How a bill becomes a law

In Parliament House in Canberra, there is constantly new bills trying to be passed. In the paragraphs below, I will explain the process of how a bill is passed in Parliament House.

First of all, before the bill is introduced to any houses or any MPs, a minister or private member (usually the prime minister or any member of their cabinet) must give notice of their intention to introduce their bill.The full text of the notice, including the extra long title of the bill, is published in the Legaslative Assembly Business Paper, or the Legislative Council Notice Paper for the next day. This called the Notice of Motion.

Next, the bill will be introduced to the House of Representatives, where the bill is read by the speaker and everyone in the house has their own say on what they think about the bill. This is indicated by the members who disagree saying'aye!', and every member who votes no says 'no!'. This is shown more clearly when they have something called a 'division vote', where every member walks to one side of the room to show what they vote. This step can get very contraversial in situations when members from one party vote on a different side to the rest of the party.

The bill is then read a second and third time, each followed by an 'aye!' and 'no!' vote, and a division vote, with the speaker reading it out each time as well. Also in this time, members from different parties can voice their own opinion on the matter. If at any point in these votes the negative side gets a majority, then the bill has not been passed and the session is closed.

If, however, the bill does pass all 3 readings, then the bill is taken to the Senate by someone and the MPs in the Senate go through the same procedure of 3 readings and votes. If the bill does not pass the 3 readings in the Senate, the bill has not been passed and the session is closed.

Once again, if the bill does make it through, then it is taken to the Governor General, who makes decisions for Australia on behalf of the king, since Australia is part of the commonwealth. The Governor General has the power to deny the bill, or to sign and approve it. Doing this is called giving it the 'Royal Assent', and if all these steps go flawlessly, this bill becomes a law, and the Constitution of Australia is adapoted to fit this law.

The last step of making this bill a law is to get the news out to the people, and that is a job for the departments of Australia. They let the people know by posting on social media about the new law or putting flyers on community notice boards.