cam . # .

Similar experience to Australia: convention is only legislated over once someone breaks it, and it leaves a lasting scar - like the dismissal when Lewis and Bjelke-Peterson went against convention and appointed Senators that were not from the party that vacated the Senate.

This produced a referendum question two years later; Senate Casual Vacancies . It does put parties in the constitution;

Where a vacancy has at any time occurred in the place of a senator chosen by the people of a State and, at the time when he was so chosen, he was publicly recognised by a particular political party as being an endorsed candidate, a person chosen or appointed under this section in consequence of that vacancy, or in consequence of that vacancy and a subsequent vacancy or vacancies, shall, unless there is no member of that party available to be chosen or appointed, be a member of that party.

Where;

(a) in accordance with the last preceding paragraph, a member of a particular political party is chosen or appointed to hold the place of a senator whose place had become vacant; and
(b) before taking his seat he cease to be a member of that party (otherwise than by reason of the party having ceased to exist),

Is it preferable to have former members rotate through a faux position requiring retirement, or to have political parties entrenched in the constitution in order to avoid the race condition that is the reserve powers in the Australian constitution?

cam