Tasmanian House of Assembly

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The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Hobart.

1 Overview
2 History
3 Electorates
4 Current distribution of seats
5 See also
6 References

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Overview

The Assembly has 25 members, five members each coming from one of the five electorates. These are intended to represent approximately the same population in each electorate. Voting is by a form of proportional representation using the single-transferable vote (STV), known as the Hare-Clark system.

The number of seats was reduced from 35 (seven members from each of five electorates) for the 1998 state election. This was criticised by the minor parties, the Greens in particular, as reducing the minor parties' representation in parliament.

Most legislation is initiated in the House of Assembly. The party or coalition with the most seats in the lower house is invited by the Governor to form government. The leader of that party subsequently becomes Premier of Tasmania, and their senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios. As Australian political parties traditionally vote along party lines, most legislation introduced by the governing party will pass through the House of Assembly.

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History

The House of Assembly was first established in 1856, the Legislative Council had already existed since 1852. The first elections for the House of Assembly were held in October, 1856. The house first met on 2 December, 1856 in the area that is now the parliamentary members lounge. The first House was divided into 24 members; Hobart having five members, Launceston had three members, each other electorate returned one member.

In 1906 the old electoral system was abolished and instead the state would be divided into five equally represented multi member electorates. Each electorate would return six members using the Hare-Clark proportional representation system.

In 1959 the number of members per electorate was increased to seven. In 1998 it was reduced to five.