Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses (chambers) of the Parliament of Australia. It is the lower house, the upper house being the Senate.

The 150 members of the House are elected from single-member electorates (geographic districts, sometimes known as "seats" but officially known as "Divisions of the Australian House of Representatives"). Each electorate has between 59,000 and 120,000 voters. They are designed to be relatively equal across the state or territory within which the electorate exists. Voting is by the 'preferential system' (usually referred to elsewhere as the instant-runoff voting).

The number of electorates in each State and Territory is determined by population. The parliamentary entitlement of a State or Territory is established by the Electoral Commissioner dividing the number of the people of the Commonwealth (that is, of the six States) by twice the number of State Senators. The population of each State and Territory is then divided by this quota to determine the number of members to which each State and Territory is entitled. All original States are guaranteed at least five members, and the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory are both guaranteed at least one member.

According to the Australian Constitution, the powers of both houses are nearly equal, with the consent of both houses needed to pass legislation. The difference mostly relates to taxation legislation. In practice, by convention, the leader of the party (or coalition of parties) with a majority of members in the lower house is invited by the Governor-General to form the Government. Thus the leader becomes the Prime Minister and some of the other elected members of the Government party in both the House and the Senate become ministers responsible for various portfolios and administer government departments. Bills appropriating money (supply bills) can only be introduced or modified in the lower house and thus only the party with a majority in the lower house can govern. In the current Australian party system, this ensures that virtually all contentious votes are along party lines, and the Government always has a majority in those votes.

The Opposition party's main role in the House is to present arguments against the Government's policies and legislation, and attempt to hold the government accountable as much as possible by asking questions of importance during Question Time and during debates on legislation. In recent times, the Senate, by contrast, has not had a majority from the Government of the day (both Liberal/National Coalition and Labor), so votes in the Senate have become more meaningful. However, the Coalition Government gained a Senate majority from 1 July 2005, following the 2004 election. The House's well-established committee system is not always as prominent as the Senate committee system because of the frequent lack of Senate majority.

In a reflection of the United Kingdom House of Commons, the predominant colour of the furnishings in the House of Representatives is green. However, the colour was tinted slightly to suggest the colour of eucalyptus trees.

1 Seats won by party at Australian elections, 1946 - 2007
2 Main Committee
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Seats won by party at Australian elections, 1946 - 2007

Seats Won
Election	ALP	LIB	NAT	Other	Total
1946	43	15	11	5	74
1949	47	55	19		121
1951	52	52	17		121
1954	57	47	17		121
1955	47	57	18		122
1958	45	58	19		122
1961	60	45	17		122
1963	50	52	20		122
1966	41	61	21		124
1969	59	46	20		125
1972	67	38	20		125
1974	66	40	21		127
1975	36	68	23		127
1977	38	67	19		124
1980	51	54	20		125
1983	75	33	17		125
1984	82	45	21		148
1987	86	43	19		148
1990	78	55	14	1	148
1993	80	49	16	2	147
1996	49	75	19	5	148
1998	67	64	16	1	148
2001	65	69	13	3	150
2004	60	75	12	3	150
2007	83	55	10	2	150

[edit] Main Committee

An interesting feature of the Australian House is its Main Committee, designed to be an alternative debating chamber; it is modeled after the Committee of the Whole that exists in several different legislatures, particularly the United States House of Representatives and British House of Commons. Matters considered to be relatively uncontroversial can be referred by the entire House to the Main Committee, where substantive debate can take place. The Main Committee cannot, however, initiate nor make a final decision on any parliamentary business, although it can perform all tasks in between.^[2]

The Main Committee was created in 1994, to relieve some of the burden of the entire House: different matters can be processed in the House at large and in the Main Committee, as they sit simultaneously. It is designed to be less formal, with a quorum of only three members: the Deputy Speaker of the House, one government member, and one non-government member. Decisions must be unanimous: any divided decision sends the question back to the House at large.

The Main Committee was created through the House's Standing Orders:^[3] it is thus a subordinate body of the House, and can only be in session while the House itself is in session. When a division vote in the House occurs, members in the Main Committee must return to the House to vote.

The Main Committee is housed in one of the House's committee rooms: the room is customized for this purpose and is laid out to resemble the House chamber.^[4]

Due to the unique role of the Main Committee, proposals have been made to rename the body to avoid confusion with other parliamentary committees. Proposals include "Second Chamber"^[5] and "Federation Chamber".^[6]

The concept of a parallel body to expedite Parliamentary business, based on the Australian Main Committee, was mentioned in a 1998 British House of Commons report.^[7]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22842968-29277,00.html
^ "The Structure Of The Australian House Of Representatives Over Its First One Hundred Years: The Impact Of Globalisation," Ian Harris
^ Standing and Sessional Orders, House of Representatives
^ Main Committee Fact Sheet, Parliamentary Education Office
^ The Second Chamber: Enhancing the Main Committee, House of Representatives
^ Renaming the Main Committee, House of Representatives
^ Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons First Report. British House of Commons (7 December 1998). Retrieved on 2007-06-20.

[edit] External links

House of Representatives Committees - Parliament of Australia

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Categories: National lower houses | Politics of Australia | Westminster system | Parliament of Australia

Australian House of Representatives

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Contents

[edit] Seats won by party at Australian elections, 1946 - 2007

[edit] Main Committee

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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