Speaker of The Australian House of Representatives

Speaker Of The Australian House Of Representatives

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament of Australia. The presiding officer in the upper house is the President of the Senate.

The current Speaker is Anna Burke; she succeeded Peter Slipper, who resigned on 9 October 2012 in the midst of court proceedings. She is the second female Speaker of the House of Representatives, after Joan Child.

The current (43rd) Parliament is the first Australian federal parliament to have had three Speakers (Jenkins September 2010-November 2011; Slipper November 2011-October 2012; Burke October 2012- ).

The office of Speaker was created by section 35 of the Constitution of Australia. The authors of the Constitution intended that the House of Representatives should be as nearly as possible a replica of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

Read more about Speaker Of The Australian House Of Representatives:  Election, Origin, Role, Impartiality, Perquisites, List of Speakers

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