The House of Assembly was created in 1857, when South Australia attained self-government. The development of an elected legislature — although only men could vote — marked a significant change from the prior system, where legislative power was in the hands of the Governor and the Legislative Council, which was appointed by the Governor. In 1895, the House of Assembly
granted women the right to vote and stand for election to the legislature. South Australia was the second place in the world to do so after
New Zealand in 1893, and the first to allow women to stand for election. (The first woman candidates for the South Australia Assembly ran in 1918 general election, in Adelaide and Sturt.) From 1857 to 1933, the House of Assembly was elected from multi-member districts, commonly known as "
seats", with each district returning between one and six members. The size of the Assembly varied during this time—36 members from 1857 to 1875, 46 members from 1875 to 1884, 52 members from 1884 to 1890, 54 members from 1890 to 1902, 42 members from 1902 to 1912, 40 members from 1912 to 1915 after the
Northern Territory was ceded to federal administration, and 46 members from 1915 to 1938. In 1938, the Assembly was reduced to 39 members, elected from single-member districts. The House of Assembly has had 47 members since the
1970 election, elected from single-member districts: currently 34 in the
Adelaide metropolitan area and 13 in rural areas. These seats are intended to represent approximately the same population in each electorate. Voting is by
Instant-runoff voting and
preferential voting with complete preference allocation, as with the equivalent federal chamber, the
Australian House of Representatives. All members face re-election approximately every four years. The most
recent election was held on 19 March 2022. The House is presided over by a Speaker, who, as of the passage of the
Constitution (Independent Speaker) Amendment Act 2021, is constitutionally banned from being a member of a registered political party outside of a "relevant election period". Another distinctive aspect of the history of the South Australian Parliament was the "
Playmander", a
gerrymandering system that instituted a pro-rural electoral
malapportionment introduced by the incumbent
Liberal and Country League (LCL) government, and in place for 32 years from 1936 to 1968. The already entrenched rural overweighting was increased to a 2:1 ratio, the number of MPs was reduced to 39 and the multi-member seats were abandoned for single-member seats. The House of Assembly now consisted of 26 low-population rural seats, which due to population shifts, were holding up to a 10-to-1 advantage over the 13 high-population metropolitan seats, even though rural seats contained only a third of South Australia's population. At the peak of the malapportionment in
1968, the rural seat of
Frome had 4,500 formal votes, while the metropolitan seat of
Enfield had 42,000 formal votes.
Labor won enough parliamentary seats to form government just once during the Playmander against the odds − in
1965. Labor won comprehensive majorities of the statewide
two-party-preferred (2PP) vote while failing to form government in
1944,
1953,
1962 and 1968. ==Membership==