House of Representatives Annual Report 2002: Appendices: 2

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2 Business of the House and Main Committee

Table 13 Meetings of the House of Representatives, 2002–03
Events	Spring 2002	Autumn/ Winter 2003	Total
Sitting weeks	9	10	19
Sitting days	36	37	73
Hours of sitting ^(a)
including suspensions (e.g. meal breaks)	349	347	696
excluding suspensions	321	338	659
Sittings after midnight	1	1	2
Bills introduced	100	103	203
Private members' business items debated	23	24	47
Committee reports presented	36	31	67
Days on which
the adjournment motion was debated	32	31	63
grievance debate occurred	8	7	15
matters of public importance were discussed	24	20	44
private members' business occurred	9	7	16
Divisions	94	85	179
Closures of question agreed to	16	5	21
Closures of member agreed to	11	20	31
Bills guillotined	2	–	2

^(a) Hours of sitting are rounded to the nearest whole hour.

Table 14 Meetings of the Main Committee, 2002–03
Events	Spring 2002	Autumn/ Winter 2003	Total
Number of meetings	21	26	47
Hours of meeting (excluding suspensions) ^(a)	75	111	186
Bills referred	43	39	82
Committee and delegation reports referred	1	1	2
Other papers debated	1	2	3
Adjournment motion debated	8	10	18

^(a) Hours of meeting are rounded to the nearest whole hour

Table 15 Bills and amendments dealt with by the House of Representatives (including the Main Committee), 1999 to 2003
Event	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Total Government bills (including bills brought from the Senate)	214	177	161	239	96
Introduced in
the House	195	167	139	230	91
the Senate	19	10	22	9	5
Second reading amendments moved	49	57	47	37	25
Consideration in detail amendments moved
Government	600	822	871	766	65
Opposition	547	119	65	165	57
Independent/Minor party	–	–	13	6	1
Private member	–	–	–	5	–
Consideration in detail amendments passed
Government	600	822	871	766	65
Opposition	43	46	21	11	–
Independent/Minor party	–	–	–	1	–
Private member	–	–	–	–	–
Total private members' bills	10	15	19	15	7
Introduced by
Government	1	–	4	–	1
Opposition	9	14	13	12	6
Independent	–	1	2	3	–

Note: Totals shown are for complete years, except those for 2003,
which are totals up to and including 30 June 2003.

Table 16 Questions on notice dealt with by the House of Representatives, 2000–01, 2001–02 and 2002–03
	2000–01	2001–02	2002–03
Questions on notice to ministers	1,054	814	1,494
Answers to questions on notice ^(a)	752	357	1,078

^(a) The responsibility for responding to questions on notice rests with
the individual ministers to whom the questions are put.