Chapter 16 - Committees
Questions
to chairs of committees
(See Supplement) Under standing order 72 a question may be
put to the chair of a committee relating to the activities of that committee.
Such a question may be asked only on notice unless leave of the Senate is
granted for the question to be asked without notice. The question must not
attempt to interfere with the committee’s work or anticipate its report. The
chair must answer only on behalf of the committee.
Questions to
chairs of committees on notice, under current procedures, are placed on the
Notice Paper, as with other questions on notice (Notice Paper 14/8/2003,
question 1773).
The provisions
in the standing order relating to questions to chairs of committees are based
on an assumption that questions will be directed to current committees about
their current operations. They cannot ask a committee to answer for the
activities of its predecessors or to disclose documents of concluded inquiries
which are in the custody of the Senate (see above, under Disclosure of evidence
and documents).
This procedure of questions to chairs emerged with the development of
the committee system in the 1970s, when chairs of committees would be asked
questions without notice relating to the activities of their committees. In
recent years the procedure has been used only occasionally (see, for example,
SD, 31/10/1989, p. 2594; 20/12/1990, p. 6158).
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