Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As Chair of the Procedure Committee, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak today on this report, Maintenance of the standing and sessional orders: first report: debate on the election of Speaker. I would first like to thank the deputy chairman, the member for Banks, who is here in the chamber today, for tabling the report in my absence, on 27 March. Unfortunately, I was not in Canberra. The deputy chairman did a great job in tabling the report. I would like to put on record my thanks to all the committee members. They were unable to speak on the report on that day, I understand, because the Prime Minister of Britain was speaking to a joint sitting of both houses. I am delighted that today there are a number of members of the committee here who are going to speak. I am certainly delighted that I am able to say a few words on this report today.

The recommendations of the report, I am pleased to say, have already been implemented. The relevant standing orders, Nos 11, 141 and 142, have been amended to reflect those changes. In fact, those changes were made on 29 March. I would like to put on record today a few comments with regard to the report. I hope my committee members will bear with me while I put on record the two issues we looked at. This is the first report of an ongoing inquiry into the maintenance of the standing and sessional orders. The two matters that were discussed and that are in the report, as the deputy chairman has alluded to, were the debate on the election of the Speaker and the presentation of explanatory memorandums. Both these matters were brought to the attention of the committee for investigation and for us to have a bit of a hard look at.

During the election of the Speaker at the start of this parliament, I imagine that no member present had any inkling that the standing orders were not being observed when the member for Corangamite spoke for a few minutes in support of his nominee for the speakership. It just seemed a natural thing to do. I am sure the member for Corangamite thought so too at the time. Now that we have this precedent, we can look at it and say, ‘What harm was done?’ The committee could certainly see no harm. Indeed, we saw benefits in allowing the mover and seconder of a nominee for the speakership to introduce their candidate to the House.

When there is only a single candidate, such introduction is possibly technically unnecessary as the House does not have a choice to make. However, nowadays, at the start of each parliament, when most Speakers are elected, there could be many new members who would appreciate a brief outline of the background of the person proposed to be their Speaker. There are also people in the public galleries, which are full on that day, to consider and an increasing number of television viewers. As one of my colleagues pointed out, it is also useful to have such an account in the Hansard record. The deputy chairman has certainly alluded to that. The committee therefore recommended that the mover and seconder of all nominees for Speaker be able to speak for five minutes each in support of their candidate as now there will be no further debate unless there are two or more nominees.

The second topic in this report, the timing of the presentation of explanatory memorandums to bills, became an issue in the House with the presentation and second reading debate of the workplace relations bill in November last year. There was, as it turned out, a misunderstanding in relation to the release of the bill’s explanatory memorandum, which could have been avoided had our recommendations been in effect at that time. Previously the explanatory memorandum to a bill was presented at the end of the minister’s second reading speech. The Procedure Committee recommended that the explanatory memorandum be presented when the bill is introduced, at the first reading stage. This is to avoid any supposition or expectation that the public release of any explanatory memorandum has to be delayed until after the minister’s speech. Usually, of course, such a delay could only be a few minutes. But, as we saw last November, intervening proceedings could cause a longer delay. Theoretically, the second reading speech could be on an even later day. While it seems to have always been the usual practice for the Table Office to release explanatory memorandums at the same time as the bill, it is possible to interpret the standing orders as requiring them to be kept under embargo until they have been presented. To avoid uncertainty it is preferable that standing orders and administrative practice should align, and our recommendations in this report certainly did that.

As I said earlier, the recommendations in the report have been adopted and the standing orders have been amended. However, this report is only the first report of the Procedure Committee’s ongoing inquiry into the maintenance of the standing and sessional orders. The committee will review the sessional orders—and there are quite a number of them—adopted by the House on 9 February.

One of those sessional orders in particular relates to expanding the time available to members for debating committee and delegation reports. Prior to my speaking today we just heard the honourable member for Blair and other colleagues speaking on a delegation report on a trip to Iraq. It has certainly given members huge opportunities to speak on delegation reports and also committee reports, those reports that they have put a lot of time and effort into. It has given them that extra time on a Monday. The day the report is tabled in the House, we are allowing two hours now on Monday afternoons for the debate of those committee and delegation reports. I would say that for those members who are utilising that time they see it as of great benefit to themselves, even in their communities. They are able to speak to those reports and put on record their own interpretations of trips they have had. We have heard from the member for Blair today about that very exciting trip to Iraq.

As I said, there are more to come. Of interest to you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Scott, may be the maintenance of order in the Main Committee. The deputy speaker brought that matter to the committee for consideration. These changes that we have recommended can now be utilised here in the Main Committee. They provide additional options for the chair of the Main Committee to maintain order—in particular, the new provision of being able to direct a member or members to leave the room for a period of 15 minutes and the discretion the chair now has as to whether or not to report the disorder to the House. I think that strengthens the role of the Deputy Speaker here in the Main Committee.

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