Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is one of the two chambers of the parliament of Australia. The other is the Senate. The 150 members of the house are elected from single-member geographic districts (popularly known as "seats" but officially known as "Commonwealth Electoral Divisions") which are intended to represent reasonably contiguous regions, with relatively equal voter enrolment in each of about 80 000 people. Voting is by the Alternative Vote (usually referred to in Australia as the 'preferential system'). According to the Australian Constitution, the powers of both houses are nearly equal with the consent of both houses needed to pass legislation. In practice, by convention, the party or coalition in the lower house with a majority is invited by the Governor-General to form government. Thus the leader of the party in the lower house becomes the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios (government departments). Bills appropriating money can also only be introduced or modified in the lower house and thus only parties in the lower house can govern. However, in the rigid Australian party system, this ensures that virtually all contentious votes are along party lines, and the government always has a majority in those votes. The Opposition's only real role in the House is to present arguments why the government's policies and legislation are not right, and attempt to embarrass the government as much as possible by asking difficult questions at question time. The Senate, by contrast, has not had any single party or coalition holding a majority in many years, so votes in the senate are actually meaningful. The House's parliamentary committee system is also embryonic as compared to the well-established Senate committee system. In a reflection of the colour scheme of the United Kingdom House of Commons, the House of Representatives is decorated in green. See also: List of members of the Australian House of Representatives Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives List of longest-serving members of the Australian House of Representatives Most Popular Articles: Music    Musical Instruments    Guitar    Classical Music    History    Music Definition    Country Music    Rock Music    Pop Music    Hip Hop    Rap    DJ    Video Games    Casino Games    Poker    Blackjack    Casinos    Real Estate    Loan    Auction    eBay    Marketing    Search Engine Optimization    File Sharing    MP3    Music Industry    Kazaa    Internet    Supermodel    Fashion    Fashion Designers    Erotica    Modeling    Clothing    Boots    Shoes    Diamond Engagement Rings    Diamond    Rugs    Gospel Music    Affiliate    E-Commerce    Radio This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license. You must provide a link to http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html To view or edit this article at Wikipedia go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_House_of_Representatives