Australian House of Representatives

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

The 150 members of the House are elected from single-member electorates (geographic districts, sometimes known as "seats" but officially known as "Australian House of Representatives electoral Divisions"). These are intended to represent reasonably contiguous regions, with relatively equal voter enrolment in each of about 85,000 people. Voting is by the 'preferential system' (usually referred to elsewhere as the Alternative Vote).

According to the Australian Constitution, the powers of both houses are nearly equal, with the consent of both houses needed to pass 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 (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 rigid 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 only real role in the House is to present arguments against the Government's policies and legislation, and attempt to embarrass the government as much as possible by asking difficult questions at Question Time. In recent times, the Senate, by contrast, had not had a majority from the Government of the day (both Liberal/National Coalition and Labor), so votes in the Senate had become more meaningful. However, the Coalition Government gained a Senate majority from the 1st 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.

Contents

[edit] Latest result

[discuss] – [edit]
Summary of the 9 October 2004 Parliament of Australia election results
Parties Primary Votes House % House Seats House
Liberal Party of Australia 4,741,458 40.5 74
National Party of Australia 690,275 5.9 12


Country Liberal Party-The Territory Party 39,855 0.3 1
Australian Labor Party 4,409,117 37.6 60
Australian Greens 841,734 7.2 -
Family First Party 235,315 2.0 -
Australian Democrats 144,832 1.2 -
One Nation Party 139,956 1.2 -
Christian Democratic Party 72,241 0.6 -
Independents 288,206 2.4 3
Total (turnout 90 %) 11,715,132 100.0 150
Informal votes 639,851
Total votes 12,354,983
Registered voters 13,021,230
Source: Australian Electoral Commission.


[edit] Seats won by party at Australian elections, 1946 - 2004

Australian House of Representatives chamber
Australian House of Representatives chamber
Entrance to the House of Representatives
Entrance to the House of Representatives
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

[edit] Main Committee

A unique development in the Australian House is its Main Committee, designed to be an alternative debating chamber. 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.[1]

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 such, 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[2]: 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.[3]

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"[4] and "Federation Chamber".[5] 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. [1]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Structure Of The Australian House Of Representatives Over Its First One Hundred Years: The Impact Of Globalisation," Ian Harris
  2. ^ Standing and Sessional Orders, House of Representatives
  3. ^ Main Committee Fact Sheet, Parliamentary Education Office
  4. ^ The Second Chamber: Enhancing the Main Committee, House of Representatives
  5. ^ Renaming the Main Committee, House of Representatives

[edit] External links

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