Chapter 18 - Documents tabled in the Senate
Tabling of documents
Documents may be
presented to the Senate by means of the following procedures:
-
the
Senate may make an order requiring that documents be tabled (SO 164);
-
the
Senate may request that documents relating to the Governor-General be tabled,
by means of an address to the Governor-General (SO 165);
-
a
statute may require that documents be laid before the Senate (SO 166);
-
the
President may present documents to the Senate (SO 166); and
-
ministers
may present documents to the Senate (SO 166).
Reports of Senate committees are regarded as documents which the Senate
has ordered to be presented, because committees on appointment are required to
report to the Senate on the matters referred to them.
The rationale of allowing the President and ministers to present
documents to the Senate without the authorisation of an order of the Senate or
a statute is that the President and ministers have a duty to inform the Senate,
in relation to the powers, responsibilities and proceedings of the Senate in
the case of the President, and in relation to public affairs generally in the
case of ministers, and therefore they ought to be able to present documents
when they consider it appropriate.
Documents which may be presented to the Senate under the standing
orders may be tabled at any time when there is no other business before the
chair (SO 63), or during
consideration of a relevant matter. For
example, material from a committee arising from the committee’s inquiry into a
bill may be tabled during consideration of the bill (22/8/2001,
J.4682).
There is no provision in the standing orders giving senators other than
the President and ministers a right to table documents. Such senators may table
documents only in response to an order of the Senate, by leave or by the
suspension of standing orders, on behalf of a committee, or according to
statute.
A minister or a parliamentary secretary (the
latter have this and other powers of ministers: see Chapter 19, Relations with
the Executive Government, under Parliamentary secretaries) who tables a document is
presumed to do so in a ministerial capacity unless the contrary is indicated.
If acting in a non-ministerial capacity, they are in the same situation as
other senators (7/6/2000, J.2762).
The Senate usually grants leave for documents to be tabled. A senator
wishing to present a document shows it to the minister and party leaders or
whips present in the chamber before seeking leave, so that they may be aware of
the contents of the document before granting leave. Leave may be refused if any
senator considers that it would not be appropriate for the document to be
tabled and therefore published (see below, under Publication of documents).
An instance of a senator’s tabling a document after the suspension of
standing orders occurred on 15 October 1992, when the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate sought
leave to table a document relating to the Australia Quarantine and Inspection
Service (J.2925). Leave having been refused, he successfully moved for the
suspension of standing orders to enable him to table the document and move to
take note of the document.
A senator refused
leave to table a document may quote it in the course of a speech, provided that
the rules of debate are not
infringed. Another senator
may then move that the quoted document be tabled (see below, under Documents
quoted in debate), and the question of the tabling of the document is then
determined by vote rather than by leave.
The term ‘document’
refers to any item recording information, which may include sound, video or
computer tapes (see also s. 25 of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901).
Occasionally documents other than written documents have been tabled. On 17 March 1988, for example, a
senator tabled a sound recording which she had quoted in debate (J.563). Other
non-paper documents tabled include a message stick, video recordings, computer
discs and a nanochip. (See Supplement)
On a document being
tabled, a motion may be moved without notice to appoint a day for its consideration or
for it to be printed (SO 169).
An order to print a document has the effect of including it in the parliamentary
papers series (see
below, under Publication of documents).
In practice, motions to appoint a day for consideration are rare, and
motions to print documents are generally moved only in relation to reports of
parliamentary committees, to have them printed as part of the parliamentary
paper series.
The accepted
vehicle for debate on the subject matter of a document is a motion, moved by leave or on notice,
to take note of the document, which allows the Senate to conduct a debate
without coming to any substantive decision. Debates on motions moved by leave
to take note of documents are subject to a special time limit. Each senator
speaking is limited to 10 minutes, with a limit of 30 minutes per motion and a
total limit of 60 minutes for any such motions moved in succession (SO 169(2)).
A motion to appoint a day for consideration of a document may nominate
only a future day; a document cannot be considered on the day on which it is
tabled except by leave (30/4/1992, J.2221).
Previous page | Contents | Next page
Website feedback: web.senate@aph.gov.au
Last reviewed 10 September 2010 by the Senate Web Administrator
© Commonwealth of Australia
Parliament of Australia Web Site Privacy Statement
Images courtesy of AUSPIC
|
