Kelly Hoare (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be invited to speak today, with my good friend the member for McPherson, at the tabling of this report entitled Learning from other parliaments, which has arisen out of the study program embarked upon by the majority of members of the Procedure Committee during the Easter break this year.

The idea of a Procedure Committee study tour evolved out of discussions towards the end of last year. The committee over the years has tried to pursue investigations into various issues relating to the procedures of our parliament. These have included petitions—the effectiveness or otherwise of them, whether we should have processes in place to enable electronic petitions and how and wether the issues raised in petitions should be acted upon or followed up; the benefits or not of electronic voting in the chamber; the scheduling of votes at a particular time during the day; whether we as members of this chamber have sufficient opportunity to fully scrutinise the legislation which comes before us;  and the involvement of members of parliament in the administration and resourcing of the parliament and its committees: should we have more involvement and how much involvement should we have? They have included the processes of question time—how can the government be made to respond appropriately and relevantly to questions and be held accountable for decisions made or policy areas pursued; the election processes for the Speaker—who should conduct the election of the Speaker and what should be the eligibility requirements of that person; and pursuing more opportunities for backbenchers to speak in the parliament.

It was agreed amongst committee members that we would use our individual study leave entitlements to visit various parliaments and chambers in the United Kingdom and Europe. We thank the Clerk of the House of Representatives for approving the participation of the secretary, Judy Middlebrook, and we also thank her for the time, effort and diligence in her guidance and support to us in the program preparation and the conduct of the visit. If it were not for Judy, I doubt whether the study tour would have been as productive as it was or yielded so many opportunities. I understand Judy is recovering from an operation, and I take this opportunity to wish her a full and speedy recovery. We look forward to having her back with us in the Procedure Committee in the near future.

The program we set ourselves was ambitious. As outlined in our key themes, we visited and studied the procedures of six chambers: the House of Commons and the House of Lords, from where our own bicameral system has evolved; the Scottish parliament, a relatively new parliament; the Tynwald, on the Isle of Man, which some would argue is the longest continuing running parliament in the world; the Welsh National Assembly, one of the most technologically advanced parliaments; and the French National Assembly. While we as a committee held fairly firm views on the major areas we would like to study, the program in each of the parliaments was put together by the staff of those parliaments, and I would like to thank those people for their effort and goodwill in providing fulfilling programs and also for their warm hospitality.

During our visit we also discovered and learnt about things we did not know we needed to know, as is pointed out in the report. We learnt about different ways of being able to communicate with the public, within the chamber, throughout the public areas of the building and also out in our communities. We learnt about the use of technology, ranging from electronic voting to having computer technology within and out of the chamber and the use of information screens throughout the building. We also looked at ways in which we could endeavour to have a more interactive process in the chamber during debates to make that time more effective and relevant for those members participating. The study tour and this report provide a strong basis to pursue many of these issues relating to procedures in our own parliament as we continue to ensure that our procedures help to facilitate continuing good representation for our constituents and to ensure our democratic processes.

Finally, I would like thank all of those who participated in the study tour: the chair, the member for McPherson, Margaret May, and her husband David; the member for Chifley, generally known as the father of procedures, Roger Price, and his wife Robyn; the member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, and his wife Irene; the Chief Government Whip, Kerry Bartlett, and his wife Christine; and Judy Middlebrook, whom we all know. I thank you all for your goodwill, your good humour and your continuing friendship and in particular for extending that support and friendship to my daughter Naomi. I commend the report to the House.

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