does anyone know...

[cathtacular]

what an electoral division is and what proportional representation refers to?

thanks.

[enwiabe]

N.B. I COULD BE WRONG. SOMEBODY SHOULD VERIFY THIS, THIS IS ONLY FROM GENERAL KNOWLEDGE.

Electoral division = electorate and is an area of land that contains roughly 80,000 people. These "electoral divisions" or electorates make up the voting system of Australia. Every electorate votes in a representative who, as one might assume, represents them in parliament. Proportional representation is exactly that. Every 80,000 people gets a member of parliament to represent them so that the population is proportionally represented.

Bah this was really loose, vague and basic. I hope someone can elaborate.

[sheepz]

I don't think you really need to know that in much detail... the main point is to know that each electoral represents around the same amount of people and each electoral has a member of parliament that represents it. The size of the electoral can therefore vary since say (nationally) in Sydney it will be much more populated as opposed to Tasmania so they would have much smaller km^2 (land size) electoral.

[legaltutor]

also as the electorate is dependent on population NSW may have around 37 whereas Vic has less. (Check current numbers in Legal Notes)- a worthy investment.
This is also the reason the senate, or states' house exists; to represent the less populace states evenly.

[cathtacular]

thanks for your help guys.