Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly | |
---|---|
Type | |
Type | |
Houses | Legislative Assembly |
History | |
Founded | 1989 |
Leadership | |
Structure | |
Seats | 25 |
Legislative Assembly political groups
|
Government (14) Labor (12) Greens (2) Opposition Liberal (11) |
Meeting place | |
Legislative Assembly Building, Canberra | |
Website | |
www.parliament.act.gov.au |
The Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly (formally, the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory) is the unicameral legislature of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It sits in the Legislative Assembly Building located on Civic Square, close to the centre of the city of Canberra.
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.
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.