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House of Representatives                                Ch 2                                                 p 58

The Ministry and the Senate

The composition of the Ministry has always included some Senators to represent the Government by presenting its policies and facilitating the passage of its legislation in the Senate. Senate Ministers initiate bills (other than financial bills) and make policy statements to the Senate connected with their portfolios. In addition each Senate Minister represents in the Senate one or more Ministers located in the House. Likewise each Senate Minister is represented by a Minister in the House of Representatives.

The House from which Ministers shall be drawn is not mentioned in the Constitution. In practice the number of Senate Ministers is determined by the Prime Minister or the parliamentary party, as the case may be, and in recent years has varied between four and nine. A large component of Senate Ministers may be seen as running counter to the concept of responsible government and the Senate’s traditional role as a ‘House of review’. In keeping with constitutional principles and the constitutional limitations on the Senate regarding the initiation of financial legislation, the majority of the Ministry, including the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, has always been drawn from the House of Representatives.

Following the presumed death of Prime Minister Holt on 17 December 1967, the Liberal Party chose Senator Gorton as its leader on 10 January 1968 and he was sworn in as Prime Minister the same day. Although there had been previous occasions of Senate Ministers acting as Prime Minister, ¹ this is the only occasion on which a sitting Senator has been commissioned to form a Government. Senator Gorton did not sit in the Senate as Prime Minister because neither House met during the period between his election as Prime Minister and his subsequent election as a Member of the House of Representatives. Prime Minister Gorton resigned his place as a Senator on 1 February 1968, in order to seek election to the House of Representatives. He was elected on 24 February 1968 at the by-election for the division of Higgins left vacant by Mr Holt’s death. Between 1 February and 24 February Mr Gorton was a Member of neither House but, as permitted by the Constitution, was able to remain Prime Minister during this period. ²

From time to time the view has been put that the presence of Ministers in the Senate is incompatible with its effective performance as a House of review and a States House. In 1979 a motion was moved in the Senate, but remained unresolved, to the effect that Senators should no longer hold office as Ministers of State, with the exception of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and that chairmen of the Senate’s Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committees should be granted allowances, staff and other entitlements similar to Ministers. ³ In 1986 the House Standing Committee on Procedure expressed the opinion that all Ministers should be Members of and responsible to the House of Representatives. ⁴ In 1988 a private Member’s motion was debated in the House, but remained unresolved, urging the party winning the next and subsequent elections to appoint all Ministers from the House of Representatives and urging the Senate to further expand its committee system and adopt greater powers of investigation and inquiry. ⁵

(i) H.R. Deb. (9.5.16) 7686, (ii) during adjournment of the Houses between 30 August 1962 and 2 October 1962.

Constitution, s. 64.

J 1978-80/571; S. Deb. (22.2.79) 229-40. A notice of motion with similar intent was later given in the House on 3 May 1979, NP 96 (8.5.79) 5205.

PP 354 (1986) 25.

H.R. Deb. (24.3.88) 1292-8.