Source: catallaxyfiles.com --- Monday, October 09, 2017
In February 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam appointed Senator Lionel Murphy to the High Court of Australia despite him never having held judicial office. At that time, there was a convention in operation that a ‘casual’ Senate vacancy should be filled by a member of the same political party. On 27 February 1975, the Premier of New South Wales, Tom Lewis, controversially broke with this convention and appointed Cleaver Bunton, a person with no political affiliations, to replace Murphy in the Senate. As a result of this and another incident wherein Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Peterson appointed Albert Field, nominally an ALP member but not active politically and not the ALP’s nomination, to replace a deceased Senator, the Constitution was amended in 1977 to give force to the convention that a casual Senate vacancy should be filled by a member of the same political party. The new section 15 states: If the place of a Senator becomes vacant before the expiration of his term of service, the Houses of Parliament of the State for which he was chosen, sitting and voting together, or, if there is only one House of that Parliament, that House, shall choose a person to hold the place until the expiration of the term. But if the Parliament of the State is not in session when the vacancy is notified, the Governor of the State, with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, may appoint a person to hold that place until the expiration o ...
from Australia http://ift.tt/2kCgAtz
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