Tasmanian House of Assembly

The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council or Upper House. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart.

Overview

The Assembly has 25 members, with five members coming from each of five electorates with identical names and boundaries as the single-member districts that return Tasmanian members to the Parliament of Australia. Each electorate is intended to represent approximately the same population. Voting for the state parliament is by a form of proportional representation using the single-transferable vote (STV), known as the Hare-Clark system. By having multiple members for each electorate, the voting intentions of the electors are correspondingly represented in the parliament. The system also provides opportunities for individual members to be selected more on their personal attributes, rather than merely as the nominated representative of a political party.

Most legislation is initiated in the House of Assembly. The party or coalition with the most seats in the lower house is invited by the Governor to form government. The leader of that party subsequently becomes the Premier of Tasmania, and his/her senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios. As Australian politicians traditionally vote along party lines, most legislation introduced by the governing party will be passed by the House of Assembly.

History

The House of Assembly was first established in 1856, under legislation passed by the British Parliament creating the independent Colony of Tasmania. The Legislative Council had already existed since 1852. The first elections for the House of Assembly were held in October 1856. The House first met on 2 December 1856 in the area that is now the parliamentary members lounge. The first House had members elected to represent 24 electorates; Hobart had five members, Launceston had three members, and the 22 other electorates each had one member.

In 1906 the old electoral system was abolished and instead the state was divided into five equally represented multi-member electorates. Each electorate would return six members using the Hare-Clark proportional representation system.

In 1959 the number of members per electorate was increased to seven. In 1998 it was reduced to five, resulting in the current 25 member parliament. The reduction has been criticised by minor parties, particularly the Greens, as an attempt to reduce their influence. However since the 2002 election the Green vote has increased and they now hold five seats. In 2010, the leaders of the three main parties—Labor, the Liberals and the Greens—moved to increase the number of seats in the House to 35 for the next state election. The three leaders signed an agreement on 2 September to submit the proposal for public consideration before taking a set of resolutions to their respective party rooms.^[1] The proposal, however, was dropped in February 2011 when the Liberal Party withdrew its support for the plan, citing budget circumstances.^[2]

A Hansard service began on 12 June 1979. ^[3]

On 21 September 2011, the Tasmanian House of Assembly was the first house of parliament to pass a motion calling on the Federal Government to recognise same-sex unions by amending the Marriage Act 1961.^[4]

Electorates

A map from the Tasmanian Electoral Commission showing the electoral boundaries is available here.

• Bass
• Braddon
• Denison
• Franklin
• Lyons

Current distribution of seats

See also

• Parliaments of the Australian states and territories
• Members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly

References

External links

• Tasmanian Parliament Website
• Tasmania Parliament History