No. 2 - Notices of motion
What is a notice of motion?
All decisions of the
Senate begin as motions moved by senators.
The first step is usually for a senator to give notice of his or her intention to move a motion. A notice of motion therefore signals a
potential decision of the Senate.
Notice is required
for all motions except where the standing orders provide otherwise. (For a list of motions not requiring notice
see Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice, 11th
edition, pages 174-175).
Notices of motion may
seek the Senate’s endorsement on an issue of domestic or foreign policy or
recognition of a particular achievement or event. Others relate to the machinery of Senate
business and include notices for the introduction of bills or extensions of
time for committees to report. A third
category proposes an exercise of the Senate’s powers to, for example:
- refer a matter to a committee for
inquiry;
- establish a select (or special
purpose) committee;
- require ministers to place certain
documents or information on the public record;
- require the appearance of
witnesses before committees;
How is notice given?
There are two ways to
give a notice. The first is for a
senator to use the daily opportunity for giving notices orally in the chamber,
an opportunity which occurs at approximately 3.30 pm on Mondays to
Wednesdays and at 9.30 am
on Thursdays. If a senator gives a
notice orally, he or she must also hand in a signed copy. The second is for a senator to hand a signed
copy to the Clerk in the chamber before the time for notices has passed that
day. An exception to this rule is that
notice of a motion to refer a matter to one of the Senate’s legislative and
general purpose standing committees may be handed to the Clerk at any time or
delivered orally in the Senate between items of business. Notices are published in the Notice Paper.
Are there rules about the
content of notices?
The standing orders
set out the rules for notices (standing order 76). In essence, a notice must:
- be legible and signed by the
Senator giving it;
- show the day proposed for moving
the motion—usually the next sitting day, a specific date, a number of
sitting days into the future or at the occurrence of a specific
contingency (see below);
- consist
of a clear and succinct proposed resolution or order of the Senate; and
- relate
to matters within the competence of the Senate;
and must not:
- contain
statements, quotations or other matter not strictly necessary to make the
proposed resolution or order intelligible.
Notices are edited
for the Notice Paper and the
President may delete extraneous matter, require a Senator to reframe a notice
if it does not comply with the standing orders, or ask the Clerk to divide it
into 2 or more notices if it contains matters not relevant to each other. Notices may be given in general terms with
the complete version being handed to the Clerk.
Two or more Senators may give the same notice. The purpose of a notice is to give advance
warning of a proposed decision.
Therefore, a notice has no effect, and cannot be used, on the day it is
given.
Contingent notices
Contingent notices
specify a set of conditions under which a senator may move a certain motion: if
x happens, Senator A will move y.
Most contingent notices provide for standing orders to be suspended to
enable a senator to take an action that the standing orders would otherwise
prevent. An absolute majority of the
Senate (39 senators) must agree to a suspension of standing orders where it is
moved without notice. Where notice has
been given, however, only a simple majority is required (a majority of senators
voting). In most cases, senators use
contingent notices to attract the lesser requirement of a simple majority in
favour of the suspension. Examples of
contingent notices may be found in any day’s Notice Paper in the section called “Contingent Notices” (for more
detail see Brief Guide No. 5—Suspension of Standing Orders).
Who “owns” a notice of motion?
A notice of motion
belongs to the senator who gave it until the motion is moved. Then it belongs to the Senate. Before moving a motion, a senator may alter
its terms or change the day for moving it (see below). A senator may also withdraw a notice of
motion when it is called on or at any time before it is moved. Because the senator “owns” the notice, leave
is not required to withdraw it, but special rules apply to the withdrawal of
disallowance notices (see Brief Guide No. 1—Disallowance). Notices of motion which are neither moved nor
withdrawn remain on the Notice Paper
until the end of a Parliament when all business lapses.
Amending a notice of motion
Notices may be
amended by a senator before they are moved, in one of two ways. Senators may alter their notices in writing
before the day on which the motion is to be moved by way of a letter to the
Clerk (standing order 77). The amended notice is then published in the Notice Paper for the day it is due to be
moved. Senators may also amend notices
on the floor of the chamber before moving them provided that leave (unanimous
consent of all senators present in the chamber) is given. If this method is chosen, senators should
sign a copy of the changes and give it to the Clerk in the chamber.
Changing the day for moving a motion
A notice may be
postponed under standing order 67, or the day for moving it
may be put back, but not brought forward, by letter under standing order 77 (in the same way as the
terms of a notice may be altered by letter—see above).
To postpone a notice
under standing order 67, senators should ask their whips to take the necessary
action or fill in a pro-forma (available on the Senate website on the Senate at
Work page under the heading For Senators: procedural proformas or from
the Table Office or Clerk Assistant (Procedure)) and lodge it with the Clerk. When the time comes for postponing or
rearranging business, the Clerk reads out the list of postponements received
for that day and these items are taken to be postponed unless any senator
requests that the Senate itself determine the postponement of any item by a
vote.
Discovery of formal business
Most notices of
motion fall into one of three main categories of business: Business of the Senate, Government Business
or General Business (see Brief Guide No. 8—Categories of Business). In the ordinary course of a sitting day there
is no opportunity to debate General Business items. This is because General Business has a lower
priority than Business of the Senate or Government Business and would be
reached only in the unlikely event that all higher priority business on the Notice Paper was disposed of. On each sitting day, however, there is an
opportunity for notices of motion to be “fast-tracked”; that is, moved and
determined (or voted on) without debate. This is known as discovery of formal business and it occurs shortly after the time
provided each sitting day for notices to be given.
A senator who wants
to use this opportunity should, when the President asks “Are there any formal
motions?”, seek the call and ask for a particular notice of motion to be “taken
as formal”. If no senator present
objects, the senator may then move the motion for immediate determination. Notices of motion of all categories may be
dealt with in this way, regardless of subject matter, if there is unanimous
consent.
What happens if there is an objection?
An objection from one
senator prevents a notice of motion being dealt with as a formal motion. If the notice is a Business of the Senate or
Government Business notice, this does not matter because such notices will be
called on later in the normal course of the day’s business and may be moved and debated then.
When an objection is
raised to a General Business notice of motion being dealt with as a formal
motion, the senator in charge of it has two choices. The first choice is to do nothing. In this case, the notice of motion remains on
the Notice Paper but the opportunity
to “discover” (or fast-track) it has been exhausted. It may, however, be moved, by leave, at
another time or it may be selected for debate during the time set aside for
General Business on Thursday afternoons, and moved and debated then.
The second choice is
for a senator to move to suspend standing orders to bring on an immediate debate
on that item. This involves three
procedural steps. Step one is a motion
for the suspension of standing orders.
It may be debated for a total of 30 minutes with up to 5 minutes per
speaker. Debate should focus on the
urgency of dealing with the particular item in this way. Suspension of standing orders requires the
agreement of an absolute majority of the Senate (39) if moved without notice,
or a simple majority if moved with notice (including a contingent notice—see
above). If a suspension is agreed to,
step two is a motion to provide that the substantive motion may be moved
immediately and have precedence over other business that day until it is
determined. If step two is agreed to,
step three is the moving of the substantive motion itself. There is no total time limit for this
debate. Each speaker has up to 20
minutes and the mover of the motion has a right of reply.
Need assistance?
For assistance with
any of the matters covered by this guide, government senators or their staff
should contact the Clerk Assistant (Table), on extension 3020; and
non-government senators or their staff should contact the Clerk Assistant
(Procedure), on extension 3380.
February 2005
Comments to: web.senate@aph.gov.au
Last reviewed 8 February 2005 by the Senate Web Administrator
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