Appendix B - Proposal for the tabling of committee reports
Current situation
The selection committee currently allocates a ten minute
slot for the tabling of committee and delegation reports in the House.
This is desperately disappointing for those members that put
a big effort into committee reports. In order to address this disappointment a
take note procedure has developed whereby, with agreement between the Chief
Whips, a report is referred to the Main Committee, which allows committee
members and other interested members to speak to the report.
The principal short comings of the take note procedure is
that usually the report gets debated in the Main Committee some time after the
report is tabled and any contribution by committee members loses impact as a
result. Also few other (non committee) members put their names down because of
the lack of timeliness.
If the committee report is from a joint committee it is
often the case that the report is tabled in the Senate and subsequently tabled
in the House some weeks later. The time lags involved I would have thought
should be of some concern for the House and its members.
The current practice is frustrating for individuals involved
and unsatisfactory.
Proposed changes
1. Certification by Speaker
Currently there is authority under Standing Order 247 for
committee reports to be released when the House is not sitting. The committee
may send the report to the Speaker and when the Speaker receives the report,
the report may be published. I propose no change to this procedure. However,
I do propose that all reports be received and certified by the Speaker even
when they are proposed to be tabled in the House shortly thereafter.
The receipt by the Speaker would allow the public release of
the report at 8am on a sitting Monday thus allowing all members, the public and
the media to have early copies of the report.
2. Statements in the Main Committee
I propose that the Main Committee could sit on a sitting
Monday from 11am to 1.45pm. This would allow Members other than the chair and
deputy chair to make statements about the report soon after the public release
of the report. This would deal with the two significant problems that we
currently have—allowing other members to make statements about the report on a
timely basis; and the limited time available at present to discuss committee
reports.
(This will require a change to Standing Order 186 which
prevents the Main Committee meeting when the House is not sitting).
3. A new Report in detail questioning procedure
I propose a new procedure to allow in detail questioning
about a committee report at the conclusion of statements in the Main Committee. There would be a 15 minute questioning process whereby members of the House may
question the chair or deputy chair of the committee about aspects of the
committee report. The committee chair or deputy chair may elect to answer
these questions or may refer the question to a member who might have particular
expertise about that aspect of the committee report. This questioning process
would sit more comfortably in the more interactive character of the Main Committee. The procedure is not proposed to apply to delegation reports.
4. Tabling in the House
The presentation of committee and delegation reports in the
House currently precedes private members’ business and grievances debates. It
is proposed that tabling in the House at this time would continue and a
committee chair or nominee would present the report and minutes as at present,
advise that statements about the report had taken place (or were shortly to
take place) in the Main Committee and move a procedural motion that the House
take note of the report. Thus the actual tabling in the House would take very
little time.
5. The Selection Committee
The selection committee would schedule the tabling in the
House and also schedule the statements, and if requested by committees, the
question process at the conclusion of the statements, in the Main Committee. The selection committee will be in a position to select far more Private Members’
motions than it currently is able to. The inability to debate more private
members’ motions currently is compounded by the fact that so many sitting
Mondays are lost due to public holidays. This year six sitting Mondays will be
lost.
6. Committee press conferences
Committees are of course free to choose whatever time they
like, subject to a breach of privilege, to hold their press conferences. This
is usually done around noon on the day of tabling, however, given the Speaker’s
certification process recommended earlier a committee could choose to have a
press conference at 10am and if the report were significant the committee might
be able to be picked up on the midday news. It certainly provides much greater
flexibility for committees in scheduling their news conferences and gives them
a greater chance of being reported.
7. I favour having the debate in the Main Committee. However, the House could sit earlier say at 10.30am on a sitting Monday and the Main Committee would be by passed. However, I have approached the Chief Government Whip about having
October 7th as a Private Members’ day to make up for the lost
sitting Mondays but the government has declined to agree. Sitting the House
earlier may run into the same reluctance.
Hon Roger Price MP