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Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Page: 4741

Senator PARRY (Tasmania—Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of Committees) (17:56): I move:

That the recommendations of the Procedure Committee in its first report of 2012, be adopted as follows:

(1) That the temporary order relating to the consideration of private senators’ bills, agreed to on 22 November 2010, be extended till the end of the first sitting week in 2013.

(2) That the following amendment of standing order 57(1)(d) operate as a temporary order from the first sitting week in August 2012 till the end of the first sitting week in 2013:

After subparagraph 57(1)(d)(vi), insert:

(via) At 12.45 pm, non-controversial government business only.

(3) That standing order 74(3) be amended as follows, with effect from the first sitting day in 2013:

(3) The reply to a question on notice shall be given by delivering it to the Clerk, a copy shall be supplied to the senator who asked the question, and the publication of the reply is then authorised, and the question and reply shall be printed in Hansard.

(4) That the order of the Senate of 6 October 2005 be amended as follows:

Storage of Senate documents

The Senate authorises the storage outside Parliament House by the National Archives of Australia of documents laid before the Senate, provided that the storage of those documents is under the control of the Department of the Senate and microfilm or digital copies of them are available within Parliament House.

I wish to speak briefly to this motion and draw to the attention of the Senate that there are some amendments to the standing orders effected through this motion, which have been explained quite adequately by the Procedure Committee report, and I encourage senators to read those matters if they have not already done so.

I also indicate that arising from the report the committee has requested the President of the Senate under standing order 17 to refer two matters to the Procedure Committee. I will just briefly highlight these matters. The first is consideration of the capacity of a Senate minister who is representing as to whether or not the notice of question should be given to the minister in advance, and some other matters relating to some procedures concerning the temporary order in relation to question time.

The second matter will be in relation to the examination of the operation of the routine of business of the Senate—basically a review of that. We have asked the President to refer those matters to us and at some stage, with the concurrence of the committee, I will be writing to all senators seeking input in relation to, particularly, the routine of business of the Senate.

In moving the motion I commend the report containing the other matters for senators to familiarise themselves with.