Talk:Casual vacancy (Australian Parliament)

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[edit] Australian exclusive term?

Is this term exclusive to Australia? It seems a fairly standard phrase for a mid-term vacancy and I'm sure I've heard it used for organisations (although not Parliament) in the UK. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

For that matter, is there any other kind of vacancy besides a "casual" one? The article seems to cover exhaustively every possible reason for a seat becoming vacant. --Russ (talk) 13:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I take that as a compliment, although there are really only 3 ways - death, resignation, or expulsion (only ever happened once, 87 years ago). What's complex is the ways such vacancies in the Senate have historically been filled, particularly when it comes to the territories. The term "Casual vacancies" appears in the Constitution. It's the heading of Section 15, and it also appears when the "Constitutional Alteration (Senate Casual Vacancies) 1977" is referred to in that section. Section 15 is about the Senate only, but the term is generally applied to vacancies in either house, because they arise in exactly the same three ways. So, the term has a strong legal basis in Australia.

But it may also be used in other countries in reference to things both parliamentary and non-parliamentary. To disambig, I would certainly support the article being moved to something like "Casual vacancy (Australian Parliament)". -- JackofOz (talk) 01:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I've done a search and it is widely used elsewhere. Disambiguation is overdue, so I'll do it now. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)