Majors Stitch Up Senate Term Lengths, Film At 11

When the Senate resumes at the end of the month, one of its first items of business will be to allocate the Senators to six-year and three-year terms.  Today both major parties indicated that they will use the order-of-election method, under which the first six Senators who were elected in each state's cutup will receive six-year terms and the remainder three-year terms.  Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann has stated:

 "The important point is obviously this is a function of how many votes and how many preferences you are able to attract. If you are elected in the first six out of 12 then it stands to reason that you were elected earlier and as such you qualify for the longer period."

Labor's Penny Wong has issued a statement saying Labor will support the order-of-election method and saying that it "reflects the will of the voters".

The Electoral Act requires the AEC to conduct a "Section 282 recount" to simulate which Senators would have filled the first six places at a half-Senate election based on the same votes, as an alternative to using the order-of-election method.  However there is no requirement that the Senate use the recount to decide the order.  While the Senate affirmed in both 1998 and 2010 that the recount should be used, those decisions were not binding on the current Senate, and were under the old system anyway.