South Australian House of Assembly

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

House of Assembly
55th Parliament
Type
Type	Lower house of the Parliament of South Australia
History
Founded	22 April 1857; 167 years ago (22 April 1857)
Leadership
Speaker	Leon Bignell, Independent since 11 April 2024
Leader of Government Business	Tom Koutsantonis, Labor since 24 Mar 2022
Government Whip	Lee Odenwalder, Labor since 24 Mar 2022
Opposition Whip	David Pisoni, Liberal since 18 Apr 2022
Structure
Seats	47
Political groups	Government (27)   Labor (27) Opposition (14)   Liberal (14) Crossbench (6)   Independent (6) [a]
Length of term	4 years
Elections
Voting system	Full preferential voting
First election	9 March 1857
Last election	19 March 2022
Next election	21 March 2026
Redistricting	Redistributions are carried out after each election by the South Australian Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission.
Meeting place
House of Assembly Chamber, Parliament House, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Website
SA House of Assembly

Overview

The House of Assembly was created in 1857, when South Australia attained self-government. The development of an elected legislature — although only men could vote — marked a significant change from the prior system, where legislative power was in the hands of the Governor and the Legislative Council, which was appointed by the Governor.

In 1895, the House of Assembly granted women the right to vote and stand for election to the legislature. South Australia was the second place in the world to do so after New Zealand in 1893, and the first to allow women to stand for election.^[1] (The first woman candidates for the South Australia Assembly ran in 1918 general election, in Adelaide and Sturt.^[2])

A painting of the House of Assembly meeting in Old Parliament House in 1867

From 1857 to 1933, the House of Assembly was elected from multi-member districts, commonly known as "seats", with each district returning between one and six members. The size of the Assembly varied during this time—36 members from 1857 to 1875, 46 members from 1875 to 1884, 52 members from 1884 to 1890, 54 members from 1890 to 1902, 42 members from 1902 to 1912, 40 members from 1912 to 1915, and 46 members from 1915 to 1938. In 1938, the Assembly was reduced to 39 members, elected from single-member districts.

The House of Assembly has had 47 members since the 1970 election, elected from single-member districts: currently 34 in the Adelaide metropolitan area and 13 in rural areas. These seats are intended to represent approximately the same population in each electorate. Voting is by Instant-runoff voting and preferential voting with complete preference allocation, as with the equivalent federal chamber, the Australian House of Representatives. All members face re-election approximately every four years. The most recent election was held on 19 March 2022.

The House is presided over by a Speaker, who, as of the passage of the Constitution (Independent Speaker) Amendment Act 2021, is constitutionally banned from being a member of a registered political party outside of a "relevant election period".^[3]

A map of South Australian electorates 1955-69, during the height of the Playmander

Another distinctive aspect of the history of the South Australian Parliament was the "Playmander", a gerrymandering system that instituted a pro-rural electoral malapportionment introduced by the incumbent Liberal and Country League (LCL) government, and in place for 32 years from 1936 to 1968.^[4] The already entrenched rural overweighting was increased to a 2:1 ratio, the number of MPs was reduced to 39 and the multi-member seats were abandoned for single-member seats. The House of Assembly now consisted of 26 low-population rural seats, which due to population shifts, were holding up to a 10-to-1 advantage over the 13 high-population metropolitan seats, even though rural seats contained only a third of South Australia's population. At the peak of the malapportionment in 1968, the rural seat of Frome had 4,500 formal votes, while the metropolitan seat of Enfield had 42,000 formal votes.^[5]

Labor won enough parliamentary seats to form government just once during the Playmander against the odds − in 1965. Labor won comprehensive majorities of the statewide two-party vote whilst failing to form government in 1944, 1953, 1962 and 1968.^[5]

More equitable boundaries were subsequently put in place following the 1968, 1975, and 1989 elections.^[5]

Most legislation is initiated in the House of Assembly. The party or coalition with a majority of seats in the lower house is invited by the Governor to form government. The leader of that party becomes Premier of South Australia, and their senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios. As Australian MPs almost always vote along party lines, almost all legislation introduced by the governing party will pass through the House of Assembly.

South Australian House of Assembly ballot paper

As with the federal parliament and Australian other states and territories, voting in the Assembly is compulsory for all those over the age of 18. Voting in the House of Assembly had originally been voluntary, but this was changed in 1942.

While South Australia's total population is 1.7 million, 1.3 million of them live in Adelaide. Over 75% of the state's population resides in the metropolitan area. As a result, Adelaide accounts for 72% (34 of 47) of the seats in the chamber. The dominance of Adelaide, combined with a lack of comparatively-sized rural population centres, results in the metropolitan area frequently deciding election outcomes. At the 2014 election for example, although the state-wide two-party vote (2PP) was 47.0% Labor v 53.0% Liberal, the metropolitan area recorded a 2PP of 51.5% Labor v 48.5% Liberal.^[6]

Election result summaries

Main article: List of elections in South Australia

House of Assembly chamber circa 1928.

Father of the House of Assembly since 1 Jan 1964

From	To	Member	Term Started	Status
1 January 1964	2 March 1968	Thomas Playford IV Tom Stott	1933	Joint Fathers
2 March 1968	30 May 1970	Tom Stott	1933	Father
30 May 1970	10 March 1973	David Brookman	Appointed in 1948 due to death of Sir Hubert Hudd	Father
10 March 1973	15 September 1979	Don Dunstan Jack Jennings	1953	Joint Fathers
17 September 1977	15 September 1979	Don Dunstan	1953	Father
15 September 1979	9 November 1982	Des Corcoran	1962	Father
9 November 1982	6 December 1985	Allan Rodda	1965	Father
6 December 1985	11 December 1993	Stan Evans	1968	Father
11 December 1993	11 October 1997	Heini Becker Graham Gunn	1970	Joint Fathers
11 October 1997	20 March 2010	Graham Gunn	1970	Father
20 March 2010	11 October 2014	Bob Such Michael Atkinson	1989	Joint Fathers
11 October 2014	17 March 2018	Michael Atkinson	1989	Father
17 March 2018	19 March 2022	Frances Bedford Tom Koutsantonis	1997	Joint Father/Mother
19 March 2022	Present	Tom Koutsantonis	1997	Father

See also

• 2022 South Australian state election
• List of elections in South Australia
• List of South Australian state by-elections
• Members of the South Australian House of Assembly
• Parliaments of the Australian states and territories
• South Australian Electoral Districts (for the House of Assembly)

Notes

1. Current independent MPs: Troy Bell (Mount Gambier), Leon Bignell (Mawson), Geoff Brock (Stuart), Dan Cregan (Kavel), Fraser Ellis (Narungga) and Nick McBride (MacKillop, with Cregan serving in the Cabinet).

References

1. "Women's Suffrage Petition 1894: parliament.sa.gov.au" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2011. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
2. History of South Australia Elections, House of Assembly, volume 1
3. Constitution (Independent Speaker) Amendment Act 2021
4. Labor and Liberal Parties, SA, Dean Jaensch Archived 6 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine, "A 2:1 ratio of enrolments in favour of the rural areas was in force from 1936."
5. Jaensch, Dean (2002). "Community access to the electoral processes in South Australia since 1850". South Australian State Electoral Office. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016.
6. Metropolitan 2PP correctly calculated by adding raw metro 2PP vote numbers from the 34 metro seats, both Labor and Liberal, then dividing Labor's raw metro 2PP vote from the total, which revealed a Labor metropolitan 2PP of 51.54%. Obtained raw metro 2PP vote numbers from ECSA 2014 election statistics Archived 7 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, ECSA 2014 Heysen election Archived 11 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine and ABC 2014 Fisher by-election Archived 14 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine.

Further reading

• Dunstan, Don (1976). "John Curtin Memorial Lecture: Electoral reform in South Australia" (PDF).
• Jaensch, Dean (2002). "Community access to the electoral processes in South Australia since 1850". South Australian State Electoral Office. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016.
• Jaensch, Dean (1 March 2007). "History of South Australian elections 1857-2006, volume 1". State Electoral Office of South Australia. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2020.

External links

• House of Assembly Homepage
• General Hansard Information

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