[codebje]

Here in Australia the (single party) government of the day was dismissed in 1975 after failing to secure a supply bill. The government was dismissed by the Governor General, the Crown's representative in Australia, and the event sparked a bit of a ruckus. Google: The Whitlam Dismissal.

There's lots of instances of our government requesting dissolution of the Houses following failure to secure votes, but in most cases they're for things other than operating expense bills, taken as proxies indicating the government does not have the confidence of the House to continue to act. Since failure to secure a bill is grounds for dissolving Parliament, it's not likely to be used for political grandstanding here.

[sturadnidge]

Always good to come across fellow Australians in here!

I’d probably argue for an exception on that one, given the Whitlam government didn’t have a senate majority… but at the very least, I feel like a single case in the last 50 years is pretty supportive of my argument. The US government is on the verge of shutdown so often these days that I wonder how many people are desensitised to the situation!

[Ekaros]

How does failing to pass budget affect debt repayments? Could they simply end up defaulting sometime in future? That is not great outlook for a "reserve currency".

[averageRoyalty]

I mean it happened earlier this year in Tasmania, and it was absolutely for grandstanding purposes, given they'd had an election less than a year before.

[codebje]

I only considered the Federal level, it's nice to get some input about state level shenanigans.

(And despite the grandstanding, they still agreed to pass supply bills to allow the public service to operate!)

[sturadnidge]

Really - I totally missed that! Will have a read about it, but could you elaborate on the ‘grandstanding’ aspect?

EDIT: wow, what a mess!