Chapter 1 Introduction
1. Under the provisions of standing order 216 by which the committee
is established, the committee is required, as soon as practicable after each 31 December,
to prepare and table in the House a report on its operations during that year.
2. This is the report of the committee for the calendar year
2012.
Responsibilities
of the Committee
3. Standing order 216 sets out the following terms of
reference for the committee:
- Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests shall be appointed to:
- inquire into and report on
complaints of breach of privilege or contempt which may be referred to it by
the House under standing order 51 or by the Speaker under standing
order 52, or any other related matter referred to it by or in accordance
with a resolution of the House;
- inquire into and report on
the arrangements made for the compilation, maintenance and accessibility of a
Register of Members’ Interests;
- consider proposals by
Members and others on the form and content of the Register of Members’
Interests;
- consider specific complaints
about registering or declaring interests;
- consider possible changes to
any code of conduct adopted by the House; and
- consider whether specified
persons (other than Members) ought to be required to register and declare their
interests.
- The committee shall consist of 11 members: the Leader of the House or
his or her nominee, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition or his or her nominee
and nine other members, five government and four non-government Members. When
the Opposition is composed of two parties, the non-government Members shall
consist of at least one member of the smaller opposition party.
- The committee may call for witnesses and documents, but when considering
a matter concerning the registration or declaration of Members’ interests it
must not exercise that power or undertake an investigation of a person’s
private interests unless the action is approved by at least 6 members of the
committee other than the Chair.
- The committee may report when it sees fit, and must report to the House
on its operations in connection with the registration and declaration of
Members’ interests during the year as soon as possible after 31 December each
year.
A report in accordance
with these terms of reference follows.
Arrangements
made for the compilation, maintenance and accessibility of the Register
4. Since 1986 arrangements
approved by the committee provide that the Register may be inspected, by
appointment, between 10 am and 12 noon and 2 pm and 4 pm on working days in the office of the Registrar. In addition the Registrar may grant
permission for the Register to be inspected outside of those hours if the
Registrar is satisfied that the circumstances surrounding the request warrant
the exercise of such a discretion.
5. The publication of the
statements of Members’ Interests on the Parliament House website was
implemented at the commencement of the 43rd Parliament. This has
been a very significant change to accessibility of the statements.
6. In total the Register
was inspected on only 14 occasions during 2012. These inspections take no
account of the use of copies of statements of interests and notifications of
alterations of interests tabled by the Chair and made available through the
Table Office nor of the number of visits to the committee’s electronic version
of the Register. The number of inspections continues to fall as a result of
making the Register available on line. A total of only 30 people have accessed
the hard copy Register since it went on line on 25 October 2010.
7. The report on
operations of the committee for 2011 was tabled on 13 February 2012.
Statements of interests of members were tabled as follows:
- alterations from 24 November 2011 to 21 March 2012 were
tabled on 22 March 2012;
- alterations from 22 March 2012 to 27 June 2012 were tabled on
28 June 2012; and
- alterations from 28 June 2012 to 28 November 2012 were tabled on
29 November 2012.
8. No changes were made in
respect of the form and content of the Register, however as noted above, the
committee has made the Register available on the Australian Parliament House
website.
Specific
complaints made in relation to the registering or declaring of interest
9. Two
complaints were raised with the committee during 2012 about the returns of
members. On 20 August 2012 the Chair reported to the House that the
committee had considered the matters raised and had obtained information from the
members concerned. The committee had concluded there were no grounds for
further action.
Changes to any
code of conduct
10. The House has not adopted
any code of conduct for members. However, the House referred to the Committee on
23 November 2010 an inquiry into the development of a Code of Conduct
for Members.
11. The committee has
presented to the House a comprehensive discussion paper on the possible
implementation of a Code of Conduct for Members and can be found at http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pmi/cocreport.htm.
Registration
of interests by other classes of person
12. No issues were considered
in this area during the year.
Hon Nicola Roxon MP
CHAIR
February 2013