Members of the Australian Senate, 2016–2019
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate following the 2016 double dissolution election on 2 July 2016. All 76 senators were elected due to the election being the result of a double dissolution, and not an ordinary half-senate election. The terms of half of the senators representing each of the six states of Australia were allocated six-year terms ending on 30 June 2022 with the remainder allocated three-year terms ending on 30 June 2019. The terms of senators from the states can only be truncated if another double dissolution election is called. The terms of senators from the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory end on the next dissolution of the House of Representatives.
Australian Senate
Although the Prime Minister and Treasurer, by convention, are members of the House of Representatives (after John Gorton was appointed prime minister in 1968, he resigned from the Senate and was elected to the House), other members of the Cabinet may come from either house, and the two Houses have almost equal legislative power. As with most upper chambers in bicameral parliaments, the Senate cannot introduce or amend appropriation bills (bills that authorise government expenditure of public revenue) or bills that impose taxation, that role being reserved for the lower house; it can only approve, reject or defer them. That degree of equality between the Senate and House of Representatives reflects the desire of the Constitution's authors to address smaller states' desire for strong powers for the Senate as a way of ensuring that the interests of more populous states as represented in the House of Representatives did not totally dominate the government. This situation was also partly due to the age of the Australian constitution – it was enacted before the confrontation in 1909 in Britain between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which ultimately resulted in the restrictions placed on the powers of the House of Lords by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949.