Monday 9 May 2016

For those who want to know the frontrunners and timetable for this excrutiatingly long federal election campaign



Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has today visited the Governor-General, who agreed to a request for a double dissolution for the House and the whole Senate to be held on on July 2 2016.


The date of 2 July has been adopted to avoid Senate terms being back dated to 2015, and ensures the newly elected government gets close to a full three year term. 

This timing means that a longer than normal campaign will be held. To achieve this, the government has chosen to wait a week after the dissolution before issuing writs, and has allowed an extra week between the close of the electoral rolls and the close of nominations.

The timetable for the election is –

9 May - both houses of parliament dissolved
16 May - election writs issued
23 May - close of electoral rolls
9 June - close of nominations with ballot paper details issued 10 June and early voting should begin 14 June
2 July - polling day
8 August - date set for return of writs

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