Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my last statement I spoke about the historical role played by petitions both in Australia and elsewhere. This time I will take a look at the way different parliaments in Australia deal with petitions.

As you know, Madam Speaker, since 2008 the Standing Committee on Petitions has provided a means for any citizen to have a matter placed directly before the House. Anyone can prepare a petition, gather signatures, and have it presented to the House by me in my capacity as Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions or by another member. After presentation the Committee refers the terms of the petition to the responsible minister, and a response is expected within 90 days of the presentation. Other parliaments have evolved different methods for dealing with petitions in terms of both how they are presented in the relevant chamber and what happens to them after presentation.

The Western Australian Legislative Assembly requires that petitioners must request a member to present a petition on their behalf. Before presenting petitions, members must first forward petitions to the clerks-at-the-table for certification that they meet the standing orders requirements for petitions to the assembly. Once presented, the petition can then be referred by motion to a committee.

Similarly, the Western Australian Legislative Council requires that petitioners request a member to table their petition and that these petitions must first be certified by the clerk as meeting requirements After presentation, petitions are referred to the Environment and Public Affairs Committee, which considers and reports on petitions. All petitions considered by that committee are published on the committee's website along with any additional information such as submissions from petitioners, members, and other interested parties as well as responses to the petition from relevant ministers and government departments.

In the New South Wales Legislative Assembly it is the clerk who announces petitions rather than members. All petitions presented are referred to the responsible minister, who is expected to provide a response to any petition which attracts more than 500 signatures. This response is expected within 35 days of the petition's presentation, and any response received is tabled in the assembly and published in its Hansard. The subject of petitions with more than 10,000 signatures are made an order of the day for discussion in the assembly, and that discussion is required to occur by 4.30pm on the sitting Thursday following the tabling of the petition.

The Queensland Parliament's standing orders allow for both traditional paper petitions and electronic petitions. These standing orders require that e-petitions sponsored by members or by the clerk be published on the Queensland Parliament's website for a period between one week and six months. People wishing to sign the petition provide their name, address and email and, once the posted period has elapsed, these names and addresses are printed along with the petition, which is then presented by the clerk on behalf of the member sponsoring the petition.

After their presentation, the terms of all petitions are referred to the responsible minister. Ministers are expected to provide a response to the clerk within 30 days, and this response is then published on the Queensland Parliament's website. If a minister is unable to provide a response within 30 days, they are required to provide an interim response which includes reasons for the lack of a full response, with a final response to follow within three months.

The petitions received by Australia's various parliaments are a good reflection of the wide range of concerns and issues present in the Australian community. As I have mentioned in previous statements, this committee's role is to facilitate bringing petitions to the attention of the House and the relevant minister and not to advocate on any particular issue. However, to illustrate the range of topics covered, this morning I presented petitions focused on the plight of Christians in Iraq, marine park boundaries and Australia's asylum seeker policy. The responses presented range from local matters relating to roads and mobile phone reception to national matters like family law and the definition of marriage to international concerns about the recent Sri Lankan civil war and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

As we can see, petitions form an important part of the political landscape right across Australia. The right of citizens to petition their government seeking redress for grievances is an ancient one, and that right still has ongoing relevance in modern Australia.

Thank you.