CHAIR (Senator Jacinta Collins) —The committee has before it a list of the outcomes relating to matters which senators have indicated that they wish to raise at this hearing for the parliamentary departments and the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolios. The committee will begin today’s proceedings with the Department of the Senate and then follow the order as set out in the program. I welcome the President of the Senate, Senator the Hon. John Hogg; the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans; and other officers of the Department of the Senate.

Before I commence proceedings, I would like to acknowledge the Clerk’s enormous contribution to the Senate, as this will be his last estimates hearing. Mr Evans is the longest serving Clerk of the Commonwealth parliament. He was appointed in 1988, which means that he has spent over 20 years serving the Senate as its most senior adviser. Prior to being appointed Clerk, Mr Evans spent a year as Deputy Clerk, four as Clerk Assistant and in the years prior to that was a committee secretary. In total, Mr Evans has spent four decades serving the Australian Senate and, through it, the people of Australia. His knowledge of the Senate, its practices and procedures is unparalleled. Mr Evans, it is not possible to fully express the appreciation we as senators have for the depth of your knowledge and wise counsel, your invaluable and truly independent advice and your inspirational belief in the Senate as the fundamental institution in Australia’s parliamentary democracy. On behalf of all senators, I sincerely thank you for all your contributions to the Senate and wish you all the very best in your future endeavours. Mr President, would you like to make an opening statement?

The PRESIDENT —Thank you, Madam CHAIR. I just wish to add to the remarks I made at the February and May hearings in which I advised the committee about the financial position of the Department of the Senate. As the recently tabled annual report shows, the department has recorded a deficit of $1.43 million for 2008-09. The result relates principally to increased demand for the department’s core services, notably increased committee activity. Additionally, salaries and supplier costs have increased. The department has reserves to cover this deficit. Because of the variable nature of parliamentary activity, funds saved from previous years were quite properly being used to fund higher levels of activity last financial year. As Mr Evans has stated in the annual report, if the financial position continues its current trend it may be necessary in the future for the department’s funding level to be re-examined, which will be a matter for the Appropriations and Staffing Committee. That committee has been briefed regarding the details of the department’s budget.

On a different matter, committee members—as you have pointed out, Madam CHAIR—will be aware that the term of office of the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, expires in December this year. As I said at the last hearing, in May, a process is underway to assist me to appoint the next Clerk, and I expect to make an announcement in the near future. Once again, I know that committee members and indeed all senators will join me in placing on the record our thanks for Harry’s contribution during his four decades of service to the Senate. Harry has been a staunch supporter of the Senate and the committee system, in particular, as key elements of our democratic process. I will end there, thank you, Madam CHAIR, and we will take questions.

Senator ABETZ —Mr President, I have a number of brief questions for you. Do you recall an incident in the Senate chamber on 18 June 2009 where it is alleged that a male senator physically restrained a female senator within the chamber? Are you aware of that incident? If so, what action was taken in relation to it?

The PRESIDENT —I was not able to recall the exact date, but that sounds correct to me. I was written to by a senator. I responded to that by writing to the senator involved. I try to handle these matters discreetly. I dealt with it in the way that I thought I should and wrote to the senator involved, pointing out the fact that that should not happen. Given that it did not engage the attention of the chamber but it was something that I did see, I responded properly and I wrote back to the senator who raised the issue with me, advising of the action that I had taken. I left it at that and I did not pursue it any further.

Senator ABETZ —Did the senator to whom you wrote about the incident respond to you in any way denying that the incident had taken place?

The PRESIDENT —My recollection is that there was a response, but the exact details of that response I cannot give you at this stage. I could take that on notice if it is appropriate. I think it was acknowledged that the event happened but, as I said, it was not something that I believed was of great moment in terms of the operation of the chamber.

Senator ABETZ —So there is no mystery about it, the incident I refer to is where it is alleged that Senator Bob Brown physically restrained Senator Hanson-Young. That is the incident to which I am referring. If you could take on notice whether a response was received from—

The PRESIDENT —Yes, a response was received but I just cannot recall the exact wording of it. It did acknowledge the fact that the incident did occur.

Senator ABETZ —And in your correspondence, in general terms, you would have indicated to Senator Brown that his behaviour was inappropriate.

The PRESIDENT —I just pointed out that that sort of behaviour in the chamber is inappropriate, yes.

Senator ABETZ —If I may ask a question at this stage of the Clerk. It is about the summary that we get of estimates questions on notice—the number of questions lodged and then the answers outstanding. I assume that in the collation that is undertaken there is no assessment of the quality of the answer. If a minister refuses to answer, for example, that is deemed to be an answer to the question for the purposes of the tabulation that we received on 16 October 2009?

Mr Evans —Could I begin by thanking you, Senator, for your kind remarks at the beginning of the hearing. No, there is no assessment of the quality of the answer. A refusal to answer is regarded as removing the question from the list of unanswered questions, but they are separately noted in footnotes in the table. In other words, the fact that there has been a refusal to answer the question on one ground or another is noted in the table.

Senator ABETZ —There were a number of answers, or non-answers, from Minister Garrett in relation to matters that I have now raised on a considerable number of occasions where he simply refuses to answer new questions and continually refers to a previous answer which does not answer the material matter. That, then, does not show up in the tabulated format?

Mr Evans —No. If an answer claims that the question has been answered elsewhere, that does not show up, no.

Senator ABETZ —Even if the fact is that it is not that you as the Senate administration do not want to embroil yourself as to whether it is a proper answer or not, because that is something for political debate.

Mr Evans —That is a matter for the questioning senator to follow up.

Senator BERNARDI —I will address my questions to you, Mr President. You may, of course, like to pass them on. The annual report said 37 assets could not be located in the annual stock take in June 2009. Four of these were failed from the previous one. Mr Evans?

The PRESIDENT —No. The stock take would be with the Black Rod.

Senator BERNARDI —Four have been written off. Have you located any of the other missing assets?

Mr Hallett —Yes. My understanding is we have managed to locate more of the assets, but perhaps if I took that on notice I could give you a breakdown of where we are at today, because this is a snapshot as at 30 June.

Senator BERNARDI —That would be good. I appreciate that. The annual report also states that work was continuing on the Senate’s centralised information database. It was expected to be completed in 2009-10 and all committees would have access to that database. Can you advise what the current status is?

Mr Evans —I will call on Mr Cleaver Elliott, the Clerk Assistant (Committees), to answer that.

Mr Elliott —There has been a gradual loading of committees onto that system and at the moment about 70 per cent of committees are loaded to the system. What the system enables us to do is provide direct access from a witness into the committee database. So a witness, or a prospective witness, will log their submission straight into the centralised database and then it is processed by the committee. The take-up has been accelerating in the latter part of the year and we hope, by the end of this year, to have everybody on the system.

Senator BERNARDI —So the ‘early technical complications’ have been resolved. Is that still the case? You have not encountered any new complications?

Mr Elliott —There are a variety of technical complications. Just to give you an example of the complication you are talking about, you could have a bill referred. The bill’s title is loaded into the system and the bill has a very simple short title. Then you get an ‘income tax assessment amendment bracket something, something, something’ and the title is too long to fit into the system. Those are the kinds of technical complications we had.

Senator BERNARDI —But you are confident they will be resolved by the end of the year?

Mr Elliott —Very confident, yes.

Senator BERNARDI —On schedule and on budget?

Mr Elliott —Yes. The budget for it has been very reasonable. I do not have those budgetary figures here, but I could provide those on notice.

Senator BERNARDI —Sure. I have one other question, and it might apply to you, Mr Elliott. There has been some discussion about providing access to Senate documents in a timely and efficient manner for those who are visually impaired. What is the status of that?

Mr Elliott —Over the winter recess we undertook to this committee to work with Vision Australia, which we did. At the moment they are testing samples of submissions which we have sent to them. The submissions that we sent, which were handwritten, have proven not to be able to be converted. But they are still working on that and we are meeting again with them in November. We are very hopeful that we will get a positive outcome on that.

Senator BERNARDI —What about Senate documents such as Hansard and other documents that are all tabled?

Mr Elliott —As I understand it, all other documents are in the format that is required, which is the HTML format. The outstanding issue was in relation to submissions, which we load in a PDF format. It was a case of trying to work out a way of reading those documents other than having to HTML them. That is the outstanding issue. But all other material, as I understand it, such as reports and Hansards and so on are all covered by the HTML format.

Senator RYAN —I will address my question to you, Mr Evans. It is with respect to a consultancy arrangement outlined in the annual report, the cost of which was more significant than others. It was legal advice for just under $180,000, from Professor Bottomley. It is on page 78 of the report. What particular area did that legal advice cover, because the cost of it is more substantial than the other direct consultancy tenders?

Mr Evans —Professor Bottomley was the appointed adviser to one of the legislative scrutiny committees. Each of the legislative scrutiny committees has a legal adviser, who is paid an honorarium, as determined by the committee. The task of those advisers is to look through the legislation that the committees are required to scrutinise and to draw the committee’s attention to significant matters. So it is not legal advice to the department; it is legal advice to those two committees to assist them in their legislative scrutiny roles.

CHAIR —Mr President, you mentioned issues around resourcing of the Department of the Senate. Can you take us through what changes have occurred in respect of resourcing following the new committee structure and its implementation. This is going back to the legislation references committees.

The PRESIDENT —I will pass to the appropriate officers.

Mr Evans —As I have said at an earlier hearing, the change to the committee structure does not in itself cause increased demands on committee staffing or resources. It is the workload that increases the demand and necessitates an increase in the resources. Because of the increased workload in recent times there has been an increased allocation of resources to the committees, but it is not due to the change in the committee structure.

CHAIR —What has happened to the workload since the new structure came into place?

Mr Evans —The workload has gone up consistently since 2007 and additional resources have had to be allocated to the committees to deal with that workload.

CHAIR —The workload was going up prior to the changes?

Mr Evans —Yes.

CHAIR —So there has been no further increase in the workload subsequent to the change in the committee structure?

Mr Evans —No, I do not believe that you could attribute any of the increased workload to the structure in itself. As you know, the legislation and references committees are staffed by the same staff groups. The hope, of course, is that by using the legislation and reference committees for most, if not all, Senate inquiries the number of select committees will be reduced. But, again, the department has staffed the select committees basically by using additional staff. The creation of select committees, in addition to the standing committees, creates some workload problems simply because of the fact that they are separate committees. So if the aim of the change to reduce the number of select committees is achieved then that will have a positive effect on the workload.

CHAIR —I think that concludes questions for this section. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr Evans —Thank you.

 [9.30 am]