What is a double dissolution election and how likely is it that Australian voters will be forced into one?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is apparently willing to risk it all to get Labor’s polarising housing reforms and environmental laws through Parliament.

On Tuesday, Mr Albanese was asked whether he would consider shutting down the House of Representatives and Senate and triggering a fateful double dissolution election to get his way. And he didn’t rule it out.

Instead, the PM put the onus back onto the Greens and the Coalition to prevent a double dissolution, saying getting their support was the “one way” to avoid it.

“It’s for the Coalition and the Greens to vote for legislation that they support,” he said.

A double dissolution is one of those obscure political tools that’s wheeled out every now and again and prompts lots of questions.

What is it? How is it different to a normal election? And why do we need one?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is a double dissolution election?

A double dissolution occurs when both the Senate and House of Representatives are shut down and a Federal election is triggered.

In a normal election every three years, all 151 seats of the House of Representatives are contested, but only half of the 76 seats in the Senate are (because Senators are on six-year terms).

In a double dissolution election, all 227 seats in both the House and Senate are up for grabs. After-the-fact, elected senators will learn if they have a long (six-year) term or short (three-year) term.

Why might we be having one now?

A double dissolution election is a kind of circuit breaker when the two chambers are in a deadlock.

Under Section 57 of the Australian Constitution, the prime minister of the day can ask the governor-general to dissolve both chambers if the Government can’t get their legislation through the Senate on two occasions — with a period of at least three months between each attempt.

We may be heading for one now because of two Labor bills, neither of which have won bipartisan or crossbench support.

Labor’s shared equity scheme, Help to Buy, will be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday but is set to fail given the Government has failed to garner support from the Coalition, the Greens or the crossbench.

Nor has Labor won support for its Build to Rent scheme, which is also before the Senate this week.

If the Help to Buy scheme flops in the Senate, that would be step one on the road to double dissolution.

Labor has also reached a stalemate on its Nature Positive reforms with Mr Albanese ruling out meeting the Greens’ demand of a climate trigger and no deal yet reached with the Coalition.

Why would Albo want a double dissolution?

Well, he mightn’t really want a double dissolution election — they rarely go well for the government — but it can be a mighty handy political tool for a government to have in its back pocket.

Sometimes the threat alone of a double dissolution election is enough to get the opposition or crossbench on-side.

It’s kind of like school kids threatening to tattle to a teacher because some other kids are blocking them from playing handball at lunchtime. If Labor are the kids wanting to play handball, the opposition and crossbench in the Senate are blocking the court.

Labor’s tried to reason — twice! — and they’re fed up. So Labor says if they won’t play ball, they’ll tell the teacher (the governor-general) so no one can play.

And if the teacher gets involved, all the kids have to run around the school to pick new (hopefully bigger) teams.

And then, eventually, the Government can play ball.

But you said a double dissolution rarely goes well for government...

Yes and no. It’s a mixed bag.

There have been seven double dissolution elections in Australia. Only once, in 1951, did the government of the day gain control of the Senate.

In three instances — 1974, 1987, and 2016 — the situation remained pretty much the same. On two occasions — in 1914 and 1983 — the government lost power completely.

Perhaps the most famous double dissolution, however, was in 1975 when Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed by the governor-general and replaced by Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister (who went on to win the election).

If a government of the day is riding high in the polls, they have a much better chance of winning control of the Senate if all of its seats are up for grabs.

Unfortunately for Mr Albanese, though, Labor’s popularity has waned since the 2022 election; some polls have even recorded voters favouring the Coalition over Labor.

It remains to be seen whether a double dissolution election is called at all, but history does not bode well for this Labor Government.

When would a double dissolution election be held?

For many reasons, a double dissolution isn’t right around the corner — least of all because the next Federal election actualyl is looming.

If it all went belly-up for Labor and any of their bills were rejected by the Senate twice in he next three months, it would permit them to ‘trigger’ a double dissolution.

But a double dissolution can’t be held less than six months before the end of the House of Representatives term is up.

Given the last election was in May 2022, that means the latest a double dissolution could be called in this term would be the end of November 2024 (which is only two months away).