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Can two people be one federal MP? It’s a question Lucy Bradlow and Brownen Bock are grappling with after they announced they would contest the Victorian seat of Higgins at the next election as independent candidates and a job-sharing team. The idea is that they would work week on, week off, with a handover at the end of the week.
But is this actually constitutional? Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey writes the pair would have to overcome several legal obstacles in order to make a job-sharing arrangement possible. In other words, it would take more than just updating candidate nomination forms to allow for two names.
While the Constitution does not stipulate if an electorate should be a single member or multiple member - it left that up to the parliament - it does restrict the number of people who can be in the parliament. If unknown numbers of job-sharers were allowed be elected, it would risk breaching the Constitution each election. And even if they were to be treated as fulfilling the duties of an “office” rather than as separate MPs, it still wouldn’t work, because the Constitution doesn’t provide for two people to be sworn in as a single member.
There are other hurdles too, which leads Twomey to conclude that at the very least, the idea of job-sharing MPs would need proper debate and legislation, and then constitutional amendment - meaning a referendum - on the issue. As Twomey says, “this would also be the most democratic course, as the people could have their say about how they wanted to be represented”.
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Amanda Dunn
Politics + Society Editor
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Anne Twomey, University of Sydney
If two people were to job-share the role of federal MP, it would take much more than changing the Electoral Act.
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Rob Nicholls, University of Sydney
The billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) has taken aim at Australia’s eSafety Commissioner over being told to remove videos from his site. It’s just the tip of the legal iceberg.
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Sophie Yates, Australian National University; Laura Davy, Australian National University
Structuring the NDIS around principles of choice and control recognised that not having those things puts people with disability in more vulnerable situations. That’s true for support workers, too.
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William Geary, The University of Melbourne; Dale Nimmo, Charles Sturt University; Julianna Santos, The University of Melbourne; Kristina J Macdonald, Deakin University
We compiled maps of bushfires and prescribed burns in southern Australia from 1980 to 2021 to see how fire activity is changing habitat for 129 threatened species such as mountain pygmy possums.
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Matthew Crocker, Deakin University
Every time the Reserve Bank has pushed up interest rates in order to take money out of the system, it’s also been putting money in, in a way it didn’t use to.
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Christopher Pepping, Griffith University; Geoff Macdonald, University of Toronto; Tim Cronin, La Trobe University; Yuthika Girme, Simon Fraser University
Secure, anxious, avoidant, fearful: research shows people’s feelings about being single may depend on their attachment style
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Wes Hill, Southern Cross University
Archie Moore is the first Australian to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, given to the best national pavilion at the world’s oldest and most renowned art biennale.
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Craig Billingham, UNSW Sydney
For poet Robert Adamson, the natural world offered a form of deliverance.
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Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Conrad Pilditch, University of Waikato; Simon Francis Thrush, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Pollution on land inevitably ends up in the sea. Policy makers must stop working in silos and instead consider the indirect consequences human impacts on land have for marine environments.
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Politics + Society
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Zoe Rathus, Griffith University
Equal shared parental responsibility will no longer automatically be considered to be in a child’s best interest. That’s a good thing, particularly in domestic violence situations.
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Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne
The increasing cost of living may be denting support for the Labor government.
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Health + Medicine
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Becky Freeman, University of Sydney
Under the new law, the legal age for cigarette sales will increase by a year each year from 2027. This means people born from 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes in the UK.
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Suzanne Nielsen, Monash University; Amanda Roxburgh, Burnet Institute; Richard Armour, Monash University
Nitazenes can be up to 50 times stronger than fentanyl. They’re not yet common in Australia so now is the time to implement policies to reduce their harm and limit their uptake.
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Science + Technology
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Adam B. Watts, The University of Western Australia
When astronomers focused on the galaxy NGC 4383, they didn’t expect the data to be so spectacular. This is the first detailed map of gas flowing from this galaxy as stars burst within.
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Environment + Energy
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John Turnbull, University of Sydney; Emma Johnston, University of Sydney; Graeme Clark, University of Sydney; Steph Gardner, University of Sydney
Bleached coral draws our attention, but marine heat does damage to many unseen parts of these ecosystems.
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Arts + Culture
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Sarah Austin, The University of Melbourne
Set in 1990s suburban Australia, The Exact Dimensions of Hell is a theatrical exploration that unflinchingly examines themes of teenage girls, desire and power.
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Business + Economy
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Mark Rickerby, University of Canterbury
The Rotorua woman wrongly identified by a supermarket facial recognition system says ethnicity was a ‘huge factor’. Her case shows why human-centered design is needed to avoid misuse, bias and harm.
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