Committee establishment, role and history

The Publications Committee, appointed under standing order 219, has existed in the current form since 1970.

The Publications Committee makes recommendations to the House on which documents that have been presented to the House (and on which the House or the Senate has not already made a determination), should be included in the Parliamentary Papers series. Full reports of these recommendations may be found in the Votes and Proceedings.

Each House of the Parliament has a Publications Committee which has the power to confer with each other. In practice most meetings are joint meetings of the two committees. The standing orders of each House permit the publications committees to undertake inquiries and make reports on:

• the printing, publication and distribution of parliamentary and government publications, and
• other matters which may be referred by the relevant Minister.

When undertaking an inquiry, the committees are known as the Joint Committee on Publications.

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