Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly

Creation

The Assembly was created by four acts of the Commonwealth Parliament in 1988, including the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988. The first election was held on 4 March 1989 and the assembly first sat on 11 May that year. Until this point, the ACT had been directly administered by the Commonwealth Government. It replaced the House of Assembly (also known for a period as the Legislative Assembly), which existed from 1976 to 1986, but had no executive power, with a principal function of advising the Commonwealth on matters relating to the Territory.

Membership

Since October 2016, the Legislative Assembly has had five members elected from each of five electorates, Brindabella, Ginninderra, Kurrajong, Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi. Members are elected for four-year terms by the Hare-Clark system, a variation of the Single Transferable Vote form of proportional representation.

Previously the Legislative Assembly had 17 members elected from three electorates—Brindabella and Ginninderra, which each had five members, and Molonglo, which had seven members. In 2014 the Assembly voted to expand the number of members, with the change to take effect at the 2016 election.

The Assembly was originally elected by a modified d'Hondt system, but a 1992 referendum supported the Hare-Clark method, and this was introduced in the 1995 election.

Members of the Legislative Assembly vote to elect a Chief Minister—in practice, the leader of whichever party can form government. The Chief Minister, in turn, selects up to seven ministers to form a cabinet. The leader of the second-largest party in the Assembly usually becomes the Leader of the Opposition.

Election dates for the Assembly are fixed in legislation, with elections held on the third Saturday in October every four years (until 1997, elections were held in February). The term of the Assembly was increased in 2004 from three to four years. The next election is due on 17 October 2020.

Local government functions

Unlike the legislatures of the other mainland states and territories, the Assembly also has the functions of a local council; the city of Canberra has no other local government.

Enactment of legislation

The ACT is unique among Australian states and territories, as it has no vice-regal post exercising authority as the representative of the Head of State, such as a Governor or an Administrator. The Governor-General of Australia serves as the representative of the Crown in the ACT. However, the functions of the head of the Executive—commissioning government, proroguing parliament and enacting legislation—are exercised by the Assembly itself and by the Chief Minister. Instead of vice-regal or regal assent, a Bill passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly is enacted on "notification"—publication in the Government Gazette of a notice authorised by the Chief Minister.

Powers

As with the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, the ACT Legislative Assembly lacks the full powers of a state legislature. For example, legislation passed by the Assembly can still be overridden by Australian Commonwealth legislation under the Territories Self-Government Legislation Amendment (Disallowance and Amendment of Laws) Act 2011. Although this is rare in practice, the Civil Unions Act 2006, which allowed same-sex couples to enter into "civil unions" was overruled following concerns that the civil unions mimicked marriage. In July 2006, the Federal Government again threatened to overrule the ACT Stanhope Government's anti-terror legislation, which was not consistent with other state laws. The Commonwealth also retained control of the Territory's justice system until handing it over to the Assembly in 1992.

Current distribution of seats

Australian Capital Territory general election, 2016

In this diagram, the red, blue and green squares indicate assembly members who belong to the ALP, the Liberal Party and the Greens respectively.