Australian House of Representatives
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Australian House of Representatives chamber |
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Entrance to the 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 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 enrollment 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.
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List of members of the Australian House of Representatives*
Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives*
List of longest-serving members of the Australian House of Representatives*
Women in the Australian House of Representatives*
List of Australian federal by-elections*
Canberra Press Gallery*
House of Representatives Committees - Parliament of Australia
