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

Speaker, today is expected to be the last announcement of petitions and ministerial responses that I will make on behalf of the Petitions Committee during this parliament. And, as expected, we had quite a number of petitions presented today.

Speaker, in addition to these announcements, on behalf of the Petitions Committee I wish to present the committee's report entitled The work of the Petitions Committee: 2010-2013, together with the minutes of proceedings, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted

Speaker, the report I present today records the work of the second Petitions Committee, the committee of the 43rd Parliament.

Speaker, I could talk at some length about the committee's operations in this parliament; however, as chair of the committee I have provided the House with regular updates about the committee's work and the House's petitioning process, so I will not do that again today. Instead, I will let the report speak for itself in terms of the committee's overall operations from 2010-2013, its formal framework, the issues that recur and the issues that we expect to arise.

Importantly, I want to raise something that may not be apparent from the face of the report. I want to thank the deputy chair, Dr Dennis Jensen, the member for Tangney, and all my committee colleagues—some of whom, like the member for Forde, are in the chamber today—for their unfailing enthusiasm for the process of petitioning the House of Representatives. I thank my colleagues for their wholehearted support for the work of the committee and for their cooperation and cohesion. Their hard work has made it a pleasure for me to chair the Petitions Committee of the 43rd Parliament. In particular, I would like to thank the committee's secretary, Ms Catherine Cornish. The committee could not wish for a better committee secretary, nor could the committee wish for a better inquiry secretary than Ms Sharon Bryant, ably assisted by the research officer, Ms Susan Dinon, and administrative officer, Ms Jenny Jackson.

All of the committee secretariat have worked very cooperatively with the committee in a very good-humoured way, and it has been an unalloyed pleasure to work with the secretaries and the members of this committee. It is the best committee I have ever been on and it promotes democracy here in our country. I am very proud of the work of the committee and I cannot thank the secretariat, and my colleagues on the committee, enough for all their hard work. Together we have endeavoured to ensure the committee lives up to the expectations of the House when it established the committee and of those people who seek to engage with the House to bring their concerns to the attention of the executive.

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Question agreed to.

I ask leave to move a motion to refer the matter to the Federation Chamber.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.

Question agreed to.