House of Representatives

The House of Representatives.

DPS Auspic

The House of Representatives.

DPS Auspic

Description

This image is of a large room with green furnishings. The seats are arranged around a large central table. There is a large chair at the open end of the U-shaped seats that is elevated above the other chairs. There are people sitting in the seats and papers on the desks.

Copyright information

Permission should be sought from DPS AUSPIC for third-party or commercial uses of this image. To contact DPS AUSPIC email: auspic@aph.gov.au or phone: 02 6277 3342.

What is the House of Representatives?

The House of Representatives is one of 2 houses of the Australian Parliament. The other house is the Senate. The House is also known as the lower house. Members of the House of Representatives are elected by the people of Australia in federal elections.

Role of the House of Representatives.

Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)

Role of the House of Representatives.

Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)

Description

This diagram illustrates the role of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives: is where government is formed; decides matters of national interest; represents the interests of people in their electorates; proposes, debates and votes of bills and amendments; examines issues in committees; and scrutinises executive government.

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Role 

The House is made up of 151 members. Each member represents one of Australia's 151 electorates. There is about the same number of voters in each electorate.

The Australian Government is formed in the House by the party, or coalition of parties, with the support of the majority of members in the House.

In the House:

• Members represent the views of Australians and discuss matters of national and international importance.
• National laws are made and changed, by debating and voting on bills – proposed laws. A bill must be agreed to in identical form by both the House and the Senate and signed into law by the Governor-General.
• The work of the government is scrutinised – closely examined – especially in Question Time and through committees.

Appearance

The House of Representatives sits in a large green room in Australian Parliament House. The green tones used in the House are typical of the Australian landscape.

The seats in the House are arranged in rows to form a U-shape. The Speaker of the House of Representatives sits at the open end of the U-shape and is responsible for running meetings of the House. Government members sit to the right of the Speaker and opposition members sit to the left. The Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition sit in front of their teams at the central table. Minor parties and independents sit in the seats in the curved section of the U-shape.

The House has 4 viewing galleries. The one behind the Speaker’s Chair is for the press gallery. The other galleries are open to the public, so anyone can watch meetings of the House.

Federation Chamber 

Federation chamber.

Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)

Federation chamber.

Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)

Description

The Federation chamber of the Australian House of Representatives.

Copyright information

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

You are free to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work.

Attribution – you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Non-commercial – you may not use this work for commercial purposes.

No derivative works – you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Waiver – any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

The work of the Federation Chamber includes:

• debating bills on which members are expected to agree
• debating committee reports
• running private members' business which allows members to speak on any topic, especially issues of interest to people in their electorate.

The rules used in the Federation Chamber are almost identical to those used in the House, although divisions are not held in the Federation Chamber. All decisions made in the Federation Chamber are reported to the House of Representatives before moving to the next stage. When a division is called in the House of Representatives, Federation Chamber meetings are stopped so members can go to the House to vote.

Origins

The drafters of the Australian Constitution looked at the British—Westminster—and United States systems when developing the Australian system of government. From Britain they took the idea of 2 houses of parliament working together to make laws. From the United States, they took the name ‘House of Representatives’. Green was chosen for the House of Representatives because it reflects the green of the House of Commons, the lower house of the UK Parliament.