How many members are in the Senate of Australia?
Members of the Australian Senate, 2016–2019
In accordance with section 13 of the Constitution,[1] it was left to the Senate to decide which Senators were allocated the full six-year terms ending on 30 June 2022 and which Senators were allocated three-year terms ending on 30 June 2019. The senate resolved that the first elected six of twelve Senators in each state would serve six-year terms, while the last six elected in each state would serve three-year terms. This was the Senate practice on the seven previous occasions that have required allocation of long and short terms.[2] In 1983 the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform had unanimously recommended an alternative "recount" method to reflect proportional representation,[3] and section 282 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act was inserted to provide for a recount on that basis.[4] This alternative method had been supported by both Labor and the Coalition in bipartisan senate resolutions passed in 1998[5] and 2010.[6]
[7][2][8] Despite this, an agreement between Liberal's Mathias Cormann and Labor's Penny Wong led the Senate to choose the method that awarded longer, six year terms to Labor's Deborah O'Neill and Liberal's Scott Ryan at the expense of The Greens' Lee Rhiannon and the Justice Party's Derryn Hinch being allocated shorter, three year terms.[9][10][11]