7 Facts about Australian Parliament

Monday, April 20th 2015. | Politics

If you want to know the Parliament of the Commonwealth, you have to check Facts about Australian Parliament. Many people call it with different names. Some of them call it the Federal Parliament, while others prefer to call it the Commonwealth Parliament. It is defined as the legislative branch of the Australian government. Let’s find out more interesting facts about Australian parliament below:

Facts about Australian Parliament 1: the three elements

There are three elements of Australian parliaments. Those include the queen, the senate and the house of representative. The Governor General will represent the queen in the parliament.

Facts about Australian Parliament 2: the Senate

There are six states and 2 major self governing territories in Australia representing the members of the Senate. The electoral divisions can be seen as the members of the House of representative. The members are selected based on the population. Australia’s House of Representative took the model from United States Congress. Even though it takes the inspiration from US congress, it also uses Westminster System due to the fused executive.

Australian Parliament Canberra

Facts about Australian Parliament 3: the senate

The Senate is also called as the upper house. There are 76 members in the Senate. Each state has 12 members, while each territory has two members. The self governing territories which present the upper house are the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The form of the proportional voting is applied to elect the senators.

Facts about Australian Parliament 4: the House of Representatives

There are 150 members of the house of the representative today. It is also called as the lower house. Each member is the representative of the districts that you can call as the electoral divisions.

Australian Parliament Meeting

Facts about Australian Parliament 5: the number of representative in Lower house

The number of the people who sit in the lower house is not fixed. It may rise or reduce. In 1984, the number of lower house increased from 125 to 148 members. In 1993 election, the number was decreased to 147. In 1996 election, it was 148 again. In 2001 election, it was 150 members. Get facts about Australia here.

Facts about Australian Parliament 6: the meeting

The lower and upper house will met in separate chambers of the Parliament house. It is located in Australian Capital Territory on Capitol Hill in Canberra.

Australian Parliament Pic

Facts about Australian Parliament 7: the federal election

The current federal election was held on September 7th, 2013. On 12 November, they sat on the house. The current parliament is the 44th federal parliament. Find out Australian Federation facts here.