House of Representatives (Australia)

House Of Representatives (Australia)

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses (chambers) of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament (MPs) serve for terms of approximately three years.

The present Parliament, as elected at the 2010 election, is the 43rd Federal Parliament since Federation. It is the first hung parliament in the House of Representatives since the 1940 election, with Labor and the Coalition winning 72 seats each of 150 total. Six crossbenchers hold the balance of power: Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent MPs Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor declared their support for Labor on confidence and supply, independent MP Bob Katter and National Party of Western Australia MP Tony Crook declared their support for the Coalition on confidence and supply. The resulting 76–74 margin entitled Labor to form a minority government. The Labor government increased their parliamentary majority on 24 November 2011 from 75–74 to 76–73 when the Coalition's Peter Slipper became Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, replacing Labor's Harry Jenkins. In the Senate, where no party tends to have a majority of seats, the Greens gained the sole balance of power, previously holding a shared balance of power with the Family First Party and independent Nick Xenophon.