Redistribution (Australia)
Section 24 of the Constitution of Australia requires that the total number of members of the Australian House of Representatives shall be "as nearly as practicable" twice as many as the number of members of the Australian Senate. There is presently a total of 76 senators: 12 senators from each of the six states and two from each of the two autonomous internal territories (the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory). There are 150 members of the Australian House of Representatives.
Members of the Australian Senate, 2016–2019
In accordance with section 13 of the Constitution, 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. In 1983 the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform had unanimously recommended an alternative "recount" method to reflect proportional representation, and section 282 of the "Commonwealth Electoral Act" was inserted to provide for a recount on that basis. This alternative method had been supported by both Labor and the Coalition in bipartisan senate resolutions passed in 1998 and 2010.