Chapter 21 - Committees of the Whole

All committees belong to one of two types. They are either committees of the whole assembly or select committees in the generic sense. Select committees, by definition, comprise a selection of senators.[1] Committees of the whole have their origins in 17^th century English parliamentary practice and struggles with the monarch, particularly over expenditure. The point of committee of the whole was apparently to remove the Speaker (regarded as the King’s man) from the deliberations and replace him with a trusted parliamentarian who would not betray members’ thinking to the King.[2] Matters affecting finance could only be discussed in committee. By the time of Federation, the procedure had been copied by the colonial assemblies as a useful way of examining matters, particularly bills, in detail. Its origins, however, were of so little relevance to contemporary practices that President Baker could report to the Senate, when it was first considering the need to appoint a Chairman of Committees, that he himself had done “double duty” in both roles for years as President of the Legislative Council of South Australia and did not see any problem with it.[3]

The most common use of committee of the whole proceedings is for the consideration of bills after their second reading. Standing Order 115 provides for the immediate and automatic consideration of bills in committee of the whole after their second reading unless:

• the bill has been referred to a standing or select committee; or

• there are no proposed amendments to the bill and no senator wishes to have a committee stage for the purpose of raising matters about the bill (see SO 115).

For matters other than bills to be considered in committee of the whole, paragraph (1) provides the mechanism. Committee of the whole proceedings have been used to consider reports of the Standing Orders Committee,[4] the Advance to the Minister for Finance[5] and other documents.[6]

A committee of the whole stage on a bill. The committee is chaired from the chair at the table between the clerks (Photo courtesy of AUSPIC)

President Baker had done 'double duty' in the South Australian Legislative Council and queried the need for a separate Chairman of Committees (Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Handbook)

Being familiar to the majority of the first senators, 75 per cent of whom had previous parliamentary experience, the committee of the whole procedures, with one exception, attracted very little debate in 1903.[7] What debate there was followed a lengthy discussion on the question that the standing orders relating to requests be postponed, which ended in a series of testy exchanges between President Baker and his state and party colleague, Senator Symon (FT, SA).[8] The two were often at odds during these debates on rules for aspects of the legislative process. Symon argued that paragraph (1) was incomplete and moved an amendment to add: