The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The Parliament of Australia is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It consists of three elements: the Crown, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The combination of two elected chambers, in which the members of the Senate represent the states and territories while the members of the House represent electoral divisions according to population, is modelled on the United States Congress. Through both chambers, however, there is a fused executive, drawn from the Westminster system.
The Minister for Defence is the principal minister responsible for the organisation, implementation, and formulation of government policy in defence and military matters for the Australian Government. The individual who holds this office directs the government’s approach to such matters through the Australian Defence Organisation and, by extension, the Department of Defence and the Australian Defence Force. The office of the Minister for Defence, like all Cabinet positions, is not referenced in the Constitution of Australia but rather exists through convention and the right of the Governor-General to appoint ministers of state.
The Attorney-General of Australia is the First Law Officer of the Crown in right of the Commonwealth of Australia, chief law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia and a minister of state. The attorney-general is usually a member of the Federal Cabinet, but need not be. Under the Constitution, they are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister, and serve at the Governor-General's pleasure. In practice, the attorney-general is a party politician and their tenure is determined by political factors. By convention, but not constitutional requirement, the attorney-general is a lawyer by training.
The Cabinet of Australia is the chief decision-making organ of the executive branch of the government of Australia. It is a council of senior government ministers, ultimately responsible to Federal Parliament.
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government is made up of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.
The first part of the 1967 Australian referendum to change the Constitution was the Parliament question, which related to the relative number of members in each house of the Australian Parliament − the so-called "nexus". The 1967 Australian referendum called by the Holt Government on 27 May 1967 consisted of two parts, with the second question relating to Aboriginal Australians.
The Australian referendum of 12 December 1906 approved an amendment to the Australian constitution related to the terms of office of federal senators. Technically it was a vote on the Constitution Alteration Bill 1906, which after being approved in the referendum received the royal assent on 3 April 1907. The amendment moved the date of the beginning of the term of members of the Senate from 1 January to 1 July so that elections to the federal House of Representatives and the Senate could occur simultaneously.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 is an Act of the Australian Parliament which continues to be the core legislation governing the conduct of elections in Australia, having been amended on numerous occasions since 1918. The Act was introduced by the Nationalist Party of Billy Hughes, the main purpose of which was to replace first-past-the-post voting with instant-runoff voting for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Labor Party opposed the introduction of preferential voting. The Act has been amended on several occasions since.
This is a list of the members of the Australian Senate in the First Australian Parliament, which was elected on 29 March 1901. There were 36 senators in this initial parliament. Terms were deemed to start on 1 January 1901. In accordance with section 13 of the Constitution, the Senate resolved that in each State the three senators who received the most votes would sit for a six-year term, finishing on 31 December 1906 while the other half would sit for a three-year term, finishing on 31 December 1903. The process for filing of casual vacancies was complex, with an initial appointment followed by an election. The status of political parties varied, being national, State based, and informal.
In Australia, a redistribution is the process of redrawing the boundaries of electoral divisions for the House of Representatives arising from changes in population and changes in the number of representatives. There is no redistribution for the Senate as each State constitutes a division, though with multiple members. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), an independent statutory authority, oversees the apportionment and redistribution process for federal divisions, taking into account a number of factors. Politicians, political parties and the public may make submissions to the AEC on proposed new boundaries, but any interference with their deliberations is considered a serious offence.
The 1977 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 10 December 1977. All 124 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 64 seats in the Senate were up for election.
The 1972 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 2 December 1972. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, as well as a single Senate seat in Queensland. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition government, led by Prime Minister William McMahon, was defeated by the opposition Labor Party led by Gough Whitlam. Labor's victory ended 23 years of successive Coalition governments that began in 1949 and started the three-year Whitlam Labor Government.
The 1954 Australian federal election were held in Australia on 29 May 1954. All 121 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election, but no Senate election took place. The incumbent Liberal–Country coalition led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies defeated the opposition Labor Party led by H. V. Evatt, despite losing the two-party preferred vote. As well as being the only election in which a party received a clear majority of votes and was unable to form government.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1975 to 1978. The 13 December 1975 election was a double dissolution of both houses, with all 127 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 64 seats in the Senate up for election. Malcolm Fraser had been commissioned as prime minister following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's Labor government by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975. The same day, Fraser advised the calling of the election, in accordance with Kerr's stipulated conditions. Thus the Liberal Party of Australia, led by Fraser, with Coalition partner the National Country Party, led by Doug Anthony, went to the election as a caretaker government. The election resulted in the Coalition securing government with a 30-seat swing away from Labor in the House of Representatives.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1974 to 1975. The 18 May 1974 election was a double dissolution of both Houses, with all 127 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 60 seats in the Senate up for election. The incumbent Labor Party led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam defeated the opposition Liberal Party led by Billy Snedden and their Coalition partner the Country Party led by Doug Anthony.
This is a list of members of the Australian Senate from 1914 to 1917. The 5 September 1914 election was a double dissolution called by Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Cook in an attempt to gain control of the Senate. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives, and all 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Commonwealth Liberal Party was defeated by the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Andrew Fisher, who announced with the outbreak of World War I during the campaign that under a Labor Government, Australia would "stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling."
Suffrage in Australia refers to the right to vote for people living in Australia, including all its six component states and territories, as well as local councils. The colonies of Australia began to grant universal male suffrage from 1856, with women's suffrage following between the 1890s and 1900s. Some jurisdictions introduced racial restrictions on voting from 1885. Such restrictions had been eradicated by the 1960s. Today, the right to vote at federal, state and local levels of government is enjoyed by citizens of Australia over the age of 18 years.
Section 13 of the Constitution of Australia provides for three aspects of the terms of members of the Australian Senate: the timing of elections, the commencement date of their terms and for the Senate to allocate long (six-year) and short (three-year) terms following a double dissolution of the Parliament of Australia. While members of the House of Representatives and territory senators have a maximum three-year term, state senators have a fixed six-year term, subject only to the parliament being dissolved by a double dissolution.
The Constitution Alteration 1988, was an unsuccessful proposal put to referendum in the 1988 Australian referendum on 3 September 1988. It proposed to alter the Australian constitution so that both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be elected for a term of four years. This involved reducing the terms of the Senate from six years to four years, and increasing the terms of the House of Representatives from three years to four years. It also proposed for the fourth time that Senate and House elections occur simultaneously.