Author: SOUTER, GAVIN.
Title: Acts of Parliament. A narrative history of the Senate and House of Representatives Commonwealth of Australia.
Description: 8vo; pp. xvii, 658; illustrated endpapers, 16 b/w plates, 16 b/w in text illustrations, appendices, abbreviations, notes, bibliography, index; original white cloth, title lettered in purple on spine, dustjacket edges slightly browned, otherwise a very good copy. Melbourne; Melbourne University Press; 1988. The story of the federal legislature, beginning in 1901 with the first meetings of the Senate and House of Representatives at Parliament House, Melbourne and ending with the thirty-fifth Parliament in Canberra and an impending move from the provisional Parliament House to a permanent home on Capital Hill. The book teems with vivid detail, but is more than merely a remembrance of things past. The reader may follow broad themes like the influence of executive government on Parliament, the rise of the Senate, the growth of central power, the High Court's encounters, the role of the Governor-General, etc.

Keywords: general history Australian Australia parliment senate house representative