Kerry O'Regan
3 h ·
The Constitution
The Parliament
The House of Representatives (cont)
If a vacancy occurs in the House of Reps, the Speaker or the Governor-General shall issue a writ to elect a new member.
"Until the Parliament otherwise provides", a candidate for election must be at least 21 years of age, entitled to vote, resident of Australia for at least three years, and "a subject of the Queen, either natural-born or for at least five years naturalized". As the Parliament has obviously provided otherwise, this is quite irrelevant and of no help whatsoever.
The House must elect a Speaker who they may subsequently vote out of office or who may resign. The House may choose a substitute Speaker (by unspecified means) if the regular Speaker is absent.
A member may resign by writing to the Speaker or the Governor-General. "His" position will become vacant if "he" fails to appear for two consecutive months.
"Until the Parliament otherwise provides" at least a third of the members must be present for business to proceed. I don't know if this still applies. Interesting that in many respects the Constitution is merely an historical document designed to just get things going, as so many clauses only apply until Parliament decides they don't. And we have to look elsewhere to see what currently applies.
"Questions arising" are to be decided by a vote, the Speaker having a casting vote if required.
And that's it for the House of Representatives.
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4 comments
Adrienne Lovelock
Is the document you have a copy of the Constitution as it was written for Federation in 1901?
Reply2 h
Kerry O'Regan
Adrienne Lovelock Yes. It was so many people getting passionate about what should or should not be in the constitution that prompted my little project. I wondered how many people have any idea of what is in the constitution and its nature and purpose. If you don't know - find out.
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