Mrs MAY (9:33 AM) —On behalf of the Standing Committee on Procedure, I present the committee's report entitled Renaming the Main Committee—celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Main Committee, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

Mrs MAY —by leave—It gives me a great deal of pleasure to present a report on the Main Committee this morning, which is the closest sitting day to the 10th anniversary of that body. The Main Committee first met on 8 June 1994. A home for the new body was created from an existing committee room—room 2R3. New furniture was provided and a dais for the Deputy Speaker and clerks was installed.

The trouble is that the room in which the Main Committee meets is rarely known as committee room 2R3. From its first days it was known interchangeably as the Main Committee room or the second chamber. Neither of these names is satisfactory. The use of the name Main Committee room for the room in which the Main Committee meets creates enormous confusion because there is another large room in the building called the main committee room. There are probably not many occupants of this building who have been spared the annoyance of going to the wrong venue when invited to a place called the main committee room. Perhaps we should have developed the habit of referring to these rooms as the second floor Main Committee room and the first floor main committee room, but we never did. Indeed, most people only became aware that there were two main committee rooms when they turned up to the wrong one.

Having proposed the name Main Committee in the 1993 report which resulted in the establishment of the body, the Procedure Committee addressed the problem in 2000 in its report The second chamber. At that stage the committee favoured renaming the Main Committee the Second Chamber to recognise a title which was already in use. However, the name Second Chamber was also problematic. In the parliamentary world the term second chamber is commonly applied to the upper house in a bicameral system. The government response to the committee's recommendation on the changing of the name was that the name Second Chamber could itself cause confusion. At the same time, the response supported in principle a new name and noted that the government was prepared to consider an alternative name.

Today the Procedure Committee does have an alternative name to suggest. The new name should avoid confusion and enhance the status of the Main Committee. It should celebrate a significant aspect of Australia's constitutional and parliamentary history. It should be bipartisan. Unlike the previous names put forward, the new name should not attempt to describe and define the functions of the body now known as the Main Committee. To do so would constrain the future development of that body. At the same time, the proposed name must be consistent with the body's role as a secondary chamber but one that operates as a parallel debating chamber for a number of different types of House business. The committee proposes the name the Federation Chamber of the House of Representatives. If the House adopts this name, the committee expects it to be commonly known by the short title `the Federation Chamber'.

The committee strongly supports the building of a purpose-built venue for the Main Committee but does not want the introduction of the new name to await a new venue. We hope the new name can be introduced at the start of the 41st parliament. There is much more I would like to say to mark the 10th anniversary, but time permits me only to observe that the first 10 years of the Main Committee have proved its value beyond the expectations of those who acted as midwives at its birth. Happy birthday, Main Committee.