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Chapter 16 - Committees
Select committees
Since 1901, select committees have provided the Senate with the ability
to conduct ad hoc inquiries. Select committees are inherently responsive to the
needs and composition of the Senate at any time and they can react quickly to
the Senate’s requirements. Unlike standing committees, they cease to exist when
they have reported upon the matters referred to them. (For a select committee
appointed for the term of a parliament, however, see the Select Committee on
Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities, 19/3/2008, J.293-5.)
In 1970 there was an expectation that the standing committees then
established would avoid the need for many select committees. With the emergence
and maturing of the legislative and general purpose standing committees, it was
expected that most matters would be referred to standing committees because of
their readiness and expertise. In its report on the committee system in 1994
(PP 146/1994), the Procedure
Committee observed that select committees and their chairs would continue to be
appointed on an ad hoc basis, depending on the needs of the Senate. The
committee suggested, however, that the Senate might have “as a goal the
existence of no more than two select committees at any time” (p. 5). At the
time the report was presented there were four select committees. Within a month
of the Senate’s agreeing to adopt new standing and other orders giving effect
to the Procedure
Committee’s report, a new select committee was appointed.
The Senate has continued to make use of both standing and select
committees, although there have been informal attempts to limit the number of
select committees operating at any one time to two. Appendix 8, Committees on
which senators served, shows the numbers of committees operating in the Senate,
and indicates that select committee activity has remained vigorous.
There are several reasons for this. Select committees are an extremely
versatile inquiry vehicle. Because they examine single issues, select
committees permit a concentration of focus and effort on those issues. While
they may undertake short, sharp inquiries, select committees are also
appropriate vehicles for lengthy and sustained inquiries. Whereas many
legislative and general purpose committee inquiries proceed on a multi-partisan
basis and result in unanimous reports, select committees often function in a
highly politically charged environment in which a great deal of political heat
is generated and unanimous reports are unlikely and unlooked for. Select
committees can also be the vehicles for relatively uncontroversial,
wide-ranging and effective inquiries into subjects which do not fit readily
into existing committee arrangements.
A list of select committees from 1901-1985 may be found
in ASP, 6th ed., at pp 745-6. Since 1985 (the currency
of the 6th ed.), select committees have been appointed by the Senate
as shown in appendix 9.
Usually the powers and procedures of select committees are provided for
in their resolutions of appointment. Otherwise, the general provisions relating
to committees in standing orders 27 to 42 apply. Select committees
are required to have a specific reporting date, which may be varied by
agreement of the Senate (SO 28). Unless
otherwise provided in the resolution of appointment, a select committee chair
has a deliberative vote only. The Senate may give a committee inquiry powers,
including the power to call for persons and documents. (For a select committee to commence its
inquiry on the publication of a treaty, see the Select Committee on the Free
Trade Agreement Between Australia and the United States, 11/2/2004, J.2997‑8.)
The standard
resolution of appointment for select committees usually contains the following
elements:
-
That
a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on .............................
be established to inquire into and report upon:
-
....................................................;
-
....................................................;
and
-
.....................................................
-
That
the Committee present its final report on or before .............................................
-
That
the Committee consist of X Senators, as follows:
-
X
to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate;
-
X
to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate; and
-
X
to be nominated by minority groups or independents.
-
That
the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that all
members have not been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any
vacancy.
-
That
the committee elect as chair one of the members nominated by the .............................................
-
That
the chair of the committee may, from time to time, appoint another member of
the committee to be the deputy-chair of the committee, and that the member so
appointed act as chair of the committee at any time when there is no chair or
the chair is not present, at a meeting of the committee.
-
That,
in the event of an equality of voting, the chair, or the deputy-chair when
acting as chair, have a casting vote. [If not specified, SO 31 applies.]
-
That
the quorum of the committee be X members. [If not specified, SO 29 will apply.]
-
That
the committee and any subcommittee have power to send for and examine persons
and documents, to move from place to place, to sit in public or in private,
notwithstanding any prorogation of the Parliament or dissolution of the House
of Representatives, and have leave to report from time to time its proceedings
and the evidence taken and such interim recommendations as it may deem fit.
-
That
the committee have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of X or more of
its members, and to refer to any such subcommittee any of the matters which the
committee is empowered to consider, and that the quorum of a subcommittee be a
majority of the Senators appointed to the subcommittee. [If not specified SO 29 will apply.]
-
That
the committee be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources
and be empowered to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purposes
of the committee with the approval of the President.
-
That
the committee be empowered to print from day to day such papers and evidence as
may be ordered by it, and a daily Hansard be published of such proceedings as
take place in public.
There are few
specific requirements relating to the membership of
select committees. The standing orders retain the provision for committee
members to be nominated by the mover of the committee but this provision is
rarely used to select named senators to serve on the committee. The more common
approach is for the mover of a committee to nominate a membership formula along
the lines of paragraph (3) of the model resolution of appointment above.
The number of
senators on select committees has varied between five (Select Committee on
Public Interest Whistleblowing, 2/9/1993, J.449) and nine (Select Committee on
Certain Aspects of Foreign Ownership Decisions in relation to the Print Media,
9/12/1993, J.965). On six- or eight-member select committees, which were once the
norm, the chair was usually a government party senator with the ability to
exercise a casting vote, giving the government party an effective majority. The
use of an odd number membership formula tends, on the other hand, to give the
balance of power on committees to minority groups who hold the balance of power
in the Senate. The balance of power on a select committee is significant only
when the issues under consideration are contentious and divisive. The five-member
Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing in 1994, for example, with
two government, two opposition and one minority party senator, reported
unanimously on a very sensitive issue without dividing along party lines.
Until 1994 select
committee chairs were usually government
senators. Exceptions were those select committees to which the government of
the day failed to nominate members, leaving the chair by default to the
opposition (Select Committee on National Service in the Defence Force,
appointed 7/12/1950, J.203; Select Committee on Canberra Abattoir, appointed
3/6/1969, J.516-7, J.526; Select Committee on Shipping Services between King
Island, Stanley and Melbourne, appointed 3/5/1973, J.145-7). In 1982, the
independent Senator Harradine chaired the seven-member Select Committee on
Industrial Relations Legislation (appointed 5/5/1982, J.898-901) and in 1983
Senator Peter Rae, who had been the chair of the Finance and Government
Operations Committee before the change of government that year, chaired the
Select Committee on Statutory Authority Financing, which was appointed to
complete an inquiry begun by the standing committee under Senator Rae’s
chairmanship (appointed 22/4/1983, J.38-9). Whereas the resolution appointing
the Select Committee on Industrial Relations Legislation provided for the chair
to be elected from the members of the committee, the resolution appointing the
Select Committee on Statutory Authority Financing named Senator Rae as chair of the
committee. The chair of the Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial
Services was appointed by the Senate (30/9/1999, J.1800). In 1992
Australian Democrat Senator Coulter was elected chair of the Select Committee
on the Functions, Powers and Operation of the Australian Loan Council
(3/11/1992, J.2936). In 1993, opposition chairs were elected to the select
committees on Public Interest Whistleblowing, and Certain Foreign Ownership
Decisions in relation to the Print Media. Also in that year, in anticipation of
the government chair of the Select Committee on Superannuation standing down
from the position, a resolution was agreed to by the Senate providing for his
successor and the deputy chair of the committee to be “allocated among the
members of the committee by agreement between the Leader of the Government in
the Senate and the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the Leader of the
Australian Democrats, and, in the absence of agreement duly notified to the
President, the allocation of the chair and deputy chair shall be determined by
the Senate” (13/5/1993, J.150). In the event, determination by the Senate was
unnecessary as the Leaders agreed that the new chair should be an opposition
senator who had previously been deputy chair of the committee. In 1995 the
committees on ABC Management, Aircraft Noise, Land Fund Bill and Land Fund
Matters all had non-government chairs. The Select Committee on the Victorian
Casino Inquiry, appointed in 1996, had a non-government majority and elected an
opposition senator as chair. Six select committees established in 2008, on
agriculture and related industries, state government financial management,
housing affordability, regional and remote indigenous communities, fuel and
energy and the national broadband network, had non-government majorities and
Opposition chairs (14/2/2008, J.145-8; 19/3/2008, J.293-5; 25/6/2008,
J.626-32).
Following the adoption of recommendations in the Procedure
Committee’s First Report of 1994 (PP 146/1994), the sharing of select committee
chairs and deputy chairs became a standard practice, reflecting formal
arrangements for the sharing of standing committee chairs and deputy chairs.
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