The upper house of the Australian Parliament is the Senate, which consists of 76 members. Web. In effect, the Commonwealth can make grants subject to States implementing particular policies in their fields of legislative responsibility. It is not possible to be simultaneously a member of both the Senate and the House of Representatives,[39] but a number of people have been members of both Houses at different times in their parliamentary career (see List of people who have served in both Houses of the Australian Parliament). )[6][7] This system has remained in place ever since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats. If passed, the legislation is then sent to the Senate, which has a similar structure of debate and passage except that the consideration in detail stage is replaced by a committee of the whole. Once a bill has been passed by both Houses in the same form, it is then presented to the Governor-General for royal assent. The inaugural election took place on 29 and 30 March and the first Australian Parliament was opened on 9 May 1901 in Melbourne by Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York, later King George V.[9] The only building in Melbourne that was large enough to accommodate the 14,000 guests was the western annexe of the Royal Exhibition Building. From the beginning of Federation until 1987, Parliamentary privilege operated under Section 49 of the Constitution, which established the privileges of both Houses and their members to be the same as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the time of the Constitution's enactment. They do, however, have Parliamentary privilege: they cannot be sued for anything they say in Parliament about each other or about persons outside the Parliament. federation of the six Australian colonies. In 2009, the Pay TV company Foxtel launched A-SPAN, now called Sky News Extra, which broadcasts live sittings of the House of Representatives and the Senate, parliamentary Committee meetings and political press conferences. The outcome of the 2019 election saw the incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government re-elected for a third term with 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives (an increase of 1 seat compared to the 2016 election), a two-seat majority government. Please note this CC BY licence applies to some textual content of Members of Parliament, and that some images and other textual or non-textual elements may be covered by special copyright arrangements. Opposition (68) It had always been intended that the national Parliament would sit in a new national capital. The ability to block supply was the origin of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. In addition to the work of the main chambers, both the Senate and the House of Representatives also have a large number of committees which deal with matters referred to them by their respective Houses. Anyone who attempts to hinder the work of a Parliamentary committee may be found to be in contempt of Parliament. The full Senate has been contested on eight occasions; the inaugural election and seven double dissolutions. Any Senator or Member may introduce a proposed law (a bill), except for a money bill (a bill proposing an expenditure or levying a tax), which must be introduced in the House of Representatives. [84], The Parliament House official website provides free extensive daily proceedings of both chambers as well as committee hearings live on the Internet.[85]. First-past-the-post voting was used to elect members of the House of Representatives until in 1918 the Nationalist Party government, a predecessor of the modern-day Liberal Party of Australia, changed the lower house voting system to Instant-runoff voting, which in Australia is known as full preferential voting, as of the subsequent 1919 election. The announcement of the presiding officer settles the question, unless at least two members demand a "division", or a recorded vote. the office which produces transcripts of parliamentary debates, a meeting of a parliamentary committee for the purpose of taking oral evidence, the court set up under the Australian Constitution to decide matters arising under the Constitution, and to hear appeals from the supreme courts of the states and other federal courts, a title of members of Parliament who are members of the Federal Executive Council, current and former ministers, and certain other persons, such as the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the name of the lower house of Parliament in South Australia and Tasmania, one of two houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom and Canada, in which members are elected on the basis of population, one of two houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom, comprising hereditary, appointed and elected members, One of the two houses of the federal Parliament of Australia, whose Members are elected on a population basis, the main reference book on the law, practice and procedure of the House of Representatives, a name often used to refer to the Senate, meaning a house which provides a second look or a close re-examination of matters considered in the other house, a card or piece of paper handed out at an election by a political party or candidate showing a voter how the party or candidate would prefer the voter to vote, the protection of members of Parliament and others from civil or criminal action in relation to their participation in parliamentary proceedings, and the protection of parliamentary proceedings from impeachment or question in the courts (see also privilege, parliamentary), the state of a house of Parliament when it has formed itself into a committee of the whole house, usually to consider the detail of a bill, in accord with the rules, in a correct form or style, as required by parliamentary procedure, a member of Parliament who does not belong to a political party, in an election, a voting paper which is not counted because it has not been filled in correctly, to originate a bill in either house of parliament, an investigation by a parliamentary committee, an international association of parliaments, to bring in and formally present a bill to a house for future consideration, a parliamentary committee made up of members of both houses of Parliament, a meeting of both houses of Parliament together to make a decision on a proposed law which the two houses, sitting separately, have been unable to agree on, the official minutes of proceedings in the Senate, the power to interpret or apply the law in particular cases; one of the three powers under the Constitution, the others being the legislative power and the executive power, the leader in the Senate of the party or coalition which has formed the ministry, the minister who arranges and manages government business in the House of Representatives, the leader of the party or coalition of parties which is the next largest after the government party in the House of Representatives, and which is made up of members who do not support the government, the leader of the party which is the next largest after the government party in the Senate, and which is made up of Senators who do not support the government, leave (of the Senate or the House of Representatives), the permission of all members present in the chamber at the time to do something which otherwise could not be done at that time or in that way, a standing committee of the Senate which inquires into bills, estimates, annual reports and performances of government agencies, legislative and general purpose standing committees, parliamentary committees of the Senate which cover all areas of government activity, and to which matters are referred by the Senate for investigation, the lower house of Parliament in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia and the sole house of Parliament in Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, the upper house of Parliament in all Australian states except Queensland, the power to make and change laws; one of three powers under the Constitution, the others being the judicial power and the executive power, the series of actions which result in a law being made, a party founded in 1944 by Sir Robert Menzies and others, which developed from the Liberal Party of 1909, the Nationalist Party of 1917 and the United Australia Party of 1931, the period of time from the first meeting of a House of Representatives to the dissolution (breaking up) or expiry of the House, Loan Council (see Australian Loan Council), the full title of a bill which sets out briefly the purpose or scope of the bill (and see short title), a house of a two-chamber Parliament, usually having more members than the upper house, and whose members usually represent electorates with similar numbers of voters; the House of Representatives is the lower house in the Australian Federal Parliament, once a weapon of war shaped like a club, and the symbol of royal authority, but now the symbol of authority of a lower house of Parliament and its Speaker, Manager of Government Business in the Senate, the government Senator who arranges and manages government business in the Senate on behalf of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the opposition member who represents the interests of the opposition in negotiations with the government concerning the business of the House of Representatives, a subject for discussion which is suggested to a house by a Senator or Member, and which must be supported by a certain number of other Senators or Members before discussion proceeds, a member of a house of Parliament, usually used to describe a member of a lower house and, in Australia, referring to Members of the House of Representatives, who may use the initials M.P.