The 2016 Australian federal election was a double dissolution election held on Saturday 2 July to elect all 226 members of the 45th Parliament of Australia, after an extended eight-week official campaign period. It was the first double dissolution election since the 1987 election and the first under a new voting system for the Senate that replaced group voting tickets with optional preferential voting.
Image: Bill Shorten crop
Image: 2009 07 24 Nick Xenophon speaking cropped
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in March 2016
Australian Senate
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The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. There are a total of 76 senators: 12 are elected from each of the six Australian states regardless of population and 2 from each of the two self-governing internal Australian territories. Senators are popularly elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation.
The Australian Senate in 1923
The Senate chamber at Old Parliament House, Canberra, where the Parliament met between 1927 and 1988.
The Australian Senate