Chapter 16 - Committees
Reports when
Senate not sitting
When a committee has completed its report it is desirable that it
should be publicly available as soon as possible, particularly if the report
deals with matters of significant public interest. Publication of the report
should not be delayed by a long adjournment of the Senate. Provision is
therefore made for the release of reports when the Senate is not sitting.
Standing order 38(7) provides for
a report to be presented to the President or, in
the President’s absence, the Deputy President or, in the absence of the Deputy President,
any one of the Temporary Chairs of
Committees. The report is
deemed then to have been presented to the Senate and its publication is
authorised. Whoever receives
the report may also give directions for its printing and circulation. The
report is subsequently tabled by the President at the next sitting of the
Senate.
The Senate agreed first in 1990 to an order providing for the
presentation of committee reports to the President when the Senate is not
sitting. The order was agreed to following a recommendation by the Procedure
Committee (First Report of
1990, PP 436/1990). The committee examined issues relating to the
presentation of reports following an inquiry by the Committee of Privileges
into a case of unauthorised disclosure of a committee report before
presentation to the Senate. The Privileges Committee drew attention to
the practice that had developed of committees seeking permission to present
reports to the President when the Senate was not sitting, and noted that this
practice had the advantage of minimising the danger of premature disclosure of
reports finalised during long adjournments. First adopted as a sessional order
(23/8/1990, J.237), the
procedure was subsequently adopted as an order of continuing effect (13/2/1991, J.738). The order
formalised and extended a practice which had been operating frequently on an ad
hoc basis since 1984.
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