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Title

Ch7 The parliamentary calendar / A SESSION / Prorogation / Prorogation in practice

Database

House Practice

Date

01-05-2005

Source

House of Reps

Parl No.

41

Chapter

The parliamentary calendar

Chapter No.

Chapter 07

Page

228

Section No.

 

System Id

procedural/practcer/chapter07.26.doc


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Ch7 The parliamentary calendar / A SESSION / Prorogation / Prorogation in practice



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House of Representatives                                Ch 7                                                 p 228

 

The parliamentary calendar / A SESSION / Prorogation

 

Prorogation in practice

The history of the Australian Parliament in respect of prorog ations is marked by inconsistency. In 1957 the Leader of the House stated that in future annual sessions of Parliament would be held, 1 and this practice continued until the end of 1961. Subsequently, the division of a Parliament into more than one session by means of regular prorogations appears to have been regarded as either inconvenient or unnecessary.

There are few occasions when advantage can be perceived in the act of prorogation in the modern context. This is illustrated by the fact that there have been only four prorogations since 1961, apart from prorogation immediately prior to the end of a Parliament, and all of these were for a particular reason:

  • the 1968 prorogation followed the death of Prime Minister Holt and the formation of a new Ministry;

  • the 1970 prorogation was caused by a general election being held on 25 October 1969, resulting in the Parliament being forced to meet, under section 5 of the Constitution, prior to Christmas; the Parliament met for one sitting day but the Government found that it was not able to have the Governor-General announce fully its proposed program at that time; the program was announced at the opening of the second session; and

  • the Parliament was prorogued in 1974 and 1977 to enable the Queen to open the new session in each case.

    • From the point of view of the House and its Members, prorogation has the disadvantage of disrupting the business before the House and its committees and causes some additional workload in the new session. From the point of view of committees of the Parliament, the recent practice of not proroguing, except for special reasons, is desirable in order that they may continue their operations with minimal disruption while the House is not sitting. When prorogation is found to be necessary, it is to the advantage of committees if this is done as near as possible to the proposed meeting in the new session. This reduces the ‘recess’ time and so minimises the difficulties referred to earlier of committees not being able to meet during periods of recess. The recess involved need only be very short, for example, over a weekend.

    There is also the argument, however, that regular, perhaps annual, prorogations could offer advantages, such as:

    1. a regular statement of government policies and intentions would be put before the House;
    2. there would be a regular opportunity for Members to debate the Government’s statement; and
    3. there would be a regular and comprehensive clearing of the Notice Paper.


    VP 1957-58/6; H.R. Deb. (19.3.57) 19.