Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a couple of statements to update the House on two matters. The first relates to access between committee rooms and the chamber. As part of the Parliament House upgrade works, construction activity at the security guard station located at level 1 Members Hall on the House of Representatives side has commenced and will continue for a couple of months. These works will impede access between committee rooms 1R1, 1R2, 1R3, 1R4 and 1R5 and the Members Hall. If members are in a level 1 committee room and need to attend the chamber for a division, you should first move to the ground floor via either the elevators or the staircase prior to heading to the chamber. Thank you for your ongoing cooperation with these works.

The second statement I have relates to the publication of the seventh edition of the House of Representatives Practice. I'd like to inform the House about this. The seventh edition of the flagship publication Practice has been published by the Department of the House of Representatives, and, as members know well, we rely heavily on it for authoritative advice to inform our roles as chairs and as members. The content of the House of Representatives Practice is particularly important, and, quite apart from its value every day as a reliable and practical resource for our thinking and decision-making in the chamber, it has an added value. Since the first edition in 1981 it has been documenting and putting into perspective the changing and sometimes turbulent times in the life of the House in an accurate and understated way. It provides a very significant foundation to our understanding of the House as an institution. This new edition brings us up to date, with additional precedents from the sixth edition in 2012, a new chapter on the Federation Chamber, an additional chapter on the work of the committees, and discussions on the roles of members, the House, the government and the opposition. All members will be invited to a formal launch of the new edition next week. I thank the Clerk and Peter Fowler in the Chamber Research Office particularly for their contributions to what is the House's most significant publication. I also thank the large number of other staff of the House who've had a significant input to the new edition. The Clerk has provided copies to the offices of all members. I have no doubt I'll soon see lots of post-it notes and annotations on members' new copies as it's invoked during question time, and I commend the seventh edition to all members.