Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate adopt the recommendations of the first report of the 2012 Procedure Committee in the terms circulated in the chamber.

I wish to speak briefly to this motion and draw to the attention of the Senate that there are some amendments to the standing orders effected through this motion, which have been explained quite adequately by the Procedure Committee report, and I encourage senators to read those matters if they have not already done so.

I also indicate that arising from the report the committee has requested the President of the Senate under standing order 17 to refer two matters to the Procedure Committee. I will just briefly highlight these matters. The first is consideration of the capacity of a Senate minister who is representing as to whether or not the notice of question should be given to the minister in advance, and some other matters relating to some procedures concerning the temporary order in relation to question time.

The second matter will be in relation to the examination of the operation of the routine of business of the Senate—basically a review of that. We have asked the President to refer those matters to us and at some stage, with the concurrence of the committee, I will be writing to all senators seeking input in relation to, particularly, the routine of business of the Senate.

In moving the motion I commend the report containing the other matters for senators to familiarise themselves with.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously much of what Senator Parry has just presented is sensible and will contribute to the more efficient running of the chamber, but there is one matter that I do want to draw the chamber's attention to, effectively by way of a dissent to the procedures report that has just been tabled. In March of this year one of the recommendations of the 150th report of Privileges Committee, of which I am a member, proposed to the Procedures Committee to examine the ambiguity—in my view the quite dangerous ambiguity that has opened up—in the issue of the way that matters are referred from this chamber via the President through the chamber to the Privileges Committee. Quite a dangerous situation has opened up here in that the role of the President in referring these matters or assigning precedence to these matters has become quite ambiguous. The role of the chamber in ascertaining whether these matters go to the committee has become somewhat ambiguous, and I think it is a great shame that the Procedures Committee passed up the opportunity and the direct referral from Privileges to take a look at those matters, to take its time and to ensure that we do not see a repeat of what occurred last year in November.

I do not believe necessarily that it is appropriate to simply sit back and say, 'No, the situation is fine; it's not broken; it doesn't need fixing,' after the events that occurred. I would simply like to note that there are some differences of views here. I do not propose to go through and argue them here now, but I think this is a matter that we at some stage will need to return to. I thank the chamber.

Question agreed to.