119  Uncompleted proceedings in committee

No notice may be taken of any proceedings of a committee of the whole, or of a standing or select committee, on a bill, until those proceedings have been reported, but the Senate may at any time order a bill to be printed as amended in committee.

Amendment history

Adopted: 19 August 1903 as SO 202 but renumbered as SO 201 for the first printed edition

1989 revision: Old SO 208 renumbered as SO 119; language modernised; reference to standing committees included to provide consistency with practice

Commentary

The rationale for this original rule is to allow subsidiary bodies, be they committees of the whole or standing or select committees, to get on with their delegated task of considering legislation without interference from the parent body until the task is complete. It was a common rule in the colonial parliaments, the Standing Orders Committee citing South Australian and NSW precedents in the proposed draft standing orders.[1]