John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I am pleased to take the opportunity to report to the House for the first time in this parliament about activities of the Petitions Committee. I was pleased to be elected chair of the committee and to now make this statement on its behalf.

Briefly, I would first like to mention the committee of the 42nd Parliament. The petitions just presented were approved by the previous committee, and I present them on their behalf. On behalf of the committee, I would also like to express our appreciation for the previous committee, especially the former chair, Mrs Julia Irwin, and to wish her well for the future.

The standing orders of the House enable our committee to receive and process petitions in readiness for presentation to this House—that is, the committee scrutinises petitions for compliance with the standing orders. When petitions have been found to comply then I may present them to the House as chair, or an individual committee member may present an approved petition on behalf of a petitioner. The committee can also consider matters relating to petitions and to the petitions system as a whole. Since its establishment in 2008, the committee has been following up petitions in a variety of ways, not seeking to resolve issues itself but to bring them to the attention of the relevant ministers and other interested parties.

The first and usual response once a petition is presented in the House is for the committee to refer it to the minister holding the relevant portfolio, seeking their comment. Occasionally, the response is a success story in which the minister agrees to take the action that is sought. Much more often though, the purpose of a ministerial response is to explain a situation or matter that has been raised in the petition. Responses from ministers are published on the committee’s web page, once the committee has had an opportunity to consider them. The issues and the explanations by government are available not only to the committee and petitioners but also to the general public. Ministerial responses are also sent to the relevant principal petitioners once they have been considered by the committee.

In the last parliament the committee sometimes chose to speak to some principal petitioners and other related groups on specific issues raised in petitions in public hearings. The committee occasionally told witnesses it would follow certain matters up with relevant Public Service departments. To achieve this, the committee invited representatives of these departments to attend a public hearing in Parliament House from time to time to discuss petitioners’ grievances and ministerial responses to petitions.

These hearings proved useful for the committee to monitor what the government was doing in respect of issues raised by citizens in their petitions. The committee appreciates the way that ministers and their departmental staff have responded to the committee’s requests for further information about the matters that concerned citizens have raised through written responses and at hearings. These public hearing mechanisms have been another of the successes of the Petitions Committee. By reaching out to the public and discussing the responses of government in a transparent and open manner, links between the parliament and the public are strengthened. The publication of ministerial responses and transcripts of hearings with public servants on the committee’s web page make these interactions available to the public too.

In coming weeks at this time I will discuss further the work of the Petitions Committee and some of the issues it identifies in petitions. I thank the House.