Australian House of Representatives

The term of members of the House of Representatives is a maximum of three years from the date of the first sitting of the House, but on only one occasion since Federation has the maximum term been reached. The House is almost always dissolved earlier, usually alone but sometimes in a double dissolution alongside the Senate. Houses. Elections for members of the House of Representatives are often held in conjunction with those for the Senate. A member of the House may be referred to as a "member of parliament" ("MP" or "member"), while a member of the Senate is usually referred to as a "senator". The government of the day and by extension the prime minister must achieve and maintain the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power.


The House of Representatives currently consists of 151 members, elected by and representing single member districts known as electoral divisions (commonly referred to as "electorates" or "seats"). The number of members is not fixed but can vary with boundary changes resulting from electoral redistributions, which are required on a regular basis. The most recent overall increase in the size of the House, which came into effect at the 1984 election, increased the number of members from 125 to 148. It reduced to 147 at the 1993 election, returned to 148 at the 1996 election, increased to 150 at the 2001 election, and stands at 151 as of the 2022 Australian federal election.^[1]


The House of Representatives chamber is designed to seat up to 172 members, with provision for an ultimate total of 240 to be accommodated.^[2]


Each division elects one member using full-preferential instant-runoff voting. This was put in place after the 1918 Swan by-election, which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote and the help of vote splitting in the conservative parties. The Nationalist government of the time changed the lower house voting system from first-past-the-post to full-preferential voting, effective from the 1919 general election.

Relationship with the government[edit]

Under the Constitution, the governor-general has the power to appoint and dismiss the "[King's or] Queen's Ministers of State" who administer government departments.^[23] In practice, the governor-general chooses ministers in accordance with the traditions of the Westminster system that the government be drawn from the party or coalition of parties that has a majority in the House of Representatives, with the leader of the largest party becoming prime minister.


A sub-set of the most important ministers then meet in a council known as Cabinet. Cabinet meetings are strictly private and are frequently held to discuss vital issues and make policy decisions. The Constitution does not recognise the Cabinet as a legal entity; it exists solely by convention. Its decisions do not in and of themselves have legal force. However, it serves as the practical expression of the Federal Executive Council, which is Australia's highest formal executive body.^[24] In practice, the Federal Executive Council meets solely to endorse and give legal force to decisions already made by the Cabinet. All members of the Cabinet are members of the Executive Council. While the governor-general is the nominal presiding officer, he almost never attends Executive Council meetings. A senior Cabinet member holds the office of Vice-President of the Executive Council and acts as presiding officer of the Executive Council in the absence of the governor-general. The Federal Executive Council is the Australian equivalent of the executive councils and privy councils in other Commonwealth realms such as the King's Privy Council for Canada and the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.^[25]


A minister must be a senator or member of the House of Representatives at the time of their appointment, or become one within three months of their appointment.^[23] This provision was included in the Constitution (section 64) to enable the inaugural ministry, led by Edmund Barton, to be appointed on 1 January 1901, even though the first federal elections were not scheduled to be held until 29 and 30 March.^[26]


After the 1949 election, Bill Spooner was appointed a minister in the Fourth Menzies ministry on 19 December, however his term as a Senator did not begin until 22 February 1950.^[27]


The provision was also used after the disappearance and presumed death of the Liberal prime minister Harold Holt in December 1967. The Liberal Party elected John Gorton, then a senator, as its new leader, and he was sworn in as prime minister on 10 January 1968 (following an interim ministry led by John McEwen). On 1 February, Gorton resigned from the Senate to stand for the 24 February by-election in Holt's former House of Representatives electorate of Higgins due to the convention that the prime minister be a member of the lower house. For 22 days (2 to 23 February inclusive) he was prime minister while a member of neither house of parliament.^[28]


On a number of occasions when ministers have retired from their seats prior to an election, or stood but lost their own seats in the election, they have retained their ministerial offices until the next government is sworn in.