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House of Representatives                                Ch 11                                                 p 411

Message recommending appropriation

Prior to August 1990 the terms of any message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation were made known to the House by the Speaker reading them out in full. Current practice is for the Chair just to announce the receipt of the message. The message normally takes the following form:

[Signature]

Governor-General Message No. [   ]

In accordance with the requirements of section 56 of the Constitution, the Governor-General recommends to the House of Representatives that an appropriation be made for the purposes of a Bill for an Act [remainder of long title].

Canberra [date]

Messages may however contain precise details on the relevant purposes of the appropriation. ¹ Messages recommending an appropriation have been received from the Deputy of the Governor-General ² and, in the absence of the Governor-General from Australia, from the Administrator. ³

The message is drafted within the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, which arranges for the Governor-General’s signature and delivers the message to the Clerk of the House. ⁴

On occasions in the past a message recommending appropriation was received after the House had completed consideration of a bill. In such cases the message was reported to the House at the first opportunity ⁵ and the bill was not transmitted to the Senate for its concurrence until the message had been reported. In other circumstances a message not announced at the usual time was announced later, including, by leave, during the consideration in detail stage. ⁶ Although such procedures may have conformed with the requirement of the then applying standing order, that an appropriation message should be announced after the bill had been read a second time, ⁷ it was generally the practice to announce the message immediately after the second reading, and this is now the required practice. ⁸ (A message recommending an appropriation for the purposes of an amendment should be announced before the amendment is moved— see below. )

When bills are considered together after standing orders have been suspended, and it is necessary in respect of any of the bills to announce a message recommending an appropriation, the motion for the suspension of standing orders has included a provision to enable the message(s) to be announced after the motion ‘That the bills be passed’ or ‘That the bills be now read a second time’, etc, has been agreed to. ⁹

If after a prorogation, the House agrees to resume consideration of a lapsed bill in respect of which a message recommending an appropriation has been announced in the previous session, a new message is announced. ¹⁰

VP 1987-89/896.

VP 1978-80/321; VP 1967-68/156.

E.g. VP 1977/176. Messages from the Governor-General and the Administrator have been received in respect of the same bill (the latter in respect of an amendment), VP 2002-04/1471.

Messages required urgently may be received by facsimile.

VP 1978-80/321; VP 1968-69/573; VP 1993-95/2169, 2185; VP 1996-98/2993.

VP 1993-95/1023.

Former S.O. 296.

S.O. 147.

VP 1970-72/1033; VP 1968-69/525;VP 1998-2001/207.

See ‘Lapsed bills’ in Ch. on ‘Legislation.