The floor itself is a reminder of an inherited parliamentary custom, with its green carpet echoing the colour of the carpet traditionally used on the floor of the British Parliament's House of Commons. At one end of the Chamber, on a raised section of the floor, is the Speaker's Chair.

Elected by the members of parliament from among themselves, the Speaker is responsible for keeping meetings (sittings) in order. The title 'Speaker' was first used in England centuries ago when the chairperson of the parliament was responsible for speaking to the monarch (king or queen) - telling him or her about decisions that parliament had made. Because the Speaker was the first to feel the monarch's anger if the decisions weren't to his or her liking, some Speakers literally had to be dragged to their chair and made to do their job.

By tradition, a newly-elected Speaker is still expected to seem unwilling to take his place and is escorted to the chair by other members of the parliament. However, being Speaker is today considered an honour and the Speaker's Chair is usually made especially to reflect that. The Speaker's Chair in the Legislative Assembly was presented in 1994 as a gift from the Commonwealth Parliament to mark the opening of the new Parliament House. It was made by Tasmanian craft workers from Tasmanian native timbers. In front of the Speaker's Chair is a T-shaped table called, quite simply, 'the Table'.

Whenever a minister or a member presents a document (such as an annual report from a government department) to the parliament, it is said to be 'tabled'. This goes back to the days before printing, when copies of documents had to be written by hand, and it could take a long time for each member to receive one. So, the document was placed on the Table where members could read it. Today, documents are printed and distributed to all the members, but a copy is still tabled to show officially that it has been presented to the parliament. At the head of the Table are three chairs. The one in the middle is used by the Chairman of Committees, one of the members who, at certain times, acts as chairman in place of the Speaker. The other two chairs at the head of the Table are for the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of the Assembly. They are officers of the Parliament who keep a record of all the decisions made, accept all documents presented or tabled and provide advice to the Speaker and members when necessary. They also read out documents, such as petitions, presented to the parliament.

Also at the table, in front of the Clerks, is an electronic timer which is used to time members' speeches and divisions. When the members have to take part in a special kind of vote, known as a division, bells are rung throughout Parliament House for three minutes to warn any member who may be out of the Chamber. After this the chamber is locked. When parliament is sitting, the Mace is placed on the Table.

Arranged in a horseshoe shape around the Table are the seats ('benches') where the members of parliament sit - laid out in a pattern similar to the traditional one in Britain's House of Commons. The benches to the Speaker's right are used by the Government members, with the Chief Minister and the other ministers in the front row and part of the second row. The Opposition members sit to the Speaker's left, with the Leader of the Opposition in the front row. Because the more junior members sit on the back benches, they are often known, in fact, as 'backbenchers'. Some things in the Chamber do not have such long traditions behind them.

On the walls at each side of the Chamber are modern clocks which are used to indicate the amount of time available for each speech being made by Members. They indicate to the Speaker when a Member's allotted time has expired and Members can use them to ensure that they do not talk beyond the time available to them. Even more modern are the microphones on each member's desk and the television cameras which allow everything that happens in the Chamber to be recorded. These recordings are used to produce a printed report of all that is said during a sitting of parliament. Called Hansard, the report is named after Thomas Hansard, a printer and publisher who first started producing such reports in Britain in 1803.

Each day, they produce a Daily Hansard which provides an edited but unverified version of what has been said in parliament. The members have an opportunity to examine it and ask for any mistakes in what they are reported to have said to be corrected. The Hansard editors then go through the report again, correcting mistakes in grammar and generally making it more readable, though without changing in any way the meaning of anything that has been said. The final version is included as a book which is available to the public, called the Parliamentary Record.