State politics in the US state of Wisconsin grabbed the spotlight early this year when governor Scott Walker introduced laws to strip away collective bargaining rights from public sector workers in the state. This triggered massive protests and the legislation was delayed when Democrats in the state senate left the state to prevent a quorum from being reached in the chamber.

Eventually the laws were passed, although the laws continue to be contested in the courts. Following this decision, Wisconsin’s Democratic Party and unions moved their focus to defeating Republicans at the polls. Since the protests in February, polls have suggested large majorities of voters opposing the law, and suggest that Walker would have lost a rematch with his 2010 Democratic opponent were a new election to be held.

Walker was one of several Tea Party-backed Republicans who had won office in “purple” states such as Michigan and Ohio. The 2010 elections also saw several states, including Wisconsin, elect new Republican majorities in the legislature.

Wisconsin is one of 18 states that has a system of recall petitions. This system allows voters to sign a petition demanding the removal of their legislator or of the governor. If a high threshold is met, an election is held in that district. If a majority vote to remove the sitting representative, then the result of the new election kicks in.

The best-known example of recall elections took place in California in 2003, when Democratic governor Gray Davis was recalled, and the subsequent election was won by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Recall elections are rare, but do happen occasionally on lower levels.

In Wisconsin, Democratic supporters, particularly unions, swung into action targeting Republican state senators in marginal districts. In the end, petitions were successfully filed against six Republicans. Republicans likewise filed petitions against three Democrats.

The Republicans currently hold 19 of 33 seats in the legislature. If the Democrats can defeat at least three of the six Republicans facing recall, and protect their three senators, the Democrats will regain control of the state senate and put a halt to Walker’s agenda less than a year since he won election.

Like Scott Walker, new NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell has targeted the wages and conditions of public sector workers on the grounds of improving the state’s budget position. When he proposed laws giving the finance minister authority to overrule or circumvent the Industrial Relations Commission when determining wages and conditions for public sector workers, activists on Twitter referred to the policy as “NSWisconsin”.

Industrial relations law changes aren’t the only area where Wisconsin and New South Wales are following similar paths. When he was opposition leader, O’Farrell promised to consider changing the NSW Constitution to allow for recall elections. With the former NSW government clearly headed towards defeat long before March, many people were looking for ways to shorten the term of the very unpopular government.

O’Farrell has already made the first moves in carrying out this policy, appointing a panel of experts last week to look into options for how to implement such a policy.

While recall elections are common in US states, it has not been a regular part of any Westminster system democracy. The only Westminster legislature to have enacted recall provisions was the Canadian province of British Columbia, which approved the measure overwhelmingly in a 1991 referendum. The BC provision has never been used. One petition was on track to pass in 1998 when the MP targeted by the petition chose to resign.

Any recall provision will need to be approved by a referendum, which would presumably be held alongside the 2015 election. A key question yet to be answered is whether the policy would allow recall petitions to be filed against individual MPs (as is the case in British Columbia and in American states) or only against the entire Parliament (which is what O’Farrell’s statements suggest). The former would be much more likely to be used.

It is yet to be seen how popular such a policy would be, but after the past four years, many NSW voters would appreciate a mechanism to bring an unpopular government to a speedy end.