Chapter 12 - Legislation
The standing orders provide two
alternative methods for the introduction of a bill and for the treatment of a
bill received from the House of Representatives. There is a traditional
deliberate method, and a method whereby bills may be taken expeditiously to the
stage of the second reading being moved.
Under the deliberate method, a bill may be initiated in the Senate by:
(a) a motion
moved on notice granting leave to a senator to bring in the bill
(b) a motion
moved on notice forming a committee of senators to prepare and bring in a bill,
in accordance with any instructions given to the committee
(c) an order
of the Senate, agreed to by a motion on notice, that a specified bill be
brought in (SO 111(1)).
Procedures (b) and (c) are designed to allow the Senate to direct the
introduction of bill without relying on an individual senator taking the
initiative to introduce a bill, but in practice are now not used.
A senator authorised to bring in a bill under procedure (a) may present
it immediately, or at a subsequent stage in the proceedings when there is no
other business before the chair. The bill as presented must conform with the
title of the bill as specified in the motion authorising the senator to
introduce it, and a bill which is contrary to that requirement is out of order
(SO 111(3), (4)). There is
usually no ground for this rule to be invoked, and the Senate would not be
aware of any irregularity in a bill until there had been opportunity to examine
it.
A bill originating in the House of Representatives is received from
that House with a message requesting the Senate’s concurrence with the bill.
The President reports the message when there is no other business before the
Senate, and the bill is then dealt with in the same way as a bill introduced by
a senator (SO 128). The President
is required to report a message from the House of Representatives “as early as
convenient” (SO 155). In practice a
message forwarding a bill is reported when the minister in the Senate
representing the minister responsible for the bill in the House indicates that
the government is ready to proceed with the bill (for precedents of a message
made an order of the day: 14/12/1988, J.1309; a message not acted on, bill
superseded: 1/6/1990, J.205;
message not acted on pending government negotiations with other parties:
20/6/2002, J.423; message not acted on, bill abandoned by government:
14/8/2006, J.2463, 2474).
The expeditious
method of dealing with a bill provides a procedure whereby a bill, whether
introduced by a senator or received from the House of Representatives, may
proceed at once to the stage of the motion for the second reading being moved,
and whereby a number of bills may be taken together.
A senator may
present a bill or two or more bills together after the passage of a motion,
moved on notice, that the bill or bills be introduced. After the presentation
of the bill or bills, or after receipt of a message from the House of
Representatives, a motion may be moved without notice containing any of the
following provisions:
(a) that the
bill or bills may proceed without formalities (this has the
effect of suspending the requirements, otherwise imposed by the standing
orders, for stages of the passage of the bill or bills to take place on
different days, for notice of motions for such stages, and for the printing and
certification of the bill or bills during passage)
(b) in
respect of two or more bills, that the bills may be taken together (this has
the effect of allowing the questions for the several stages of the passage of
the bills (or any of them) to be put in one motion at each stage, and the
consideration of the bills (or any of them) together in committee of the whole
(at each reading only the short titles of bills taken together are read))
(c) that the
bill, or, where the provision referred to in paragraph (b) is agreed to, the
bills, be now read a first time (SO 113(1), (2)).
The Senate may reject any of the motions which may be moved under this
procedure, and at the request of any senator the motions are put separately, so
that senators are able to vote for or against any of the motions (SO 113(3)). If the
Senate were to reject the motion moved under paragraph (a), this would have the
effect of imposing on the passage of a bill the delays provided by the standing
orders for a bill proceeded with by the traditional method. (See Supplement). If the Senate were
to reject the motion moved under paragraph (b), two or more bills introduced
together would have to proceed separately after that stage. (See Supplement) It is also possible
for the Senate to reject the motion for the first reading of a bill under this
procedure. (For instances of
the questions being considered separately, see migration bills, 20/9/2001,
J.4900-1; textile, clothing and footwear bills, 7/12/2004,
J.236.)
The composite
motion may be moved only immediately after the receipt or introduction of
bills; leave or a suspension of standing orders is required to move it at any
other stage (Marriage Amendment Bill 2004, 13/8/2004, J.3927-8).
The first two
elements of the composite motion under standing order 113(2), to provide that a
bill may proceed without formalities and that bills may be taken together, are
regarded as procedural motions, and, therefore, if they are debated, there is
no right of reply.
Bills are
frequently taken together, particularly in related “packages” of bills, but at
the request of any senator the question for the passage of any stage of such
bills is divided and put separately in respect of the separate bills (see
Chapter 10, Debate, under Dividing the question). A senator may move at any
time that bills which are being taken together be separated (8/6/1989, J.1842). The
basis of this is that the order is that the bills may be taken together,
and the Senate may decide that they should proceed separately. Bills may be separated
by adjournment at different stages (12/3/1991, J.852; 16/6/2003, J.1851).
If bills are not taken together on introduction, however, a special
order, moved on notice or by leave, is required to take them together
subsequently (29/5/1989, J.1734; 8/6/1989, J.1835; 13/6/1989, J.1862;
17/8/1989, J.1948; 11/10/2000, J.3364; 27/11/2000, J.3583; 13/8/2004, J.3922-3).
Bills at different stages have been taken together by this means (18/5/1993, J.175-6; 26/5/1993, J.267). For a bill negatived at the second
reading, revived and taken together with other bills, see 10/9/2003, J.2329.
Bills not yet received from the House may be put together with bills already in
the Senate (12/9/2005, J.1073-4). (See Supplement)
When bills or packages of bills are ordered to be taken together other
than under standing order 113(2)(b), at the second or third reading stages, a
senator who has spoken in the debate on one of the bills or packages but not
the other may speak again when debate is resumed after the passage of the
order. (See SD, 12/9/2005, p. 9.) This rule is necessary to preserve the right
of each senator to speak to all of the bills. This right would also be
exercisable when bills which have reached different stages are ordered to be
taken together, and are brought to the same stage before proceeding together.
When there are
amendments to be moved to bills taken together, the bills are considered
separately in committee of the whole.
Bills which are not
taken together are sometimes debated together at
the second reading stage by leave. This is known as a
“cognate debate”.
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