By having multiple members for each division, the voting intentions of the electors are more closely represented in the House of Assembly.

Additionally, it is easier for minor parties to enter the legislature than in the rest of Australia, allowing them to possibly exert influence through the balance of power (the need for a working majority in the assembly).

The party or coalition with a majority of seats in the House of Assembly is invited by the Governor of Tasmania to form Government.

The leader of that party becomes the Premier of Tasmania, and their senior colleagues become ministers responsible for various portfolios.

The House of Assembly was first established in 1856, under legislation passed by the British Parliament creating the independent self-governing Colony of Tasmania.

[5] In 1897 Tasmania was among the first jurisdictions in the world to use the Hare-Clark proportional representation system to elect some of its members.

In 2010, an attempt to increase the number of seats in the House back to 35 for the 2014 state election was made by the leaders of the three main parties — Labor, the Liberals and the Greens, who signed an agreement on 2 September of that year to submit the proposal for public consideration before taking a set of resolutions to their respective party rooms.

[6] The proposal, however, was dropped in February 2011 when the Liberal Party withdrew its support for the plan, citing budget circumstances.

Unlike most state parliaments in Australia, by-elections are very rare in the House of Assembly.

[8] One of the few by-elections (in legal terms a fresh or 're-election') in recent memory occurred in 1980, when the Supreme Court ordered a new election in Denison because three Labor members had exceeded spending limits.