So if we count this as a case of the party in majority getting rolled on double dissolution the odds were 0/6 when Turnbull called his dissolution. If we don’t they were 1/6. Which is a huge gamble.

But rich boy Turnbull wants to be Fraser. He want’s to be a statesman, a well-remembered politician and loved by his party the way Fraser was, so he ignored his increasing unpopularity as PM, the parties’ unpopularity in general and called a double dissolution instead of a normal election.