The size of the Senate has changed over the years. The Australian Constitution requires that the number of Senators approximate as nearly as possible to half of the number of members of the House of Representatives, and it has therefore grown periodically. Currently, each of the six States of Australia has 12 Senators, while the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have two each. The Senators for the Northern Territory also represent voters from Australia's Indian Ocean Territories (Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands), while the Senators for the Australian Capital Territory also represent voters from the Jervis Bay Territory.
Normally, half of the Senate is contested at each election, for terms of up to six years, but during a double dissolution, every seat faces re-election. Senators from the territories only serve half-terms, and must stand for re-election every three years. Unlike the House of Representatives, Senators serve fixed terms which expire on the 30th of June every three years. Thus, while the voters elect Senators at the same time as lower house members, such Senators' term of office does not begin until the 1st of July following their election. As a result, the new Parliament will often sit for some time with the old, lame-duck Senate.
The House Of Representatives can be dissolved and elected at any time for three year terms, the Senate is elected for a fixed term and Senators from the States serve six years and Senators from the Territories serve the same term as House members do.
The reference to Canada is apposite, because the example of Canada demonstrates, by the effects of the absence of a federal structure, the effects of having such a structure in Australia. Canada has several problems, some of which, such as the problem of Quebec nationalism, do not provide comparisons with Australia. One of those problems in recent times, however, has been the extreme alienation of the outlying provinces, particularly the western provinces, caused by the domination of government by the centres of population. So fed up did the western provinces become with the domination of the federal government by Toronto and Montreal (cf Sydney and Melbourne), that they spawned a new political party, the Reform Party, which was able virtually to wipe out one of the established major parties in a general election. While this may be seen as a fresh breeze blowing, such a geographical division bodes ill for the unity of the country. Such serious alienation has not occurred in Australia, and a primary reason for this is that the federal structure of the legislature, unlike the non-federal structure of the legislature in Canada, has altered the representational system by forcing majorities to be geographically distributed. It is significant that one of the demands of reformers in Canada is for a Senate like Australia's, representing the provinces equally and with real legislative powers. They refer to it as a "triple-E Senate", elected, equal and effective. [7] A disgruntled would-be politician from the western provinces told me that he favoured those provinces seceding from Canada and joining the United States. When asked why they would do such a thing, his first response was that they would each have two senators in Washington and therefore would not be ignored as they were ignored by Ottawa.
In terms of constitutional thinking, the American model stresses the written black and white letters fundamentally, while Canada is very British/Anglo in the sense that "evolution of the unwritten, but important, part of our constitution" is of paramount importance.
Like New Zealand or Britain itself but like the United STates or (to an extent) Australia, you can circumsvent the constitution by piecewisely enactment whatever "fixes/remedies", and when this becomes fait accomopanli, it forms the coutnry's constitutional arrangements.