curious...

A House of Representatives election can held more or less at any time. At the request of the Prime Minister, the Governor-General issues the writs for a general election setting down the day when polling must be conducted. Under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, this must be a Saturday and be between 33 and 58 days from the issue of the writ.

The complication is the Senate election. The Constitution fixes the terms of Senators at six years, and an election for the Senate cannot be held until one year before the expiry of Senate terms. The current half-Senate facing election expires on 30 June 2005. Therefore a Senate election cannot be held before 1 July 2004.

An old High Court ruling defines an election as covering the whole period from issue of writ to polling day. Therefore, the writ for a half Senate election cannot be issued before July 1, and with a minimum campaign period, the first possible date for an election this year is 7 August.

If the government wanted to call an election for August 7, the writ would probably be issued on Monday 5 July. The complication is that while the Governor-General issues the writ for the House of Representatives and the two Territory Senate elections, the writ for the six state half-Senate elections are issued by the state Governors. With the paperwork transfer to the states, this usually means the election is announced a day or two before the issue of the writs.

The last possible date for a Federal election is 16 April 2005. Three year terms are timed from the first sitting of a Parliament, not the date of the last election. The current Parliament first sat in February 2002, though the election
was held in November 2001. It seems highly unlikely that the government would hold off until 2005 before holding the current election.

Note that while a Senate election may be held this year, the Senators from the states will not take their seats until 1 July 2005. The four Territory Senators would take their seats at once, but the other 72 Senators would remain in place until 30 June next year, whatever the result of the Senate election.

are you as confised as I am after reading this? it comes from this site, which has a whole lot more info about the Australian electoral system:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/questions.htm