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Ch18 Parliamentary committees / MEMBERSHIP / Eligibility to serve on committees



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House of Representatives                                Ch 18                                                 p 635

 

Parliamentary committees / MEMBERSHIP

 

Eligibility to serve on committees

Committee service i s considered to be one of the parliamentary duties of private Members. Office holders and Ministers have not normally served on committees except in an ex officio capacity on committees concerned with the operations of the House or the Parliament ( see below ). 1 Given their role of scrutinising the Executive it has been considered inappropriate for Ministers to serve on investigatory committees. The same reservation applies to Parliamentary Secretaries, although guidelines on the role of Parliamentary Secretaries recognise that there may be occasions when special reasons such as the particular character of a Member’s electoral division make a strong case for them to serve on a committee. 2 In cases where a committee chair has been appointed as a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary he or she may remain on the committee, even as chair, for a period until a replacement member has been appointed. However, it would not be expected that he or she would attend meetings and participate in committee business.

Except with their consent, or as specified in a standing or other order, the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker or the Second Deputy Speaker may not be appointed to serve on any committee. 3 In the case of some statutory committees certain office holders, such as the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, are not able to be appointed to the committee.



The Chairman of Committees was chair of the Joint Committee on the Parliamentary Committee System and was a member of several general purpose standing committees in the 35th Parliament.



  Parliamentary Secretaries—role and function in relation to procedures of the House and its committees , H.R. Deb. (22.3.92) 12474. For example, Mr W. Snowdon was Parliamentary Secretary while member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal / Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs 1990-3. Mr Snowdon’s continued membership of the committee was accepted because of his role as the then sole Member for the Northern Territory (with its high Aboriginal population).



S.O. 230.