The dates suggested by the Chief Electoral Officer for the purposes of the next gen-eral election have been submitted to me by direction of the Minister for Home Affairs for review. The Minister also desires to know whether the writs can be issued on the same date as the dissolution of Parliament.

The dates suggested appear to me to comply with the Electoral Act and the Constitution.

Section 32 of the Constitution provides that after the first general election, the writs shall be issued within ten days from the expiry of a House of Representatives or from the proclamation of a dissolution thereof. This seems to contemplate the issue of the writs after the dissolution has taken place. If the writs were issued on the same day as the dissolution took place it might be said that the issue of the writs and the dissol-ution were contemporaneous.

I am not prepared to advise that the writs could not be issued on the same day as the dissolution, but I think that it would be much safer to issue them on one of the ten days following after the dissolution.

[Vol. 11, p. 79]