Legislative Debates in the Australian House of Representatives

Abstract

Australia is a Westminster parliamentary system, composed of two houses. The lower house, the House of Representatives, is government dominated and by convention, is the seat of the Prime Minister and a majority of the ministry. The upper House, or Senate, is a powerful chamber for a Westminster parliament and is rarely controlled by the government. Australian parliamentary debate is adversarial, especially in the lower House, indeed, commentators argue the House is now more of a bear pit than at any time in its history. Many claim the quality of deliberation is poorer now than in the past. While this view has not been subject to systematic analysis, it is true that levels of trust in politics have not recovered since the 2010–2013 minority government. The minority government illustrates the worst of the adversarial style of the Australian parliament with parliament's regular procedural business suspended almost daily, multiple episodes of high farce and prime minister Julia Gillard's famous misogyny speech, attracting over one million YouTube views and was for some was a feminist call to arms. This chapter examines who speaks and how often in parliamentary debate in the House of Representatives. We examine personal characteristics such as parliamentary experience and gender, in addition to institutional factors such as political party, government or opposition, and institutional roles comparing front and backbenchers. Show more