Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The current petitioning process in the House of Representatives encompasses the following points. Petitions, like other documents, may only be presented to the House by a member. In 95 per cent of cases, the terms are read out to the House by the Clerk. Members have certain administrative duties regarding the petitions they lodge—for example, counting the number of signatories—but they cannot personally sponsor a petition or petition the House in their own right. There was some concern in submissions that members may be generating their own petitions.

There are a number of rules set out in the standing orders and the Clerk or Deputy Clerk checks petitions for compliance before they are presented to the House. Those which do not comply with the rules are deemed out of order and they are not registered in the official records of the House. These rules were revised and simplified in 2001, but during the 41st Parliament 161 petitions have so far been found to be out of order, containing some 430,000 signatures. This means that about 40 per cent of the signatures to all petitions to the House are on out-of-order petitions.

Once petitions are presented to the House, the terms of the petitions are recorded in Hansard. It is possible for petitions to be referred to a particular committee, although this is not done in practice. The Clerk then refers a copy of the petition to the minister responsible for the administration of the matter raised in the petition. It is rare that any further action is taken, though ministers may respond by lodging a written response to the Clerk. Three out of 2,589 petitions since 1999 have received a ministerial response.

The committee did not think this was good enough and has made a series of recommendations to improve the situation. The major recommendation of the committee is the establishment of a petitions committee. This would be another of the House’s domestic committees, established under chapter 16 of the standing orders. Like other such committees, it would consist of members from both sides of the House, would be chaired by a government member and would be supported by senior parliamentary staff.

The committee would manage all aspects of the processing of petitions, including maintaining a petitions website that would be accessible from a button on the House of Representatives home page; publishing and disseminating a redesigned petitions proforma and ensuring that all members had hard copies in their offices to facilitate public access to petitioning; receiving all petitions and acknowledging receipt to the principal petitioner; ensuring petitions are consistent with the standing orders and negotiating with the principal petitioner, where necessary, to address any problems; exercising discretion to disallow petitions which are unlawful or otherwise offensive or inappropriate and notifying the principal petitioner in such cases; liaising with the principal petitioner regarding all stages of his or her petition; arranging administrative processing, including counting the signatories and arranging for presentation of petitions to the House, and putting terms of petitions on the website; and monitoring the standing orders relating to petitions and advising the House where improvements can be made.

The committee is aware of concerns that parliamentary committees are currently under-resourced and that members are often asked to sit on too many committees. This in turn has an effect on the ability of members to contribute as well as they would like to each of the committees they serve on. It could therefore be argued that increasing the number of committees would simply stretch members further.

The committee accepts that the establishment of a petitions committee would require additional resources or the reallocation of resources within the House department. It remains of the view that the benefit of a dedicated petitions committee is worthy of the support of the House. The committee discussed some of the objections to this view which might arise. For example, it might be considered that a compromise could be proposed in the form of a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Procedure to be responsible for petitions.

The committee strongly cautions against any proposal to merge the existing Procedure Committee with the proposed petitions committee, for two reasons. Establishing a dedicated petitions committee should represent a conscious decision by the House and the government to give petitioning a much more prominent role and acknowledge that petitions can in fact make a difference to our democracy. To merge the proposed petitions committee with the existing Procedure Committee would reduce the effectiveness of both committees and their capacity to thoroughly investigate their quite separate subjects: House procedure, on the one hand, and individual petitions, on the other. Moreover, in no parliament reviewed in this report has a petitions committee been a subcommittee of the procedure committee.

A second concern is that a petitions committee might raise petitioners’ expectations that each petition would be actioned by the committee in the petitioners’ favour. Following analysis of the terms of petitions presented to the House so far this year, it is clear that in a number of cases the petitions committee would only be able to acknowledge the petition and refer its terms to the relevant minister, as is currently the case. At the very least, the principal petitioner would get an acknowledgement from the committee advising him or her that the petition had been presented to the House, considered by the committee and referred to the relevant minister for information and possible response.

While any response issued by a petitions committee is a far better outcome than the current system provides, it is likely that the petitions committee would present two types of reports: regular reports recommending the referral of petitions to either a minister or the relevant subject committee, and reports of its own inquiries into a small number of petitions. In relation to the first type of report, the petitions committee would still be able to monitor the progress of its recommended referrals, as the Scottish PPC does, and present this on the committee’s website.

On the basis that a petitions committee would provide a demonstrable sign that petitions continue to be a respected form of democratic participation and ought to be taken seriously by a modern House, and that a petitions committee would be able to distinguish between petitions that can be actioned by the House and those that would require further government action, the committee recommends that a petitions committee be established in the House of Representatives. (Time expired)

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