Dissolved is an alarming word for something ordinary. Parliament stops existing for a few weeks - and the country keeps running the entire time.
Before an election, Parliament is dissolved. The first time I read that, I pictured a building being emptied out and everyone being told to go home in disgrace.
It is much less dramatic and quite a lot stranger.
Dissolving Parliament means the House of Representatives stops existing. Not the government - Parliament. Every MP stops being an MP. There is nobody to ask questions in the House, because there is no House. That is not a crisis; it is the necessary step before an election, because an election is how a new Parliament gets made.
The bit that took me longest to understand is what happens to the country in the gap.
The government keeps going. Ministers stay ministers, so decisions can still be made, and the public service keeps doing its work - hospitals, schools, benefits, borders, police. But by convention, a government in this period does not make big new commitments that would tie the hands of whoever wins. It keeps the lights on rather than redecorating.
That is a convention, not a law you could be arrested for breaking, which I find remarkable. A lot of how this country runs sits on things everyone has agreed to do rather than things anyone is forced to do.
After dissolution, the writ is issued - a formal instruction to hold the election - and the timetable clicks into place: nominations, advance voting, election day, the count, and then the new Parliament meets and MPs are sworn in.
So for a few weeks, we have a government and no Parliament. The people who check the government's work are, temporarily, only us.
Question for the reader
During those weeks, nobody can stand up in the House and demand an answer. If you think that matters, who does the checking instead - journalists, courts, officials, voters?
And here is the sharper version. A government in that gap is meant to hold back voluntarily. What should happen if one did not? Who would stop it, and with what?