 |
Chapter 16 - Committees
Selection of Bills Committee
The Selection of Bills Committee,
which is established by standing order 24A, makes
recommendations to the Senate for the referral of bills to committees. The
committee considers bills introduced into the Senate or received from the House
of Representatives and reports to the Senate on whether any bills should be
referred to legislative and general purpose standing or select committees.
Membership of the committee is based on an informal committee of party whips which
meets each sitting day to confer on the day’s program. The committee consists
of the Government Whip and two other senators nominated by the Leader of the Government,
the Opposition Whip and two other senators nominated by the Leader of the
Opposition, together with the whips of any minority groups. The chair of the
committee is the Government Whip who may from time to time appoint a deputy
chair to act as chair when the chair is not present at a meeting. The chair, or
deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote when the votes are
equally divided.
The standing order establishing the committee does not contain any
criteria which the committee is required to follow in making recommendations in
relation to bills. This allows the committee to take into account any grounds
advanced by senators for the submission of bills to committee scrutiny.
Although few of the committee’s reports have indicated the basis on
which the committee has made its recommendations, the committee has commented
on particular referrals and given reasons why a decision has been made or
changed. In its 4th report of 1990, for example, the committee
indicated that there was a difference of views about which standing committee a
package of social welfare bills should be referred to. Although the committee
recommended that the bills be referred to the Community Affairs Committee, an
amendment was moved to the motion that the report be adopted, which would have
had the effect of referring parts of one of the bills to two different
committees. The President ruled
on a point of order that a bill could be
referred to more than one committee because, although the order of the Senate
referred to bills being referred to “a committee”, as a matter of
interpretation the singular number is taken to include the plural. The
amendment was then agreed to (11/10/1990, J.322). In its 6th report of 1990, the
committee indicated that its decisions not to refer two bills to committees as
proposed by the Opposition and Australian Democrats, respectively, had been
taken by a majority. One of these recommendations was subsequently overturned
by an amendment to the motion that the report be adopted (17/10/1990, J.351). The
committee reviewed an earlier recommendation not to refer a bill in light of
comments on the bill by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee (7th report
of 1990, 8/11/1990, J.397). The
committee now reserves disagreements for resolution by the Senate (2nd
report of 2002, 20/3/2002, J.240). The committee has also reviewed recommendations not to refer
bills on other grounds, including the circulation of a large number of
government amendments to a bill (1st report of 1991, 14/2/1991, J.747) and
representations by individual senators (3rd report of 1992, 26/3/1992, J.2124; 9th
report of 2004, 23/6/2004, J.3651). The committee has also reviewed its recommendations on the
timing of referrals in view of the demands of a heavy legislative program (9th
report of 1990, 28/11/1990, J.487).
In practice the committee recommends the referral of a bill if a
significant group in the Senate ask for the bill to be referred. Amendments to
motions to adopt the committee’s reports, however, are still relatively common.
The committee is required to examine all bills received from the House
of Representatives or introduced into the Senate, except for bills containing
no provisions other than provisions appropriating money, and, in respect of
each bill, recommend whether it should be referred to a legislative and general
purpose standing committee. The committee may also refer bills to appropriate
select committees. When the committee decides that a bill should be referred to
a committee, it is required to recommend which committee should receive the
bill, the stage at which it should be referred and the date on which that
committee should report.
(See Supplement)
The committee’s reports are presented after the giving of notices of
motion, or at other times by leave. Amendments may be moved to the motion that
the report of the committee be adopted and these may include amendments to
refer additional bills to committees. Debate on the reports is limited to
30 minutes with a 5 minute limit on individual contributions.
The committee recommends the referral to committees of approximately 35
percent of all bills considered by the Senate.
Previous page | Contents | Next page
Website feedback: web.senate@aph.gov.au
Last reviewed 31 July 2009 by the Senate Web Administrator
© Commonwealth of Australia
Parliament of Australia Web Site Privacy Statement
Images courtesy of AUSPIC
|
 |
