In its 49th report , 22 the committee concluded that such a bill was not necessary and that the Senate already possessed the powers required to resolve such conflicts. The committee also examined the Tax Laws Amendment Confidentiality of Taxpayer Information Bill recommending the removal of provisions purporting to criminalise the provision of information to parliamentary committees in certain circumstances.
The committee acts as an essential safeguard of the rights of senators and the Senate, and the rights and obligations of witnesses appearing before the Senate and its committees.
Standing order 19 provides for the appointment of a Standing Committee on Appropriations, Staffing and Security whose role is to inquire into:. The committee is responsible for determining the amounts for inclusion in the parliamentary appropriation bills for the annual and additional appropriations for the Senate and for reporting to the Senate on its determinations prior to the Senate's consideration of the relevant parliamentary appropriation bill.
In relation to staffing, the committee is responsible for making recommendations to the President and reporting to the Senate on any matter. It is required to make an annual report to the Senate on the operations of the Senate's appropriations and staffing and related matters.
The committee also oversees the administration, operation and funding of security measures affecting the Senate and, when conferring with a similar committee of the House of Representatives, may consider the administration and funding of information and communications technology services for the Parliament.
The Leader of the Government in the Senate may nominate another Senate minister as a representative, thereby ensuring that the government retains a presence on the committee to represent its views. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate may also nominate a representative.
There are six other members, three nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and three nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate or by any minority groups or independent senators. Originally, the committee had seven members but the number was increased to nine when the committee was re-established in May and ten when the committee was renamed in The President is the committee's chair and has the power to appoint a deputy chair from time to time.
The chair, and deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote when the votes are equally divided. Unlike the other domestic standing committees, the Appropriations, Staffing and Security Committee has power to appoint subcommittees.
See also Chapter 5, Officers of the Senate: Parliamentary Administration, under Senate's appropriations and staffing, and Chapter 13, Financial Legislation, under Parliamentary appropriations. In a joint resolution of the two Houses established a joint standing committee and detailed provisions for its composition and proceedings. Senators appointed under standing order 20, other than the President, are also appointed to the joint standing committee.
The committee invariably sits as a joint committee. Having no powers of inquiry, the committee generally functions as a forum in which to raise and consider matters of relevance to the operations and administration of the Parliamentary Library. It is an advisory committee and the Presiding Officers, with joint responsibility for the Library, are not bound to follow the advice of the committee.
The House Committee, established under standing order 21, usually sits as a joint committee with the House of Representatives House Committee.
Its membership comprises the President, Deputy President and five senators. When it meets as a joint committee arrangements exist for the rotation of the chair between the President and the Speaker. The committee does not possess inquiry powers. In the Senate House Committee conducted an inquiry into the organisation, operation, functions and financial administration of the Joint House Department. A resolution conferred powers to summon witnesses and require the production of documents for the purposes of the inquiry.
After presentation of the committee's report on 26 August , 29 a follow-up inquiry was referred to the committee which was again given inquiry powers for the purpose. In , the committee received a reference from the Senate to inquire into the future treatment and use of old Parliament House.
The Publications Committee, established by standing order 22, also normally sits as a joint committee with its House of Representatives counterpart.
The committee has seven members but there are no formal conditions attaching to the representation of government and non-government senators. The committee makes recommendations to the Senate on the printing of documents presented to the Senate and which have not already been ordered to be printed. An order to print a document ensures its inclusion in the series of parliamentary papers; all documents presented to the Senate are ordered to be published. The motion is not commonly moved when other documents such as petitions, government documents, delegation reports or reports of the Auditor-General are presented, and it is these which are considered by the Publications Committee at regular meetings in accordance with guidelines determined by the committee.
When the Publications Committee reports to the Senate, recommending the printing of certain documents, a motion is moved, by leave, that the report be adopted leave is required for a motion that would otherwise require notice to be given.
The motion may be amended; for example, to provide for the printing of a document not recommended for printing by the committee. When sitting as a joint committee with the Publications Committee of the House of Representatives, the committee has the following additional powers:.
This additional role of the joint committee arose from recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary and Government Publications 36 which were adopted in The investigatory function is invoked when the committee considers matters relating to Commonwealth publishing.
The committee has undertaken inquiries under this function and presented several reports, most recently recommending electronic distribution of the series of parliamentary papers. In the committee criticised the presentation of large numbers of annual reports of departments and agencies in the last sitting week before the end of the year.
The basis for this criticism was that:. Requirements for annual reports stipulate 31 October as the deadline for tabling. The requirements were part of the revision of accountability documentation stemming from the altered Budget timetable introduced in and provided under the Public Service Act Its membership is required to reflect as closely as possible the composition of the Senate.
The committee has a specified membership, which may be varied, of eight senators, three nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, four nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and one nominated by any minority groups or independent senators. The chair of the committee is a member of the committee nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Provision is made for the appointment of a deputy chair and for the chair or deputy when acting as chair to have a casting vote when the votes are equally divided.
The committee has power to send for persons and documents and to confer with a similar committee of the House of Representatives. Its inquiry power is qualified by a requirement that any exercise of the power to send for persons and documents, or any investigation of the private interests of any person, must be agreed to by not fewer than three members other than the chair.
This is intended to be a safeguard against use of the committee's powers for partisan political purposes. The committee is required to present an annual report and may also report from time to time. Its main role is to oversee arrangements for the register which is now published online. The Selection of Bills Committee, which is established by standing order 24A, makes recommendations to the Senate for the referral of bills to committees.
The committee considers bills introduced into the Senate or received from the House of Representatives and reports to the Senate on whether any bills should be referred to legislative and general purpose standing or select committees. Membership of the committee is based on an informal committee of party whips which meets each sitting day to confer on the day's program.
The committee consists of the Government Whip and two other senators nominated by the Leader of the Government, the Opposition Whip and two other senators nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, together with the whips of any minority groups. The chair of the committee is the Government Whip who may from time to time appoint a deputy chair to act as chair when the chair is not present at a meeting. The chair, or deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote when the votes are equally divided.
The committee is required to examine all bills received from the House of Representatives or introduced into the Senate, except for bills containing no provisions other than provisions appropriating money, and, in respect of each bill, recommend whether it should be referred to a legislative and general purpose standing committee.
The committee may also refer bills to appropriate select committees. The standing order establishing the committee does not contain any criteria which the committee is required to follow in making recommendations in relation to bills. This allows the committee to take into account any grounds advanced by senators for the submission of bills to committee scrutiny.
Although few of the committee's reports have indicated the basis on which the committee has made its recommendations, the committee has commented on particular referrals and given reasons why a decision has been made or changed. In its 4th report of , for example, the committee indicated that there was a difference of views about which standing committee a package of social welfare bills should be referred to. Although the committee recommended that the bills be referred to the Community Affairs Committee, an amendment was moved to the motion that the report be adopted, which would have had the effect of referring parts of one of the bills to two different committees.
The amendment was then agreed to. One of these recommendations was subsequently overturned by an amendment to the motion that the report be adopted. In practice the committee recommends the referral of a bill if a significant group in the Senate ask for the bill to be referred.
Submissions seeking the referral of particular bills and identifying issues to be examined are published with the reports. Amendments to motions to adopt the committee's reports, however, are relatively common. An unusual order passed by the Senate on 14 May , in referring budget-related legislation to committees before its introduction into either House, empowered the Selection of Bills Committee to vary the references. The committee's reports are presented after the giving of notices of motion, or at other times by leave.
Amendments may be moved to the motion that the report of the committee be adopted and these may include amendments to refer additional bills to committees or to change or insert reporting dates where there has been internal disagreement in the committee. Debate on the reports is limited to 30 minutes with a 5 minute limit on individual contributions. The committee recommends the referral to committees of a significant proportion of all bills considered by the Senate. Standing orders 23 and 24 establish the Regulations and Ordinances Committee and the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, respectively.
The purpose of these committees is to monitor primary and secondary legislation to ensure legislative proposals do not tresspass against fundamental rights and liberties. For further information on these committees, see Chapter 12, Legislation and Chapter 15, Delegated legislation, scrutiny and disallowance. The legislative and general purpose standing committees, appointed under standing order 25, are the engines of the Senate's committee system. First established in , together with a system of estimates committees, these committees, specialised by subject, inquire into and report on matters referred to them by the Senate.
The committees have been restructured on three occasions since with major restructuring occurring in when a system of paired legislation and references committees was adopted. After a brief return to a unitary system in coinciding with the then government's majority in the Senate , the paired system was restored on 13 May The committees cover between them all areas of government responsibility and subjects of inquiry.
Specific matters, within their subject areas, are referred to them by the Senate. They have the task of scrutinising annual reports of government departments and agencies and bills referred to them. The allocation of departments and agencies to committees is achieved by a resolution of the Senate which is renewed at the commencement of each Parliament and varied as required with any changes in the government's administrative arrangments orders.
The operations of the committees are considered below under Appointment and membership of committees, Powers of committees and Conduct of inquiries. For further detail on the reference of annual reports and legislation to committees, see below under Conduct of inquiries, Referral of matters to committees.
Reports of the legislative and general purpose standing committees are listed in the Department of the Senate's Consolidated Register of Senate Committee Reports now published online. Other, generally historic, information about committees may be found in the following publications:. Senate Committees and Government Accountability , Proceedings of the conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the Senate's legislation and general purpose standing committee system, Papers on Parliament No.
Estimates committees no longer exist as a separate category of committee, but the estimates scrutiny functions they performed are carried out by the legislative and general purpose standing committees. When performing those functions the committees are still commonly referred to as estimates committees. Like legislative and general purpose standing committees, estimates committees came into existence on 11 June as part of the modern committee system in the Senate. The estimates scrutiny role of the committees is provided by standing order 26, under which the old estimates committees used to be established.
Estimates scrutiny is an important part of the Senate's calendar and a key element of the Senate's role as a check on government. The estimates process provides the major opportunity for the Senate to assess the performance of the public service and its administration of government policy and programs. It has evolved from early efforts by senators to elicit basic information about government expenditure to inform their decisions about appropriation bills, to a wide-ranging examination of expenditure with an increasing focus on performance.
Its effect is cumulative, in that an individual question may not have any significant impact, but the sum of questions and the process as a whole, as it has developed, help to keep executive government accountable and place a great deal of information on the public record on which judgments may be based.
Procedures currently applying to the consideration of estimates are as follows. Twice each year, particulars of proposed expenditure are referred to the committees. The particulars are derived from the two sets of appropriation bills normally introduced twice each year. Portfolio Budget Statements, tabled in May, and Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements, tabled in February, assist the committees in their examination of the particulars.
Under an order of the Senate of , amended in , the annual tax expenditures statement stands referred to committees considering estimates. Since the enactment of the Charter of Budget Honesty Act , information required by that Act to be produced is also available to committees, along with other information contained in Budget papers.
This includes the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook report MYEFO and the final budget outcome report. Statements of expenditure from the Advance to the Finance Minister under the Appropriation Acts, once a significant accountability vehicle in the absence of other such information, have diminished in importance, including because the Appropriation Acts now represent a relatively small proportion of total Commonwealth expenditure.
Supporting documentation provided by departments is significant to the estimates scrutiny process, and has evolved with the process. From the early s, departments provided explanatory notes to the committees examining estimates. These notes were rudimentary at first and were provided informally to members of estimates committees. As a result of pressure from committees the documents were formally tabled in the Senate from The introduction of program budgeting in the public sector in the s saw the documents transformed from explanatory notes to program performance statements which provided explanations according to the new program structure and which were also promoted by the Department of Finance as an accountability tool, used for improving program management and evaluation, as well as for providing information to the Senate.
Documentation underwent a further change in , when the movement of the Budget from August to May meant that documentation provided for Budget estimates Portfolio Budget Statements could not provide the extent of performance information that the Senate was used to. Performance information is now found in annual reports of agencies, required to be tabled by 31 October each year, and which may be examined by the committees when considering estimates.
The move to output-based accrual budgeting reinforced the requirement for detailed explanatory material on departmental activities.
The committees considering estimates have thus encouraged improvements in the quality, nature and transparency of information presented to Parliament.
Committees hold initial hearings at which the responsible minister, or representative, and officers appear to answer questions on their respective programs. Days are set aside for examination of the estimates and on such days the Senate usually does not sit to enable the committees to meet in earlier years it adjourned early. On occasions committees considering estimates have been authorised to meet while the Senate was sitting.
The committees are free to set additional times for estimates hearings if they so choose but orders of the Senate agreed to on 25 June bolstered the rights of the non-government minority on legislation committees to insist that additional hearings be scheduled where needed. As there is no requirement for the committees to report after the supplementary hearings see below such additional hearings could be held at any time up to the next round of regular hearings.
Thus, in the supplementary hearings in early November , the Economics Committee decided to hold an additional hearing later in November. Committees have been directed by the Senate to hold supplementary hearings on estimates. The committees have power to call for persons and documents and may also move from place to place, although no committee considering estimates has yet done so [update: The first and, to date, only estimates hearing to occur outside Canberra was a hearing of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, which examined NBN Co.
Estimates hearings are required to be in public and the committees when considering estimates are not empowered to receive confidential material in the absence of a specific resolution of the Senate to that effect. All such material received by a committee is automatically published.
Similarly, because estimates hearings are required by standing order 26 to proceed by way of calling on items of proposed expenditure and seeking explanations from ministers and officers, the committees are not empowered, in the course of estimates inquiries, to adopt inquiry techniques which are available to them in their other activities, such as showing video recordings, participating in product demonstrations or undertaking on-site inspections.
No more than four committees may meet in public simultaneously. This provision is intended reasonably to accommodate the interests of senators in the estimates of several departments. Procedures applying to Senate committees generally apply to estimates hearings in so far as those procedures are consistent with standing order For example, the procedures for the protection of witnesses in Senate Privilege Resolution No.
There is no rule of the Senate that prevents senators seeking explanations on such matters at an estimates hearing, and the chair allowed the questions to proceed. At each hearing, the committee chair calls on the items of proposed expenditure, usually by reference to the programs and subprograms for which funding is described in the Portfolio Budget Statements or Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements. The estimates are then open for examination. The method of proceeding echoes earlier procedures for considering appropriation bills in committee of the whole.
The chair calls on items of proposed expenditure in the agreed order, generally at agency or program level, and opens those items for questioning. In committee of the whole, questioning continues until senators had no further questions on that item. Generally, estimates committees have been able to achieve a similar outcome, by agreement, and by the development over time of processes for placing questions on notice.
In and , after some disquiet about the allocation of questions among senators and about committees adjourning while senators still had questions to ask, the Senate agreed to new procedures affecting the management of estimates hearings. The standing order provides that the chair cannot call on the next item if any senator has further questions on the current item, unless:. One consequence is that standing order 26 4 also operates to extend a hearing beyond its scheduled adjournment time unless senators with further questions agree to place them on notice, or the committee agrees to schedule a further hearing.
The provisions for spill-over hearings under continuing orders 9A or 9B could be used to secure a further hearing, as could a simple decision of the committee. Committees may also consider the annual reports of departments and budget-funded agencies in conjunction with their consideration of estimates.
Most questions are answered at the hearings, but witnesses may also choose to take questions on notice and provide written responses after the hearing. Members and participating members may also place questions on notice. Such questions are lodged with the secretaries of the committees, and are distributed to members of the committees and to relevant departments.
Once questions are lodged they are in the possession of the committees and cannot be withdrawn by the senators who lodged them. There is limited time for estimates questions on notice to be lodged, and the withdrawal of questions after they are lodged could deprive other senators of the right to have the questions answered. Questions may be lodged while there are estimates proceedings in process, that is, from the time of the reference of the main or additional estimates to the committees to the time when the committees report.
In the case of the supplementary hearings on the main estimates see below , when reports are not usually required and committees have the capacity to schedule additional hearings, committees are free to make their own decisions about deadlines. Questions lodged during the supplementary hearings must relate to matters notified for consideration in those hearings.
A senator, on any day after question time in the Senate, may seek an explanation of, and initiate a debate on, any failure to answer an estimates question on notice by the deadline set by the committee for answering such questions.
In November the Senate adopted a special procedure to substitute questions on notice for supplementary estimates hearings. The committees when considering estimates are authorised to ask for explanations from ministers in the Senate, or officers, relating to the items of proposed expenditure. Usually the committees leave it to the minister to determine which witnesses attend, although they have the power to call particular witnesses if they so choose.
On many occasions in the past, however, ministers have cooperated with committees in agreeing to the attendance of particular witnesses. Directions that ministers attend as committee witnesses had not occurred before see Chapter 17—Witnesses, under Senators as witnesses. Although the reference in standing order 26 5 to ministers or officers might be taken to limit estimates hearings to public bodies and office-holders, non-government bodies in receipt of public funds have appeared by agreement to answer questions.
Similarly, in the Budget estimates round, a number of publicly funded boards and corporations were called, including the Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board, Defence Housing Australia, the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority and the Board of Australia Post, the latter Board agreeing to appear after a senator foreshadowed a Senate motion requiring their attendance. The only substantive rule of the Senate relating to the scope of questions is that questions must be relevant to the matters referred to the committees, namely the estimates of expenditure.
Any questions going to the operations or financial positions of departments or agencies are relevant questions. The Senate on 22 November endorsed the views of the Procedure Committee on the relevance of questions at estimates hearings. This followed earlier disputes between committee members and ministers about relevance of questions. The Procedure Committee adopted advices provided to those members by the Clerk of the Senate.
There is no basis for this suggestion, so there are no grounds for a chair to rule on whether questions at estimates conform with those rules. It is unsurprising that the rules for Senate questions do not apply. Estimates hearings did not evolve from question time, but from the examination of appropriation bills in committee of the whole: see Laing, R.
One constraint on the broad test of relevance described above lies in the Senate resolution allocating the oversight of executive portfolios to different committees.
For this reason, some questions asked in two estimates hearings during the additional estimates round were ruled not relevant. Annual reports are statements to Parliament of the manner in which departments use the resources made available to them, and therefore references to annual reports are relevant.
When the budget cycle was changed so that the main estimates were presented in May instead of August, this necessarily involved the most relevant annual reports not being available at the time of the main estimates hearings but becoming available at the time of the additional estimates hearings.
It was therefore accepted that annual reports would be referred to during the additional estimates hearings. In effect, annual reports disclose the financial positions of departments and their activities leading to their financial positions at the very time when departments are seeking additional funds as a result of their financial positions. An important factor is the availability of audit reports and the participation of officers of the Australian National Audit Office ANAO in committees' examination of programs which have been subject to efficiency and project audits by ANAO.
Guidelines for provision of assistance by the Auditor-General to committees considering estimates were drawn up in following a meeting between the Auditor-General and the President and chairs of the former estimates committees.
The Auditor-General produces regular reports on departments and their financial statements, on individual efficiency and project audits, and special audits. The chief assistance provided by the Auditor-General is by way of briefings for committees on reports, and throughout the estimates process if required.
Although ANAO staff do not attend estimates hearings as a matter of course, it is open to committees to invite the Auditor-General to provide comment, or nominate ANAO officers to provide comment, on matters relevant to audit reports raised during committee hearings. On a small number of occasions, this assistance has taken the form of ANAO officers appearing as witnesses before committees considering estimates, to provide comment on audits conducted within the relevant program.
During its consideration of the Budget estimates, for example, Estimates Committee A invited ANAO officers to give evidence on two separate organisations, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, both of which had been subject to recent audits. In its report to the Senate, tabled on 7 October , the committee commented that the provision of public evidence by ANAO officers had been helpful to the consideration of the proposed estimates.
The audit had been undertaken following correspondence from the committee to the Auditor General in the previous parliament, raising concerns about the performance of an agency, Airservices Australia. After ANAO officers gave evidence, the agency appeared before the committee; ANAO was then asked to clarify evidence, before the agency was again called. Similarly, ANAO officers appeared before the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee during the Budget estimates hearings to assist with questions arising from audits connected to the portfolios allocated to that committee.
After initial hearings have been completed, the committees present reports to the Senate. They are also required to set a date for receipt of answers to questions taken on notice prior to and at the hearings. In relation to the annual estimates, but not the additional estimates, the committees are required to set a date or dates for supplementary hearings to consider answers to questions on notice or any other matters relating to the proposed expenditure of which members and participating members have given notice that they wish to pursue.
The date set for the commencement of supplementary meetings must not be less than 10 days after the date set for receipt of answers to questions taken on notice. In practice in recent years, the Senate has set the dates for supplementary hearings. Senators must give notice of matters they wish to pursue not less than three working days before the date for commencement of the supplementary meetings.
Matters considered at supplementary hearings are confined to those matters of which notice has been given but the tendency in recent years has been for such matters to be framed in broad terms. Committees may present further reports to the Senate containing recommendations for further action by the Senate, although they are not required to do so.
There is no limit to the number of supplementary hearings a committee may hold, but after the time for giving notice of matters to be raised at supplementary meetings has expired, there is no further opportunity to give notice of additional matters. In a report on its supplementary meetings in November , Estimates Committee F recommended that the Procedure Committee examine a system for giving notice of matters in respect of a particular portfolio not less than three days before the commencement of supplementary hearings on that portfolio.
The recommendation was adopted by the Senate after it had been moved as a second reading amendment to the appropriation bills by the chair of Estimates Committee F. In , on the recommendation of the Procedure Committee, supplementary hearings were confined to the annual appropriation bills, and abolished in respect of the additional appropriation bills.
The rationale of this change was that, as the budget cycle had developed, the supplementary hearings for the additional appropriation bills were occurring very near to the main round of the annual appropriation hearings, when unlimited questioning of departments and agencies is possible. It is not necessary for the committees to have completed their hearings before debate on the appropriation bills resumes, or, indeed, before the bills are passed.
Normally, however, the hearings are completed before the bills proceed. During this time, the committee hears evidence from the relevant department, and may call for submissions from the public. Committees are required to report to the House on any international treaty referred to them. Reports from any of the three Officers of Parliament are presented to the House for consideration.
Reports of the Controller and Auditor-General are then referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, reports of the Ombudsman to the Governance and Administration Committee, and reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to the Environment Committee. A member of the public can request that the House take action on a matter of public policy or law, or a local or private concern, by starting a petition.
Petitions presented to the House are referred to the Petitions Committee, which was established following the review of Standing Orders. The Petitions Committee is one of the specialist select committees, and has oversight of and responsibility for all petitions that are presented to Parliament.
The committee may choose to examine a petition itself, or to refer it to a subject select committee or a Minister for a response. Committee meetings are open to the public and the news media during hearings of evidence such as submissions. Hearings of evidence are also livestreamed and available on demand on social media and via Parliament's website. Occasionally, committees might receive private or secret evidence.
Any private evidence received is made publicly available after a committee reports to the House. Secret evidence received is not allowed to be disclosed, even after a committee reports to the House, unless the House specifically authorises the disclosure.
Aside from hearings of evidence, all other committee proceedings take place in private, to allow members to freely discuss and receive advice on the matters being considered. Auckland, Oratia Books, Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. Parliamentary privilege in New Zealand. Annual reviews explained. Search Advanced Search Search. Search Search.
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