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The GG in Australia has the power to dissolve parliament, yes. This has only been done once (that I am aware of) and that was when the sitting government lost

The GG in Australia has the power to dissolve parliament, yes. This has only been done once (that I am aware of) and that was when the sitting government lost control of parliament and could no longer pass the laws required to pay the bills. The GG approached the leader of the opposition and asked if he was able to gain control of the house of representatives and start government working again. There has been a lot of speculation about the legality of this event and it would be a very brave Prime Minister who would allow things to go this far again without calling an election and an even braver GG who would not politely point out to the Prime Minister that he was behaving like an idiot, accept he'd lost control and let somebody else get on with running the country.

vacri 10y ago
The GG has only dissolved government without PM's request once, but if supply is blocked in Parliament for the same act twice in a row, the PM can request the GG dissolve parliament in a double-dissolution. This is what happened with our last federal election - some random act, I can't recall, was blocked twice by the opposition and minority parties. Both sides thought they'd win the election, so they were happy to dissolve over a relatively minor issue. Basically the GG is there to keep parliament ticking over, and not descend into the madness of the last six years in the US where the chamber is eternally deadlocked (party 1 head of government against a party 2 chamber). It's bizarre how many ways the US has to stall its government (eg filibustering, debt limit, etc), and how few to ensure it keeps ticking along...