Divisions Of The Australian House Of Representatives
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In
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, electoral districts for the Australian House of Representatives are called divisions or more commonly referred to as electorates or seats. There are currently 151 single-member electorates for the
Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members o ...
.


Constitutional and legal requirements

Section 24 of the Constitution of Australia Section 24 of the Constitution of Australia is titled "Constitution of House of Representatives". It provides that the House of Representatives be "directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth" and have twice as many seats as the Senate. It a ...
specifies that the total number of members of the Australian House of Representatives shall be "as nearly as practicable" twice as many as the number of members of the Australian Senate. The section also requires that electorates be apportioned among the states in proportion to their respective populations; provided that each original state has at least 5 members in the House of Representatives, a provision that has given
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
higher representation than its population would otherwise justify. There are three electorates in the
Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...
and even though the
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
should have only one electorate based on their population, parliament have legislated that they receive two (by setting the quota for seat allocation using the harmonic mean for territories, meaning only around 1.3 quotas rather than 1.5 quotas are needed to have two seats). In addition, Section 29 forbids electorate boundaries from crossing state lines, forcing populated areas along state and territory borders to be placed in different electorates, such as
Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...
in
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
being part of the electorate of
Farrer Farrer may refer to People * Alisha Farrer (born 1943), Australian actress and model * Austin Farrer (1904–1968), English theologian, philosopher, and friend of C. S. Lewis * Buster Farrer (1936-), South African cricketer * Claude Farrer (1862â ...
, while nearby
Wodonga Wodonga ( Waywurru: ''Wordonga'') is a city on the Victorian side of the border with New South Wales, north-east of Melbourne, Australia. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of Wodonga LGA. Its population is approximately ...
in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
is part of the electorate of
Indi Indi may refer to: *Mag-indi language *Division of Indi, an electoral division in the Australian House of Representatives *Indi, Karnataka, a town in the state of Karnataka, India *Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface, a distributed control sys ...
. The same restriction does not apply to territories, and several current electoral divisions incorporate electors from multiple territories. This is currently the case for the
Division of Bean The Division of Bean is an electoral division for the Australian House of Representatives in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and Norfolk Island, which was created in 2018 and contested for the first time at the 2019 federal election. G ...
(covering part of the ACT and the whole of Norfolk Island), the
Division of Fenner The Division of Fenner is an Australian Electoral Division in the Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay Territory. As of the 2018 redistribution, it includes Gungahlin and the part of Belconnen north of Belconnen Way and west of East ...
(covering part of the ACT and the whole of
Jervis Bay Territory The Jervis Bay Territory (; JBT) is an internal territory of Australia. It was established in 1915 from part of New South Wales (NSW), in order to give the landlocked Australian Capital Territory (ACT) access to the sea. It was administered ...
), and the
Division of Lingiari The Division of Lingiari is an Australian electoral division in the Northern Territory that covers the entirety of the territory outside of the Division of Solomon, which covers Darwin and surrounding areas. The division also includes the C ...
(covering part of the Northern Territory and the whole of
Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean, around south of Java and Sumatra and around north-west of the ...
and
Cocos (Keeling) Islands ) , anthem = "''Advance Australia Fair''" , song_type = , song = , image_map = Australia on the globe (Cocos (Keeling) Islands special) (Southeast Asia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands , map_caption = ...
). The ''
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 The ''Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918'' is an Act of the Australian Parliament which continues to be the core legislation governing the conduct of elections in Australia, having been amended on numerous occasions since 1918. The Act was introd ...
'' sets out further provisions.


Apportionment and redistribution

The
Australian Electoral Commission The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent federal agency in charge of organising, conducting and supervising federal Australian elections, by-elections and referendums. Responsibilities The AEC's main responsibility is to ...
(AEC) determines the number of members of the House of Representatives to which each state and territory is entitled (called ''apportionment'') and the boundaries of each electorate, in a process known as ''redistribution''. Such apportionment and redistributions apply to the next federal election, but not to any by-elections. The last apportionment determination was made in July 2020, and the resulting redistribution is to take place during 2021, in time for the 2022 federal election, which was held on 21 May 2022. Within each state and territory, electoral boundaries are redrawn from time to time. This takes place at least once every 7 years, or when the state's entitlement to the number of members of the House of Representatives changes. Boundaries are drawn by a Redistribution Committee, and redistributions within a state are on the basis of the number of ''enrolled voters'', rather than total residents or "population". The number of enrolled voters in each division cannot vary by more than 10% from the average across a state or territory, nor can the number of voters vary by more than 3.5% from the average projected enrolment 3.5 years into the future. However, due to various reasons, larger seats like Cowper in
New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...
contain 80% more electors than that of smaller seats like Solomon in the
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
. In 2018, seats in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia were also abolished, in order to make way for seats in similar locations but with different names. At the 2022 Australian federal election, based on the 2021 apportionment, there were 151 divisions: 47 in New South Wales, 39 in Victoria, 30 in Queensland, 15 in Western Australia, 10 in South Australia, 5 in Tasmania, 3 in the ACT and 2 in Northern Territory.


Naming

The divisions of the House of Representatives are unusual in that many of them are not named after geographical features or numbered, as is the case in most other legislatures around the world. Most divisions are named in honour of prominent historical people, such as former politicians (often
Prime Ministers A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is no ...
), explorers, artists and engineers. There is also a preference for retaining names used since Federation. In some cases where a division is named after a geographical locality, the connection to that locality is sometimes tenuous. For instance, the
Division of Werriwa The Division of Werriwa is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. The name Werriwa derives from a local Aboriginal name for Lake George, which was located in the division when it was established in 1900. The division ...
, created in 1901, was named after the Aboriginal word for Lake George in the Canberra region. However, Werriwa has not contained Lake George for many decades, and has steadily moved some 200 km north to the south-western suburbs of Sydney over the past century.


List of current electoral divisions

The divisions that existed at the 2022 Australian federal election appear in the table below.


Abolished divisions

These divisions no longer exist:


See also

*
List of members of the Australian House of Representatives A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
*
Australian electoral system The Australian electoral system comprises the laws and processes used for the election of members of the Australian Parliament and is governed primarily by the ''Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918''. The system presently has a number of distincti ...


External links


Adam Carr's Electoral Archive: Index of House of Representatives Divisions 1901–2001


References

{{Parliament of Australia Subdivisions of Australia Australia Australia politics-related lists Australian House of Representatives