Father of the Australian House of Representatives

Last updated

In Australian parliamentary practice, the Father of the House of Representatives is the member of the Australian House of Representatives who has served longer, continuously, than any other currently serving member. It is an informal, honorific title which carries no parliamentary responsibilities. Where two or more members have had equal lengths of continuous service, more than any other currently serving members, they are known as the joint Fathers of the House of Representatives.

Australia Country in Oceania

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. The population of 25 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney. The country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Australian House of Representatives Lower house of Australia

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 current Father of the House is Kevin Andrews, who acquired the title on 10 May 2016 after the retirement from Parliament of the then Father, Philip Ruddock.

Kevin Andrews (politician) Australian politician and lawyer

Kevin James Andrews is an Australian politician and member of the Liberal Party of Australia. He is currently a backbench Member of the House of Representatives for the seat of Menzies, to which he was first elected at the 1991 by-election. Andrews is a conservative and a Catholic.

Philip Ruddock Australian politician

Philip Maxwell Ruddock is an Australian politician who is currently mayor of Hornsby Shire. He previously was a Liberal member of the House of Representatives from 1973 to 2016. First elected in a 1973 by-election, by the time of his retirement he was the last parliamentary survivor of the Whitlam and Fraser Governments. He was both the Father of the House and the Father of the Parliament from 1998 to his retirement. He is the second longest-serving parliamentarian in the history of the Australian Parliament. Ruddock served continuously in federal cabinet during the Howard Government, as Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs from 1996 to 2003, and then Attorney-General from 2003 to 2007. He is also the Vice Chair of the Global Panel Foundation Australasia - with Sir Donald Charles McKinnon as Chair.

The only Father of the House of Representatives with broken service but whose latter period of continuous service was sufficiently long to qualify was Eddie Ward.

Eddie Ward Australian politician

Edward John Ward, Australian politician, was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1931 until his death, excepting a short six-and-a-half week break from December 1931 to February 1932.

The first House of Representatives was elected in March 1901. The election was held on Friday 29 March in South Australia and Tasmania, and on Saturday 30 March in the other states. Despite that slight variation in the election date, all the members elected to the first Parliament were considered to have had equal seniority. It follows that there could not be a "longest-serving member" until only one member from the first Parliament was still in the House. That occurred on 8 April 1935 with the death of David Watkins, leaving Billy Hughes as the first Father of the House of Representatives. Hughes was also the first Father of the Parliament from 1938.

South Australia State of Australia

South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres (379,725 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth largest by population. It has a total of 1.7 million people, and its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second largest centre, has a population of 28,684.

Tasmania island state of Australia

Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 km (150 mi) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 526,700 as of March 2018. Just over forty percent of the population resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart.

Since that date the Fathers and joint Fathers of the House of Representatives have been as follows, with joint Fathers being shown in small type:

FromToMemberContinuous
term started
Status
9 April 193528 October 1952 Billy Hughes 30 March 1901 Father
29 October 19529 December 1961Sir Earle Page 13 December 1919 Father
10 December 196131 July 1963 Eddie Ward 6 February 1932 [1] Father
1 August 196316 February 1966 Joseph Clark
John McEwen
Sir Robert Menzies
15 September 1934 Joint Fathers
17 February 196629 September 1969Joseph Clark
John McEwen
15 September 1934Joint Fathers
30 September 19691 February 1971 John McEwen 15 September 1934 Father
2 February 19712 November 1972 Arthur Calwell 21 September 1940 Father
3 November 197211 November 1975 Fred Daly 21 August 1943 Father
12 November 197510 November 1977 Kim Beazley (senior) 18 August 1945 Father
11 November 197719 September 1980 Clyde Cameron
Sir William McMahon
10 December 1949 Joint Fathers
20 September 19804 January 1982Sir William McMahon 10 December 1949Father
5 January 198231 March 1983 Malcolm Fraser
Sir James Killen
Sir Billy Snedden
10 December 1955 Joint Fathers
1 April 198321 April 1983Sir James Killen
Sir Billy Snedden
10 December 1955Joint Fathers
22 April 198315 August 1983Sir James Killen 10 December 1955 Father
16 August 198318 January 1984 Doug Anthony 14 September 1957 Father
19 January 198419 February 1990 Tom Uren 22 November 1958 Father
20 February 199031 August 1998 Ian Sinclair 30 November 1963 Father
1 September 19989 May 2016 Philip Ruddock 22 September 1973 Father
10 May 2016Incumbent Kevin Andrews 11 May 1991 Father

See also

Father of the House is a title that has been traditionally bestowed, unofficially, on certain members of some legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the title refers to the longest continuously-serving member, while in others it refers to the oldest member. Recently, the title Mother of the House or Mother of Parliament has also been used, although the usage varies between countries; it is simply the female alternative to Father of the House, being applied when the relevant member is a woman.

Related Research Articles

A member of parliament (MP) is the representative of the voters to a parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this category includes specifically members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title. Member of Congress is an equivalent term in other jurisdictions.

Australian Senate upper house of the Australian Parliament

The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. There are a total of 76 Senators: 12 are elected from each of the six states regardless of population and 2 from each of the two autonomous internal territories. Senators are popularly elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation.

A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. Member of Parliament (MP) is an equivalent term in other jurisdictions.

Parliament of Australia legislative branch of the Commonwealth 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.

President of the Senate (Australia) presiding officer of the upper house of the Australian Parliament

The President of the Senate is the presiding officer of the Australian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Australia.

A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and opposition benches, where crossbenchers sit in the chamber.

Speaker (politics) presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body

The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.

Dean of the United States House of Representatives

The Dean of the United States House of Representatives is the longest continuously serving member of the House. The current Dean is Don Young, a Republican Party representative from Alaska who has served since 1973, and is the first Republican Dean in more than eighty years, as well as the first from Alaska. The Dean is a symbolic post whose only customary duty is to swear in a Speaker of the House after he or she is elected. The Dean comes forward on the House Floor to administer the oath to the Speaker-elect, before the new Speaker then administers the oath to the other members.

Senate (Belgium) upper house of the Belgian federal parliament

The Senate is one of the two chambers of the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Chamber of Representatives. It is considered to be the "upper house" of the Federal Parliament. Created in 1831 as a chamber fully equal to the Chamber of Representatives, it has undergone several reforms in the past, most notably in 1993 and the reform of 2014 following the sixth Belgian state reform. The 2014 elections were the first ones without a direct election of senators. Instead, the new Senate is completely composed of members of community and regional parliaments and co-opted members. It is a chamber of the communities and regions and serves as a platform for discussion and reflection about matters between the different language communities. The Senate now only plays a very minor role in the federal legislative process. Since the reform, it only holds about ten plenary sessions a year.

Kathryn Jean Martin Sullivan AM, Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian Senate from 1974 to 1984, representing Queensland, and a member of the House of Representatives for the Division of Moncrieff, Queensland, from 1984 to 2001. She previously held the record for the longest service in the Australian Parliament for a woman, topping the record previously held by Dorothy Tangney. This record has since been surpassed by Bronwyn Bishop. She was the first woman member of the parliament to have served in both houses.

Annabelle Rankin Australian politician

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin DBE was an Australian politician and diplomat. She was the first woman from Queensland elected to parliament, the first woman federal government minister, and the first Australian woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

Baby of the House is the unofficial title given to the youngest member of a parliamentary house. The term is most often applied to members of the British parliament from which the term originated. The title is named after the Father of the House, which is given to the longest serving member of the British and other parliaments.

United States senators are conventionally ranked by the length of their tenure in the Senate. The senator in each U.S. state with the longer time in office is known as the senior senator; the other is the junior senator. This convention has no official standing, though seniority confers several benefits, including preference in the choice of committee assignments and physical offices. When senators have been in office for the same length of time, a number of tiebreakers, including previous offices held, are used to determine seniority.

The Clerk of the Australian Senate is the head of the Department of the Senate, which is the parliamentary department supporting the work of the Australian Senate. The parliamentary head of the department is the President of the Senate.

The Clerk of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia is responsible for managing the Parliamentary Department of the House of Representatives. The Clerk is a non-elected administrative officer under the Parliamentary Service Act 1999. The term of the Clerk of the House of Representatives is now limited by law to 10 years.

United States Senate Upper house of the United States Congress

The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol, in Washington, D.C.

References

  1. Eddie Ward also served between 7 March 1931 and 19 December 1931.