MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Voting to elect lawmakers in Australia will be held on July 2 if the current parliament fails to pass two union bills, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Monday.
The next federal elections are due to be held before the start of 2017. Turnbull requested the monarchy’s representative to assemble upper and lower house lawmakers in mid-April to give the two bills an up or down vote.
"If we do proceed to a double dissolution, the election will be on Saturday, July 2," Turnbull told reporters, referring to the first move since 1987 to dissolve both houses of parliament.
The new voting will take place under new reforms enacted by lawmakers last week, making it harder for micro-parties to get elected through backroom preference deals.
