Chapter 7 - Meetings
of the Senate
Proposals
to change the opening of Parliament
The opening ceremony is not
constitutionally required, and is otherwise objectionable in principle, for
example, by conferring non-judicial functions (as deputies of the
Governor-General) on judges and by involving the Governor-General in
contentious and partisan statements composed by the prime minister in the
opening speech. It is based on adaptions of British practice, which is itself
constitutionally outmoded, without regard to Australia’s constitutional
arrangements.
Such a consideration leads to the further reflection that the
constitutional provisions giving the executive government the power to dispense
temporarily with the sittings of the Parliament are outmoded. (See also Chapter
19, Relations with the Executive Government, under Effect of prorogation and of
the dissolution of the House of Representatives on the Senate.)
Proposals to change the opening ceremony have been mooted many times.
Prior to the first meeting of the
Parliament following the election in March 1993, the Prime Minister announced
that the government intended to alter the opening ceremony, so that the two
Houses would meet with the Governor-General in the Great Hall to hear the
opening speech. Proposals of this kind had been mooted before, but, as with the
1990 election, nothing was done to put them into effect in time for the
opening. The change did not occur, notwithstanding that procedures for the
modified opening were devised, and the opening was in accordance with the old
procedures.
The reason for
this was that the opening procedures are contained in the standing orders of
each House, and it would have been necessary for each House to suspend its
standing orders and agree to the modified procedures after it first met in the
morning, and after the members of the House of Representatives and the
territory senators and any senators filling casual vacancies had been sworn.
This could easily have been brought about in the House of Representatives by
the government’s control of that House, but the government could not be sure of
carrying the necessary motion in the Senate, or of carrying it in time for the
meeting with the Governor-General in the afternoon. The proposal was therefore
abandoned.
The deliberation
and agreement of the two Houses will be required to change the procedure. (See Supplement)
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