Chapter 18 - Documents tabled in the Senate
Presentation of documents when Senate not sitting
Documents may be
certified by the President, and on that certification are deemed to be
presented to the Senate and their publication authorised (SO 166(2)). This
procedure is used for documents the President would normally present to the
Senate when it is sitting, but only the President may exercise the power
conferred by the provision.
Committee reports, government
documents and reports of the Auditor-General may
be presented to the President when the Senate is not sitting, and on
presentation to the President are deemed to be presented to the Senate and
their publication authorised (SO 38(7), 166(2)).
These procedures were used by way of special orders relating to
particular reports over several years, and were adopted as permanent orders on 13 February 1991 on the
recommendation of the Procedure Committee (Second Report of 1990,
PP 435/1990 pp 11-2; Auditor-General’s reports were included by an
amendment made on 27 May 1993, President’s documents on 7 December 1998).
The provision relating to committee reports is as follows:
If the Senate is not sitting when a
committee has prepared a report for presentation, the committee may provide the
report to the President or, if the President is unable to act, to the Deputy
President, or, if the Deputy President is unavailable, to any one of the
Temporary Chairs of Committees, and, on the provision of the report:
-
the report shall be deemed
to have been presented to the Senate;
-
the publication of the
report is authorised by this standing order;
-
the President, the Deputy
President, or the Temporary Chair of Committees, as the case may be, may give
directions for the printing and circulation of the report; and
-
the President shall lay the
report upon the Table at the next sitting of the Senate.
The provision
authorising the publication of a report attracts paragraph 16(2)(d) of the
Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987, which provides that proceedings in
Parliament includes the publication of a document by or pursuant to an order of
a House or a committee, and the document so published (see Chapter 2,
Parliamentary Privilege, under Preparation and publication of documents).
The provision relating to documents presented by ministers and reports
of the Auditor-General is in similar terms.
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