Education

Her Excellency the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young PSM.

The Honourable Steven Miles MP (Australian Labor Party)

David Crisafulli MP (Liberal National Party)

The Queensland Parliament consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Monarch as Head of State; but usually the State Governor acts in place of the Monarch. Queensland's system of government is a representative democracy, where the people elect Members to represent them in the Legislative Assembly. Queensland is divided into 93 electorates (or seats), each represented by a Member of the Legislative Assembly.

The current distribution of seats in the Legislative Assembly is:

• Government - 52 Australian Labor Party seats
• Opposition - 34 Liberal National Party seats
• Katter's Australian Party - 3 seats
• Queensland Greens - 2 seat
• Pauline Hanson's One Nation - 1 seat
• Independent - 1 seat

The political party or coalition of parties with the majority of seats in the Parliament forms the Government. The Government is responsible to the Parliament, which means the Government must resign if Parliament expresses a lack of confidence in it. The Government is led by the Premier, who also heads the Cabinet, or Ministry. Members of the Government are appointed as Cabinet Ministers and allocated 'portfolios' - areas of Government administration for which they are responsible, such as Treasury, Primary Industries or Police.

The Parliament has a number of functions, including the passage of legislation, which constitute the State's laws. It also has a financial responsibility by overseeing and granting the Government's requested yearly appropriations of revenue and expenditure. The Parliament provides a forum for the scrutiny of the Government's activities and for Members to represent their constituents' interests.

Business for a typical sitting day usually includes:

• Assembly, during which the Speaker takes the chair and opens the day's proceedings with a prayer;
• Preliminary Business, which includes messages from the Governor, statements by Ministers on matters pertinent to their portfolios, petitions presented to Parliament by Members on behalf of constituents and motions of condolence;
• Question Time, which provides an opportunity for the Opposition to scrutinise the Government's policies and activities through questions;
• Matters of Public Interest, which allows Members to raise issues relating to matters of public interest; and
• Government Business, which takes up the major part of the parliamentary day, and includes the debating of legislation.

The Speaker is the Member of Parliament elected by the House to preside over sittings of the Legislative Assembly and to maintain orderly proceedings. The Speaker is supported in their role by officers of the Parliamentary Service, including the Clerk of the Parliament, the Sergeant at Arms and Hansard reporters.

The Speaker of the Queensland Parliament is Hon Curtis Pitt MP.

Other key figures in the Parliament are: the Premier (the Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk MP) and the Leader of the Opposition (David Crisafulli MP).

All enquiries about the Free Queensland Flag Scheme should be directed to Protocol Queensland.

Ph: + 61 7 3224 4778
Fax: + 61 7 3224 6502
protocol@premiers.qld.gov.au

Postal Address:
PO Box 15185
City East Qld 4002

Members of the Executive Council, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and Justices of the Supreme Court of Queensland are entitled to use the title Honourable while in office. However, they are not automatically entitled to use Honourable when they cease to hold that office. The Governor of Queensland has been granted a delegation of authority from the Monarch to grant the right of retention of the title ‘Honourable’ for life in certain circumstances upon the recommendation of the Premier.

The Department of Premier and Cabinet maintain guidelines for the retention of the title Honourable. For further detailed information on this, please refer to the Retention of the title 'Honourable' Policy.