Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That standing orders 2, 131, 132, 198, 204, 205, 206, 215, 217, 220 and 222 be amended, and new standing order 205a be inserted, as follows:

2    Definitions

The following meanings apply throughout these standing orders.

…

petition is a formal request (in paper or electronic form) to the House to take action that is within its power to take. A petition for presentation to the House must comply with the standing orders. An electronic petition (e-petition) is a petition that persons may sign through the House of Representatives e-petition website (House website). A paper petition includes any petition that is not an electronic petition.

…

present a document means table a document. A document presented to the Federation Chamber is taken to have been presented to the House.

…

visitor means a person other than a Member or parliamentary official or an infant being cared for by a Member (standing order 257(d)).

131        Successive divisions

(a) If a division is called following a division and there is no intervening debate, the Speaker shall appoint tellers immediately and the bells shall be rung for one minute.

(b) If there is a successive division, Members who wish to vote in the same way as in the previous division must remain seated until the result of the division is announced. The tellers may record each Member’s vote as being the same as it was in the previous division unless a Member reports to them. A Member must report to the tellers if he or she:

  (i) wishes to vote differently to his or her vote in the previous division; or

  (ii) voted in the previous division and does not wish to vote in the current division; or

  (iii) did not vote in the previous division and wishes to vote in the current division.

(c) The vote shall be counted as in standing order 130 if:

  (i) in the Speaker’s opinion most Members wish to vote differently to their votes in the previous division; or

  (ii) any confusion or error occurs in the count by the tellers.

132        New division in case of confusion, error or misadventure

(a) If confusion, or error concerning the numbers reported by the tellers, occurs and cannot be corrected, the House shall divide again.

(b) If a division has miscarried through misadventure caused by a Member being accidentally absent or some similar incident, any Member may move on the same sitting day, without notice and without the need for a seconder—

That the House divide again.

If this motion is agreed to the question shall be put again and the result of the subsequent division shall be the decision of the House.

198        Report to the House

(a) When the Federation Chamber has fully considered a bill referred to it, a final question shall be put immediately and resolved without amendment or debate—

That this bill be reported to the House, with[out] [an] amendment[s] [and with (an) unresolved question(s)].

(b) The Clerk of the Federation Chamber shall certify a copy of the bill or other item of business to be reported to the House, together with any schedules of amendments and unresolved questions. Unless otherwise provided, the Speaker shall report the matter at a later hour that day when other business is not before the House.

204        Rules for the form and content of petitions

(a) A petition must:

  (i) be addressed to the House of Representatives;

  (ii) refer to a matter on which the House has the power to act;

  (iii) state the reasons for petitioning the House; and

  (iv) contain a request for action by the House.

(b) The terms of the petition must not contain any alterations and must not exceed 250 words. The terms must be placed at the top of the first page of the petition and the request of the petition must be at the top of every other page. The terms of an e-petition must be available through the House website.

(c) The terms of the petition must not be illegal or promote illegal acts. The language used must be moderate.

(d) An e-petition must be in English. A paper petition must be in English or be accompanied by a translation certified to be correct. The person certifying the translation must place his or her name and address on the translation.

(e) No letters, affidavits or other documents should be attached to the petition. Any such attachments will be removed before presentation to the House.

(f) A petition from a corporation must be made under its common seal. Otherwise it will be received as the petition of the individuals who signed it.

205        Rules for signatures—paper petitions

(a) Every petition must contain the signature and full name and address of a principal petitioner on the first page of the petition.

(b) All the signatures on a paper petition must meet the following requirements:

  (i) Each signature must be made by the person signing in his or her own handwriting. Only a petitioner incapable of signing may ask another person to sign on his or her behalf.

  (ii) Signatures must not be copied, pasted or transferred on to the petition or placed on a blank page on the reverse of a sheet containing the terms of the petition.

(c) A Member must not be a principal petitioner or signatory to a paper petition.

205a        Rules for e-petitions

(a) A principal petitioner for an e-petition must provide the petitioner’s full name and address.

(b) The posted period for an e-petition is to be four weeks from the date of publication on the House website.

(c) Once published on the House website the terms of an e-petition cannot be altered.

(d) Once the posted period for an e-petition has elapsed, the petition shall be presented to the House in accordance with standing order 207.

(e) Names must not be copied, pasted or transferred on to an e-petition.

(f) A Member must not be a principal petitioner or signatory to an e-petition.

206        Submitting a petition for presentation

(a) Petitions may be submitted:

  (i) on paper, directly to the Standing Committee on Petitions or via a Member; or

  (ii) electronically, through the House website.

(b) The Standing Committee on Petitions must check that each petition submitted for presentation complies with the standing orders, and if the petition complies it shall be approved for presentation to the House.

215        General purpose standing committees

(a) The following general purpose standing committees shall be appointed:

  (i) Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources;

  (ii) Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts;

  (iii) Standing Committee on Economics;

  (iv) Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training;

  (v) Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy;

  (vi) Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport;

  (vii) Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs;

  (viii) Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources;

  (ix) Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities;

  (x) Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs; and

  (xi) Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue.

(b) A committee appointed under paragraph (a) may inquire into and report on any matter referred to it by either the House or a Minister, including any pre-legislation proposal, bill, motion, petition, vote or expenditure, other financial matter, report or document.

(c) A committee may make any inquiry it wishes to make into annual reports of government departments and authorities and reports of the Auditor-General presented to the House. The following qualifications shall apply to these inquiries:

  (i) Reports shall stand referred to committees under a schedule presented by the Speaker to record the areas of responsibility of each committee.

  (ii) The Speaker shall determine any question about responsibility for a report or part of a report.

  (iii) The period during which an inquiry into an annual report may be started by a committee shall end on the day the next annual report of the department or authority is presented to the House.

  (iv) If a committee intends to inquire into all or part of a report of the Auditor-General, the committee must notify the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit of its intention, in writing.

(d) Each committee appointed under paragraph (a) shall consist of eight members: five government Members and three non-government Members, except for the Standing Committee on Economics, the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training and the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities, which shall consist of ten members: six government Members, three opposition Members and one non-aligned Member. Each committee may have its membership supplemented by up to four members for a particular inquiry, with a maximum of two extra government and two extra opposition or non-aligned Members. Supplementary members shall have the same participatory rights as other members, but may not vote.

217        Library Committee (To be omitted)

220        Standing Committee on Petitions

(a) A Standing Committee on Petitions shall be appointed to receive and process petitions, and to inquire into and report to the House on any matter relating to petitions and the petitions system.

(b) The committee shall consist of eight members: five government and three non-government members.

222        Selection Committee

(a) A Selection Committee shall be appointed to:

  (i) arrange the timetable and order of committee and delegation business and private Members’ business for each sitting Monday in accordance with standing orders 39 to 41;

  (ii) select private Members’ notices and other items of private Members’ and committee and delegation business for referral to the Federation Chamber, or for return to the House; and

  (iii) select bills that the committee regards as controversial or as requiring further consultation or debate for referral to the relevant standing or joint committee in accordance with standing order 143.

(b) The committee shall consist of eleven members: the Speaker, or in the absence of the Speaker the Deputy Speaker, the Chief Government Whip or his or her nominee, the Chief Opposition Whip or his or her nominee, the Third Party Whip or his or her nominee, four government Members, and three non-government Members. The Speaker shall be the Chair of the committee. A quorum shall be three members of the committee.

(c) For committee and delegation business and private Members’ business, the committee may determine the order of consideration of the matters, and the times allotted for debate on each item and for each Member speaking.

(d) In relation to committee and delegation business and private Members’ business the committee must report its determinations to the House in time for its decisions to be published on the Notice Paper of the sitting Thursday before the Monday being considered. In relation to bills the committee must report its determinations as soon as practical in respect of each bill or each group of bills.

(e) Reports of the committee under paragraph (d) shall be treated as having been adopted when they are presented. Reports shall be published in Hansard.

(f) A referral by determination of the Selection Committee pursuant to paragraph (a)(ii) or (a)(iii), once the determination has been reported to the House, is deemed to be a referral by the House.

It is not my intention to delay the House unnecessarily by debating this first tranche of standing order changes. I have, for the benefit of the House, put two notices of motion to change the standing orders. The first, which we are dealing with now, is the standing order reforms suggested by the procedure committee and the petitions committee from the 44th Parliament. The second group is the suggestions to change the way we schedule the parliament, and we will deal with those separately. It is my understanding that the opposition is opposed to some of these changes in both of these different notices of motion, and it is not my intention to truncate constructive debate. However, if the debate becomes not constructive, then I reserve the right to do so.

The first tranche of reforms to the standing orders has been proposed by the Clerk and, in some instances, by the petitions committee or by the procedure committee, to make clear certain practices that the House has adopted over recent years, particularly because of technological changes—for example, in the way that we operate in our daily working lives—which have not been reflected in the standing orders. These are particularly around things like e-petitions, to make it easier for committees and for the parliament to operate and to put some of those conventions, if you like, in the standing orders. This makes it easier for the person occupying the chair to be able to interpret what the House wants and how we want our arrangements to be managed by the chair, and it makes changes to the standing orders that allow the Federation Chamber and this chamber itself to operate more effectively and efficiently. The changes will establish the general purpose standing committees in the way that we have outlined previously and, as the member for Grayndler has correctly pointed out, will not continue with the Library Committee, which has been omitted from this 45th Parliament. The changes will also continue the arrangements around the Selection Committee that were in place in the 44th Parliament.

I would have thought most of these matters were entirely non-controversial, and I would be very surprised if they were opposed by the opposition or, for that matter, the crossbenchers. We have, as they say these days, socialised these changes with the crossbenchers, and I am hoping that we will garner support for the changes that are proposed by the Clerk, the petitions committee and the procedure committee. That is the first motion.

I should point out to the crossbenchers that I have been studying their letter to me about other changes to the standing orders. That remains a live prospect for us in the future, but we want to get these machinery changes to the standing orders done first. We then of course want to change the sitting pattern of the House. I understand the Manager of Opposition Business does not want to finish at 8 pm as a hard finish, which I think will come as a surprise to many people on both sides of the House, particularly those with young families. But, nevertheless, we will deal with that matter next.

I hope that we will garner the support of the crossbenchers for these machinery changes. With regard to the further changes that they propose, I am happy to keep talking about those within the government and to the crossbenchers, because I think there is merit in some of them. There are some where I do not believe there is merit to them, but I do believe there is merit in others, and I will continue to talk to the crossbenchers about those matters.

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