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Joint Meetings of the Australian Parliament

 A joint meeting of the Australian Parliament is a convening of members of the Senate and House of Representatives sitting together as a single legislative body.

Australia has a bicameral federal Parliament, consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives. Subject to the Constitution of Australia, each House has its own rules, standing orders and procedures, its own presiding officer, and meets separately, at dates and times it alone decides.

However, there are some occasions when the two Houses have come together as a single body. Unlike the Opening of Parliament which is officially made by the Governor-General at the Senate premises, the joint sessions are held at the House of Representatives chamber.


The reasons of joint meetings have included:
  • To resolve deadlocks between the Houses following the trigger of a double dissolution
  • To fill casual vacancies in the representation of the territories in the Senate
  • A special commemorative joint sitting to Celebrate the Centenary of Federation
  • Secret meetings to discuss security-related issues, such as Australia's participation in war
  • To receive addresses by invited guests such as visiting foreign heads of state or government
The Constitution makes provision for a joint sitting as part of a procedure to resolve legislative deadlocks between the House of Representatives and the Senate. Section 57 provides that, under certain circumstances where there is a deadlock over a bill, both chambers may be dissolved in a proclamation called "double dissolution." This is followed by a general election, and the bill may be put to the separate Houses of the newly elected Parliament for reconsideration. If this still fails to resolve the deadlock, the bill may be considered by a joint sitting, convened as a single legislative body. If passed by the joint meeting, the bill will be treated for all purposes as if it had been passed by the two Houses, voting separately.

In the history of Australia so far, there is only a single occasion that a joint sitting has been convened by invoking this provision of the Constitution.

Between 1980 and 1989 when the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) gained self-government, the choice of a replacement ACT senator to fill a casual vacancy was made by a joint sitting of both Houses. This has happened twice in the past.

Casual vacancies for ACT senators are now filled by the ACT Legislative Assembly, under Section 44 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. 

A joint sitting of the federal Parliament would still be used to fill a casual vacancy in the representation of any external territory, in the event that such territory ever gains separate representation in the Senate.

During the Second World War, the Parliament met in secret on a number of occasions, to hear confidential reports on the progress of the war. There is no Hansard records of the proceedings.

General Douglas MacArthur is sometimes reported to have addressed the federal Parliament during World War II. If he addressed the secret joint meetings, it has not been officially recorded. However, General MacArthur was provided with a seat on the floor of the House of Representatives on March 26, 1942, and addressed Federal Members outside of the chamber later that day.

The first address by an invited guest to the Parliament in a formally convened joint sitting of which there was an official record was on January 2, 1992, by US President George H.W. Bush. Later addresses to joint meetings were also from US Presidents: Bill Clinton (1996), and George W. Bush (2003), as well as the paramount leader of China, Hu Jintao (2003) which happened on consecutive days in October that year.

Subsequently, the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure and the Senate Standing Committee of Privileges both recommended that the practice of fornally convening joint sittings for these purposes be discontinued, as they had no constitutional authority, and there were doubts about the ability of the presiding officer of one House giving instructions to members of the other chamber. On March 2, 2006, it was agreed that future addresses by invited dignitaries would be to a session of the House of Representatives only, but to which the President and members of the Senate would be invited as guests.

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