Sure. Obviously, the Parliament is based in Canberra, and as you say, Australia, like Canada, is a very big place. Members do a lot of travelling within their own constituencies and some of them have huge constituencies, just as I'm sure there are some huge constituencies in Canada. For example, most of the Northern Territory is one of the constituencies. Two-thirds of Western Australia is another one. They're absolutely huge.
Of course, those members also need to travel to Canberra. We sit about 18 to 20 weeks a year. We tend to sit in two-week blocks at a time, and then there will be a one- or two-week break between those blocks of sittings. We have three longer breaks during the year, which might be six-week breaks.
To be very frank, when members come to Canberra, they want to maximize the time that they can spend on parliamentary business while they're here so that they can get back as soon as they can to their constituencies, where, let's face it, a lot of the real and very important work for them has to happen. We currently have an election going on here in Australia, and that's what it's all about. It's all about being re-elected by your constituents, so you want to pay a fair bit of attention to them.
That's pretty much the context. Members travel to Canberra. They'll travel for the two weeks of sittings. Some members who come from great distances might stay for the duration of the two weeks, but many will return to their constituencies over the weekend between the two sitting weeks.
The House sits from Monday to Thursday. We finish at about 5 p.m. on Thursday, which enables quite a lot of members to get back to their constituencies on Thursday evening. Then they usually travel back to Canberra on Sunday afternoon for sittings on the Monday.
That's the general sort of pattern of travel. There is a lot of travel for all our members because, as you know, it is a vast country. But members are very keen, and the whole sitting pattern has been built around concentrating their time in Canberra and doing as much as they can, rather than having, say, more sitting days dispersed throughout the calendar.