Legislative Assembly History

The Legislative Assembly from 1856
by Robert Lawrie, Manager, Parliamentary Archives

Parliamentary government in NSW began with the appointment of the first Legisative Council in 1824 . This Council had nominated members and limited powers. Prior to this date the Governor was the sole legislator, a military ruler with autocratic powers.�
The Council was reconstituted in 1843, becoming a 'blended' body, partially elected (on a property-based white male suffrage) and partially appointed by the Governor. The executive was still appointed by the Governor. This Council eventually set up a select committee on the Constitution, which recommended responsible government: that is, the executive would be drawn from the legislature.�
In 1855 the British Parliament (in this context, generally called the Imperial Parliament) passed the NSW Constitution� Statute (18&19 Vic. c.54), a schedule of which was the NSW Constitution Act (17 Vic. No.41). This Act is the basis of government in NSW. The Act substituted for the existing Legislative Council a bicameral legislature with power to make laws for "the peace, welfare, and good government" of NSW [1].

The new legislature was to consist of a Legislative Council of not less than twenty-one members nominated by the Governor on the advice of the Executive Council ; and a Legislative Assembly of fifty-four members elected on a suffrage based on age, sex, property ownership, and race. The electors had to be male adults with the following property qualifications: ownership of freehold land of the value of �100.0.0; or occupancy of property which had an annual value of �10.0.0; or occupancy of a lodging or room at a price of �10.0.0p.a.; or an income of at least �100.0.0 p.a. [2]. This property qualification was abolished by the new Parliament itself, leaving a suffrage based on age, sex, and race.�
The fifty-four members were elected by male voters of at least 21 years of age, natural born or naturalised subjects of Her Majesty and possessing the above property qualifications. The Electoral Act of 1858 abolished these property qualifications and also extended the franchise to all adult males resident in the Colony for at least three years. At the same time voting by secret ballot was introduced.�
The Constitution Statute gave the NSW Parliament authority to alter or repeal any provisions of the Constitution Act subject to any conditions imposed by the Act itself as to alteration (until such conditions had been repealed by Parliament) [3]. Section 36 of the Constitution Act stipulated that bills altering the Constitution were to be passed with a two-thirds majority of both Houses and reserved for the royal assent [4].

The Electoral Act of 1858 increased the number of members to eighty (reduced to seventy-two in 1859 when Queensland was erected into a separate colony with a separate Parliament) with three seats provided for the goldfields and one for the University of Sydney (this seat was abolished in 1880). There were also nine multi-member constituencies with seven returning two members each and two returning four each.�

The Electoral Act of 1880 provided for seventy-two electorates and one hundred and eight members, with provision for an expansion of up to four members for each electorate as population increased. The number of members thus increased to one hundred and forty-one, a number of electorates returning the maximum of four members.�

This Act was repealed by the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act of 1893 which provided for one hundred and twenty-five single-member electorates.�

In 1904 the number of members was reduced to ninety; in 1950 it was increased to ninety-four; in 1969 to ninety-six; in 1973 to ninety-nine; and in 1988 to one hundred and nine [5].

Membership of either House has always been open to any qualified elector, with the qualifications gradually being broadened over the years, beginning with the abolition of the property qualification in 1858. Members of the police force were given the vote in 1896. In 1902 the franchise was extended to adult women by the Women's Franchise Act of 1902; women, however,were not permitted to become members of the Assembly until the passing of the Women's Legal Status Act of 1918 [6]. Aboriginals were not enfranchised until 1962 [7].

There have always been the usual exclusions of people with a personal interest in public service contracts other than as members of companies, and of holders of pensions or offices of profit under the Crown other than in the armed forces or as members of the Executive Council. A person may not simultaneously be a member of both Houses, or of the state and federal parliaments.�
Other changes which have affected the Assembly have been the reduction of the residential qualification for electors to one year in 1893 and to six months in Australia and three months in NSW in 1912. The voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 year in 1973. Proportional representation was introduced in 1918 and was replaced by the preferential voting system in 1926. Compulsory enrolment of electors was introduced in 1921 and compulsory voting has been enforced since the general election of 1930.�

From 1856 to 1906 there was a constitutional provision that newly appointed ministers should submit themselves for re-election in their electorate. Some ministers were defeated on such occasions, including Donaldson (1856), Martin (1863), Robertson (1866), M.Burdekin (1866), and H. Copeland (1883), though Donaldson, Martin, and Burdekin were subsequently re-elected for other electorates. The great majority of ministers were returned safely and many were not even opposed [8].

Payment of members of the Assembly was introduced by the Parliamentary Representatives Allowance Act of 1889. It began with an annual allowance of &300.0.0, followed by amendments at an average interval of five years to about 1945, and every three years since. These amendments included reductions in 1922, 1930, 1931, and 1932. From 1902 to the end of 1975 the payments were authorised by the Constitution Act as amended by the Parliamentary Allowances and Salaries Acts. The Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal Act of 1975 provided for a judge or retired judge to determine each year the remuneration to be paid to members from the following 1 January. The allowance was not officially termed a salary until 1966.�

From the very beginning in 1856, salaries have been provided by separate legislation for ministers, with special recognition for the Premier (called Prime Minister until Federation in 1901) and senior ministers. Salaries for the Speaker and Chairman of Committees, who are elected by members for the duration of a parliament, were provided for from an early date but not made statutory until 1920. A special allowance was first provided for the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly in 1912; but Government and Opposition Whips, who became a regular feature of the Assembly in the 1880s, did not receive an extra allowance until 1932. In 1956 extra salaries were first provided for the deputy Premier, the deputy leader of the Opposition, and the leader of any third party with at least ten members in the Assembly, as long as they were not in office. In 1963 the deputy leader and whip of the third party were given extra expense allowances on the same condition. Allowances are also given to members serving on committees [9].
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The "life of a parliament" runs from the date fixed for the return of writs certifying the results of a general election for the Legislative Assembly to the dissolution of the Assembly, which initiates the next general election. The Constitution Act sets a limit to this period: it was five years up to 1874; three years from then to 1984; and four years since then.�
The meetings of a parliament are grouped into sessions, and prorogation brings a session to an end and fixes a starting date for the next session. The number of sessions in a parliament has fluctuated over the years, from the record six sessions of the eleventh parliament (1882-85) to the single session of the sixteenth (1894-95); now four to five are most common.�
The Electoral Act requires parliament to meet within a week after the date of the return of the writs. However the Assembly cannot begin business until members have been sworn in and have elected a Speaker at the direction of the Crown. This direction is normally conveyed to a joint meeting of the two Houses by leading members of the Legislative Council (usually the President, the Chairman of Committees, and a minister) whom the Governor commissions for the purpose. Once there is a Speaker (and assuming no vacancy in the Presidency of the Council) the Governor can attend in parliament, as he does every business session to deliver (also to a joint sitting) the Opening Speech outlining the government's program for the session.�
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The Speaker is the presiding officer of the Assembly, and as well as being the representative of the Assembly in its relations with the Governor, the Legislative Council, and bodies outside parliament, he is also the head of the internal administration of the Assembly side of parliament. He also shares joint control of the joint staffs (the Parliamentary Reporting Staff, the Food and Beverage Services, and the Parliamentary Library) with the President of the Legislative Council.�
The administrative arrangements of parliament were, in Hawker's phrase, "born adult" [10]. The forty people employed in 1856 were divided into four groups: the two main departments, the office of the Legislative Council and the office of the Legislative Assembly were headed administratively by the Clerk of the Legislative Council (from 1864 termed the Clerk of the Parliaments) and the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly respectively and included clerical, ceremonial and table officers, and messengers, doorkeepers and attendants; the staffs of the library and the refreshment room served both Houses and formed one department until their separation in 1862. Also attached jointly to the two main offices were two shorthand writers who reported select committees and the like [11]. The Parliamentary Reporting Staff (Hansard) was not instituted until 1879.�
The organisation of the Assembly Office has changed little since 1856, with the main division being between the chamber (table and� ceremonial) officers and the office staff. This division is reflected in the records created by each group (though the�� division is not rigid), and in the arrangement of this guide.�
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The demise of the old Legislative Council and the institution of the two new Houses of Parliament meant that new records systems had to be set up. The records of the old Council were for the main part inherited by the new Assembly [12]; they were then stored. From the very beginning of responsible government, the parliament and governments gave records storage a low priority. In 1859 the Clerk of the Legislative Council wrote a number of persistent letters to the Colonial Secretary, the Secretary for Public Works, and the Colonial Architect about the construction of a building for storage of the records and printed papers of both the Council and the Assembly [13].
In 1881 further requests for records accommodation were made [14] and the problem apparently worsened until a scheme was proposed twenty years later to lessen the bulk of records stored. This scheme was based on a similar one in operation in the New Zealand Parliament [15], and was proposed in 1905. Consequently on 6 December of that year the Premier, Mr J.H. (later Sir Joseph) Carruthers, moved the Resolution -�

That the Clerk of the Assembly be authorised, at his discretion, to destroy the following accumulated manuscripts, records, and documents laid upon the Table of the Assembly prior to 1901,
1. Returns to Addresses and Orders, and Papers, not being originals, which have been printed;
2. Petitions;
3. Manuscript Votes and Proceedings, including Division Lists; also Manuscript Notice Papers;
4. Minutes, Proceedings, and Papers� connected with inquiries before Select Committees;
5. Reports of Select Committees which have been printed;
6. Miscellaneous Maps and Plans which, in the opinion of the Clerk, are no longer of value;
7. Manuscript Correspondence and Records not laid on the Table. Any of the above which the Clerk may consider of historic or other interest to be retained.�
That power be given to the Clerk of the Assembly to deal, on the above lines, with the manuscripts, records, and documents of an additional Parliament at the expiration of each Parliament" [16].

After some debate in which the Premier deemed the accumulation of manuscripts as being "nothing more nor less than waste paper" [17] the Resolution was agreed to, and work began on the destruction of many of the valuable Tabled Papers; this wholesale weeding of the archives continued until about 1930, when the use of the Resolution fell into desuetude.�
Although much that has now been recognised as valuable was destroyed, there was much which was so obviously of historical and cultural worth that it could not be thrown away. It was given away instead.�

In 1914 at the urging of librarians and historians an Archives Department was established within the Mitchell Library; and although no organised system of records disposal was instituted then, the Premier, Mr. W. Holman, circulated a letter to all Government departments requesting that old departmental records be preserved [18]. It was probably this, and the interest of the then Principal Librarian, Mr W.H. Ifould, which brought many valuable parliamentary documents out of official custody and into the custody of the Mitchell Library [19], where they remain today.�
In April 1939, before war was declared, the NSW Government was making preparations to transfer valuable documents to places of safety. Among the arrangements was the preparation of various State War Books, which detailed action to be taken in times of emergency.�

Prior to being sent away to a safer place, records and documents were to be classified into two categories: "A" - essential records; and "B" - non-essential records [20]. This was the first time in the history of Parliament that the records had to be deliberately looked at in this way (the culling of the first part of the twentieth century being impelled mostly by a desire to make more storage space).�
The records thus decided to be essential were then placed in various storerooms before being relegated to a basement. They were in this basement when it flooded in 1975.�
The flood wet most of the manuscript records of the first Legislative Council (1824 - 1855) and nearly all of the nineteenth-century Tabled Papers of the Legislative Assembly; other records, including the Member's Rolls, were also damaged.�

A swift rescue operation was staged, with the co-operation of the Parliament, the Archives Office of NSW (now State Records), and the Australian Archives (now the National Archives). The conservation facilities of the Australian Archives were extensively used [21].

During the rescue operation it was noticed that some of the damaged papers related to the National Australasian Convention of 1891 and the Australasian Federal Convention of 1897 - 1898. As the records of the Federal Conventions are in the custody of the Australian Archives, a request was made by the Australian Archives that these records be transferred to its custody. This was done in 1976 [22].

Following this disaster inquiries were made as to the suitability of transferring parliamentary archives to the custody of the State Archives. Some inquiries in this regard had already taken place in 1966, and after legal consultation the Archives Authority decided that the records of Parliament were not "public records" in the terms of the Archives Act of 1960, since Parliament was an institution 'sui generis' [23].

After consultation between the Legislative Assembly, the Archives Office of NSW, and the Public Service Board, a new position of archivist was created to care for the archives of Parliament. The position is on the establishment of the Archives Authority, and is seconded to Parliament. From 1980 to 1984 the Archivist cared for the manuscript records of the first Legislative Council in the custody of the Legislative Assembly, and for the archives of the Legislative Assembly. From the beginning of 1985 responsibility for all the archives of Parliament was given to the Parliamentary Archivist.� In 1990 this position was deleted from the establishment of the State Archives and the Parliament established its own Parliamentary Archives Section.

FOOTNOTES

1	Section 1
2	R.D. Lumb, The Constitutions of the Australian States, 4th ed., St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1977, p.20
3	Section 4
4	Lumb, op.cit., pp. 3-24
5	'The NSW Parliamentary Record', various editions.
6	The first woman member of the Assembly was Miss Millicent Preston-Stanley (1883 - 1955) (later Mrs. Crawford Vaughan), who was Member for Eastern Suburbs from May 1925 to September 1927.
7	There have been no Aboriginal members of the NSW Parliament.
8	G.N. Hawker, The Parliament of NSW 1856- 1965, Sydney, N.S.W. Government Printer, 1971, p. 58
9	R.S. Parker, The Government of NSW, Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1978, pp. 186-189
10	Hawker, op.cit., p. 113
11	ibid.
12	The new Legislative Council did however come into some of these records, which are still in its custody.
13	NSW Parliamentary Archives: Legislative Council, PRS 21.LC, Copies of Letters Sent 1856 - 1954. Volume 1 (1856 - 1859), p.161 (10 September 1858). Volume 2 (1859- 1873), p.20 11 October 1859) Legislative Council, PRS 38.LC, Copies of Letters Sent to the Colonial Secretary, 1856 - 1906. Volume 1 (1856 - 1859), p.61 (17 September 1858 and 18 November 1858), p. 75 (18 June 1859); Volume 2 (1859 - 1906), p. 3 (3 August 1859), p. 6 (7 December 1859)
14	PRS 38.LC:2, p. 253 (10 May 1881)
15	NSW Parliamentary Archives: Legislative Assembly, PRS 110.LA, Letters Received, 1892 - 1983, LA IL 1909 / 111; 'Destruction of the Records of the House of Representatives' (New Zealand) - Resolution of the Session of 1900
16	'Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of NSW', No. 76, Session 1905 (6 December 1905), p.349
17	'NSW Parliamentary Debates', 6 December 1905,� p. 4660
18	NSW Parliamentary Archives: Legislative Council, PRS 216.LC, Documents Tabled and Inwards Correspondence, 1856 - 1914. LC Corr 1914/269
19	NSW Parliamentary Archives: Legislative Assembly, PRS 110.LA, Letters Received, 1892 - 1983, LA IL 1917 / 313 (6 November 1917) -Transfer of documents to Mitchell Library 'Votes and Proceedings' No. 47, Session 1917-18 (6 February 1918) - Resolution regarding 'Transfer of Records to Custody of Mitchell Library' PRS 110.LA, LA IL 1922/378 (29 December 1922) - Letter from Mitchell Library requesting transfer of certain documents PRS 110.LA, LA IL 1927/177 (23 September 1927) - Acknowledgement of donations to Mitchell Library 'Votes and Proceedings' No. 21, Session 1927 (8 December 1927) - Resolution regarding 'Transfer of Records to Custody of Mitchell Library PRS 110.LA, LA IL 1927/263 (8 December 1927) - List of records to be transferred PRS 110.LA, LA IL 1929/69 (27 February 1929) - Letter from Mitchell Library acknowledging transfer of historical documents PRS 110.LA, LA IL 1929/331 (29 October 1929) - Acknowledgement of donations to Mitchell Library
20	NSW Parliamentary Archives: Legislative Assembly, PRS 81.LA, Special Bundles, 1879 - 1977. Item 3: State War Book. Correspondence relating to the removal of records to a place of safety, 1939 - 1942 "In determining whether records, books, documents, etc., are essential the meaning given thereto is that these are essential to the carrying on of the Legislative Assembly in subsequent circumstances and represents a bare minimum required for the functioning thereof".
21	Parliamentary Archives, Legislative Assembly, PRS 81.LA, Special Bundles, 1879 - 1977. Item 4: Correspondence relating to the Parliamentary records and archives, 1974 - 1977
22	The records of the National Australasian Convention of 1891 and the Australasian Federal Convention 1897 - 1898 were held from then to 1987 in the then Australian Archives NSW Regional Office. They are now held in the Australian Capital Territory Regional Office of the National Archives
23	Archives Authority of NSW, Minutes of Meeting of 14 February 1966. p.2. (In Parliamentary Archives File 85/26A)

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