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House of Representatives                                Ch 18                                                 p 693

Quorum—joint committees

The House may set the quorum of its members required for a sitting of a joint committee. A joint committee may set its own quorum, subject to any requirement of the House . ¹ Normally the quorum is stated in the resolution of appointment and no specific provision is made as to the number of Senators or Members, respectively, required to form a quorum. The effect has been that a quorum may be maintained by Members of one House only. This has not prevented some joint committees, such as the Joint Committee on Publications, from maintaining an informal quorum arrangement where the committee agrees that it is not properly constituted unless there is at least one representative from each House.

Quorum requirements may vary between committees and for the same committee in different Parliaments. In the 37th Parliament the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, with 32 members, had a quorum requirement of 10, while the joint standing committees on Electoral Matters and Migration, each with a membership of 10, had quorum requirements of four. ² In later Parliaments these committees, with the same number of members as before, had quorum requirements of six, three and three, respectively. In the later Parliaments the quorum provisions also included a requirement for the presence of one government and one non-government member (from either House) at deliberative meetings. ³ The resolution of appointment of the Joint Standing Committee on the New Parliament House provided that five members of the committee, one of whom was either the Speaker or the President, constituted a quorum of the committee. ⁴ The Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories has had a quorum of three, one of whom must be the Deputy Speaker or the Deputy President when matters affecting the parliamentary zone are under consideration. ⁵

Senate practice is that a committee meeting may continue without reference to the number of members present until a committee member draws attention to the lack of a quorum, in which case the proceedings are suspended until a quorum is present. If a quorum is not present after 15 minutes the meeting must be adjourned. ⁶

S.O. 225. The Senate could also set such a requirement by resolution or by standing order. The last occasion the Houses fixed the quorum of their respective Members was for the Joint Select Committee of Public Accounts for which the quorum included at least one Member of each House, VP 1932-34/118-19; J 1932-34/45, 46; see also Joint Select Committee on the Moving-Picture Industry, VP 1926-28/294, 303.

VP 1993-95/81-3.

E.g. VP 1996-98/227-235; VP 1998-2001/164-74.

VP 1987-89/39-40.

VP 2004-05/38.

Senate S.O. 29(2).