Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Order! Unfortunately we don't have a quorum, so I have to suspend proceedings. The chair will be resumed when a quorum is present.

Proceedings suspended from 16 : 05 to 16 : 20

(Quorum formed)

The standing orders provide that a quorum for the Federation Chamber is the Deputy Speaker, one government member and one non-government member. However, there are no provisions in the standing orders, so far as we can ascertain, as to what happens necessarily when a quorum is not present, apart from suspending. Whereas, in the House, the Speaker has the choice of adjourning the House until the next sitting or, if satisfied there's likely to be a quorum within a reasonable time, resuming the chair after a reasonable time. This is an unprecedented situation in this chamber. This is a chamber which is generally dealing with uncontroversial matters and legislation. To my knowledge, and on the advice I have, this has never happened before. I want to place on the record that I intend to bring this to the attention of the Speaker, in particular to ask the Speaker to look into whether some change to the standing orders is required to deal with this subject.

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