Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives
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The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Australia. The other presiding officer is the President of the Senate.
The office of Speaker is created by the Constitution of Australia. The authors of the Constitution intended that the House of Representatives should be as nearly as possible a replica of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Section 35 of the Constitution provides:
The House of Representatives shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other business, choose a member to be the Speaker of the House, and as often as the office of Speaker becomes vacant the House shall again choose a member to be the Speaker.
The Speaker is elected by the House of Representatives in a secret ballot. The Clerk conducts the election. The first Speaker, Sir Frederick Holder, sat as an independent after his election as Speaker, but since his death in 1909 the Speakership has been a partisan office and the nominee of the government party has always been elected. Unlike the Speaker of the House of Commons in Britain, the Speaker continues to attend party meetings, and at general elections stands as a party candidate.
There is no convention in Australia that the Speaker should not be opposed in his or her constituency, and three Speakers (Groom in 1929, Nairn in 1943 and Aston in 1972) have been defeated at general elections. Because the Speaker is always the nominee of the governing party, there is no expectation that a Speaker will continue in office following a change of government. While the Opposition sometimes nominates one of its own members for Speaker after a general election, this is understood to be a symbolic act, and party discipline is always followed in any ballot.
Although Australian Speakers are supposed to behave with reasonable impartiality, they see it as part of their duty to support the Government of the day in getting its business through the House, and generally rule in favour of the Government on the frequent points of order raised by Opposition members. Speakers are regularly accused of favouring the Government, and on occasion motions of dissent in the Speaker's rulings or motions of no confidence in the Speaker are moved. These are always defeated along party lines.
On the other hand, the Speaker is not an active political figure like the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He or she does not take part in debates in the House, does not vote in the House except in the (rare) event of a tied vote, and does not speak in public on party-political issues (except at election time in his or her own constituency). He or she is expected to conduct the business of the House in an impartial manner, and generally does so. The Speaker is assisted by two elected Deputy Speakers, one of whom, by convention, comes from the Opposition party.
The Speaker's principal duty is to preside over the House, although he is assisted in this by the Deputy Speakers and a panel of Acting Speakers, who usually preside during routine debates. The occupant of the Chair must maintain order in the House, uphold the Standing Orders (rules of procedure), rule on points of order, and protect the rights of backbench members. The Speaker, in conjunction with the President of the Senate, also administers Parliament House, Canberra, with the assistance of an administrative staff.
Australian parliaments are notoriously rowdy, and the Speaker frequently exercises the disciplinary powers available under Standing Orders. The Speaker may summarily order a Member to excuse him or herself from the House for one hour. For more serious offences, the Speaker may "name" a Member: he says "I name the Honourable Member for X," following the House's convention that Members are always referred to by their electorate. The House then votes on a motion to suspend the Member for 24 hours. (The House also had the power to expel a Member, but this happened only once, in 1920 – the member was Hugh Mahon. Under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act, 1987 [1] the House no longer has the power to expel a member from membership of the House.)
Most Speakers have been senior backbenchers of the party holding office at the start of a new Parliament, or at the time of the death or resignation of an incumbent Speaker. Four Speakers have been former government ministers (Watt, Groom, Cameron and Sinclair), one a former Parliamentary Secretary (Martin), and one (Snedden) both a former minister and a former Leader of the Opposition. There is no convention in Australia that Speakers should resign from Parliament on the end of their term: two Speakers (Makin and Scholes) have become Cabinet ministers after having been Speaker.
There have been several memorable clashes between Speakers and the governments which caused them to be elected.
- In 1929 Speaker Sir Littleton Groom declined to come into the House and cast a vote in committee when his vote would have saved the Bruce government from defeat. As a result he was expelled from the Nationalist Party and defeated in his constituency at the subsequent election.
- In 1975 the Whitlam government refused to support Speaker James Cope when he named a government minister for disrespect to the Chair: normally this would have resulted in the minister's suspension from the House. The Speaker resigned on the spot, although he was under no obligation to do so.
- In 1982 Speaker Sir Billy Snedden refused to insist that an opposition frontbencher, Bob Hawke, retract an allegation that the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, was a liar. Snedden stood his ground despite furious demands from government members that Hawke either be made to retract or be named.
For more information on Speakers of Houses of Parliament, see Speaker.
[edit] Speakers of the House of Representatives
| Member | Party | Term in Office | Comments |
| Hon Sir Frederick Holder | Independent | May 9, 1901 – July 23, 1909 | Died in office, collapsing in the Speaker's Chair attempting to control a raucus house during a 14-hour parliamentary session |
| Hon Dr Charles Salmon | Commonwealth Liberal Party | July 23, 1909 – June 30, 1910 | |
| Hon Charles McDonald | Australian Labor Party | July 1, 1910 – July 8, 1913 | First time in role. |
| Hon Sir Elliot Johnson | Commonwealth Liberal Party | July 9, 1913 – October 7, 1914 | First time in role. |
| Hon Charles McDonald | Australian Labor Party | October 8, 1914 – June 13, 1917 | Second time in role. |
| Hon Sir Elliot Johnson | Nationalist Party of Australia | June 14, 1917 – February 27, 1923 | Second time in role. |
| Rt Hon William Watt | Nationalist Party of Australia | February 28, 1923 – January 12, 1926 | |
| Hon Sir Littleton Groom | Nationalist Party of Australia | January 13, 1926 – October 11, 1929 | Defeated in his own seat |
| Hon Norman Makin | Australian Labor Party | November 20, 1929 – February 16, 1932 | |
| Hon George Mackay | United Australia Party | February 17, 1932 – August 7, 1934 | |
| Hon Sir George Bell | United Australia Party | October 23, 1934 – November 19, 1940 | |
| Hon Walter Nairn | United Australia Party | November 20, 1940 – June 21, 1943 | Defeated in his own seat |
| Hon Sol Rosevear | Australian Labor Party | June 22, 1943 – February 21, 1950 | |
| Hon Archie Cameron | Liberal Party of Australia | February 22, 1950 – August 9, 1956 | Died in office |
| Hon Sir John McLeay | Liberal Party of Australia | August 29, 1956 – October 31, 1966 | |
| Hon Sir William Aston | Liberal Party of Australia | February 21, 1967 – November 2, 1972 | Defeated in his own seat |
| Hon James Cope | Australian Labor Party | February 27, 1973 – February 27, 1975 | |
| Hon Gordon Scholes | Australian Labor Party | February 27, 1975 – 16 February 1976[1] | |
| Rt Hon Sir Billy Snedden | Liberal Party of Australia | February 17, 1976 – February 4, 1983 | |
| Hon Dr Harry Jenkins | Australian Labor Party | April 22, 1983 – February 11, 1986 | First Speaker whose son was a later Speaker |
| Hon Joan Child | Australian Labor Party | February 11, 1986 – August 28, 1989 | First female Speaker |
| Hon Leo McLeay | Australian Labor Party | August 29, 1989 – February 8, 1993 | |
| Hon Stephen Martin | Australian Labor Party | May 4, 1993 – April 30, 1996 | |
| Hon Robert Halverson | Liberal Party of Australia | April 30, 1996 – March 3, 1998 | |
| Rt Hon Ian Sinclair | National Party of Australia | March 4, 1998 – November 10, 1998 | |
| Hon Neil Andrew | Liberal Party of Australia | November 10, 1998 – November 16, 2004 | |
| Hon David Hawker | Liberal Party of Australia | November 16, 2004-February 12, 2008 | |
| Hon Harry Jenkins | Australian Labor Party | February 12, 2008-present | First Speaker whose father was a previous Speaker |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Biography for Scholes, the Hon. Gordon Glen Denton, AO. ParlInfo Web. Parliament of Australia. Retrieved on 2007-08-24.
