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House of Representatives                                Ch 18                                                 p 692

Meetings overseas

On occasion committees or their subcommittees have been permitted to travel overseas. The main principle to be considered, in relation to a committee travelling overseas, is that the House, and therefore its committees, has no jurisdiction outside Australia, and in visiting other countries a committee cannot formally meet or formally take evidence. Where approval has been given, it has been considered proper for members of a committee, as a group, to make inquiries and conduct informal discussions abroad and to have regard to the results of those inquiries and discussions, provided they do not purport to exercise the powers delegated by the House.

It would appear that provided a committee did not attempt to exercise its powers to administer oaths, compel the giving of evidence, and so on, it could sit as a committee overseas and, with the consent of witnesses, have proceedings transcribed and published. ¹ As proceedings would almost certainly not be privileged (in terms of the law of the country concerned), witnesses would need to be informed accordingly. In addition, committees would be unable to have orders enforced and to protect witnesses against intimidation or penalty. It would seem improper for a committee to sit, as a committee, in a foreign country without first seeking the consent of that country’s government. Committees which are allowed to travel overseas are therefore more likely to conduct inspections and hold meetings and discussions of an informal nature.

Subject to the provision of additional funding by the Government, ² the Speaker has supported travel to regional countries, such as New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Thailand, and, with parliamentary funding, South America. These visits (apart from an annual committee exchange with New Zealand) have been directly related to inquiries by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Generally it has not been considered appropriate for other committees to travel internationally.

House committees have taken evidence in Australian external territories on several occasions, sometimes on oath.

See Sir Barnett Cocks, ‘Parliament goes abroad’, Parliamentarian, LII, no. 1, 1971, p. 10. For House of Commons practice see May , 23rd edn, pp. 754. And see Odgers , 6th edn, p. 756-7.

Approval by the Prime Minister is required as well as the consent of the Presiding Officers.