No. 21 - Petitions
Petitioning the Parliament
Individuals
and organisations may seek to have petitions presented to the Parliament.
Petitions generally express views on matters of public policy and ask the
Parliament to take—or, in some cases, not
to take—a particular course of action.
Each
House of the Parliament has its own rules that documents must follow in order
to be accepted as petitions. To be accepted by the Senate, a petition:
—must be addressed to the
Senate
The
Senate can only accept petitions that are addressed to the Senate. The Senate
cannot accept petitions addressed, for instance, to the Government or to a
particular Minister. The traditional form of address is shown on the sample
petition below, though the particular words are not important, as long as the
petition is clearly addressed to the Senate.
—must be presented by a
Senator
Only
Senators may present petitions, so a person wishing to petition the Senate must
forward the petition to a Senator and ask the Senator to present it. While
there is nothing in the rules of the Senate to compel a Senator to present a
petition, most Senators take the view that they should seek to present any
petition forwarded to them, even if the views represented in the petition do
not reflect the views of the Senator presenting it.
Before
presenting a petition a Senator must place his or her name on its front page (usually at the top of the
page), together with a statement of the total number of signatures. Note that
the Senator does not sign the petition with the other signatories.
Petitions
must be lodged with the Clerk for presentation. This is done by delivering the
petition to the Senate Table Office in SG 25, which arranges the presentation
of petitions. Petitions should be lodged at least 3 hours before the meeting of
the Senate on the day it is to be presented, or, on days when the Senate meets
early, by 5pm the previous evening.
On
each sitting day, at the time provided in the routine of business (standing order 57), the Clerk announces
that petitions have been lodged for presentation. A summary of the petitions
being presented is circulated. These petitions are taken to have been received
by the Senate, although any senator may move that a petition not be received.
—must conform with the
standing orders
Petitions
must be certified by the Clerk as being in conformity with the standing orders
before they can be presented. In summary:
-
a
petition must contain a request for action by the Senate or the
Parliament—it should not merely express a point of view;
-
a
petition must be legible and must be in English or accompanied by a
translation;
-
all
signatures must be original and must be written on a page bearing the full
text of the petition—photocopies of signatures, for instance, cannot be
accepted;
-
a
petition must be respectful, decorous and temperate in its
language—language considered unparliamentary in the Senate would be
unacceptable in a petition.
The
relevant rules are contained in standing orders 69 to 71. If there are any
concerns about the conformity of a petition, the Petitions Officer will provide
relevant advice to the Senator lodging it.
When is a petition not a petition?
Occasionally
a document will be lodged as a petition which does not qualify as a petition
under the standing orders, for instance because it is not addressed to the
Senate or because it does not contain original signatures. In those circumstances
the Clerk cannot certify the document as a petition and it cannot be presented
in the usual way.
The
President may nonetheless approve the presentation of the document as a
petition if the President is satisfied that exceptional
circumstances warrant its presentation (standing order 69(8)). This test of
exceptional circumstances is taken seriously. The President has ruled that it
would defeat the purpose of the standing order if non-qualifying documents were
routinely allowed to be presented:
Circumstances which
seem to me not to qualify as exceptional circumstances are, for example, that
there are a lot of signatures attached to the petition, that a great deal of trouble
has been taken to collect the signatures, or that the subject matter of the
petition is an important public issue.
Circumstances which
would seem to qualify as exceptional might be, for example, that the subject
matter of the petition is immediately before the Senate, that the petition
refers to facts of which the Senate might not otherwise be aware, that the
petition refers to a serious grievance of injustice to which the Senate should
give immediate attention, or that there is no other way in which the document
can be treated so as to bring it to notice.
A
more common remedy is for a Senator to seek the leave of the Senate to table
the document, for instance during a relevant debate, during matters of public interest, or during
the adjournment debate (see Brief Guide No. 12—Tabling of Documents). A
document tabled in this way is not
received by the Senate as a petition, and the text of the document is not
automatically incorporated in Hansard.
Electronic petitions
The
Senate standing orders make no special reference to electronic or online
petitions, but they are taken to apply to all petitions whether written on
paper or in cyberspace.
Although
it is in order to lodge a petition for which the signatures have been collected
by e-mail, the common practice of copying and forwarding e-mails to multiple
addressees, and the tendency of recipients to add comments (thereby changing
the text of the petition) makes this
problematic. The most successful approach has been to post the text of the
petition on an Internet page and invite people to sign the petition by submitting their names and e-mail addresses.
Petitions
that are posted and signed electronically are accepted if the Senator certifies
that they have been duly posted with the text available to the signatories. In
presenting an electronic petition, the Senator lodges a paper document
containing the text of the petition and a list of the signatures submitted.
What happens to petitions?
Petitions
presented to the Senate are brought to the notice of the appropriate Senate
committee. A committee may seek a reference from the Senate into the issues
contained in a petition (see Brief Guide No. 7—Referring Matters to Committees),
or may use the petition as evidence in a related inquiry.
Senators
sometimes refer to petitions in debate in the Senate. The full text of each
petition received is printed in Hansard.
Petitions and privilege
The
presentation of a petition to the Senate is a proceeding in Parliament and is
protected by Parliamentary Privilege. The publication of a petition before presentation is not similarly
protected. For further information see Odgers’
Australian Senate Practice, Chapter 2, under Circulation of Petitions.
Need assistance?
Petitions
may be lodged with the Senate Table Office in SG 25. A proforma and information
about petitions is published on the Senate website on the Senate at Work page,
under the heading For Senators: procedural proformas. Inquiries
relating to the presentation of petitions should be directed to the Petitions
Officer on extension 3014. Information about petitions addressed to the House
of Representatives can be found in House of Representatives Factsheet No. 11.
February
2005
This publication is available electronically at http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/pubs/guides/index.htm
Sample format of a
petition
| To the Honourable President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: |
| |
The petition of the undersigned shows:
(state grievance or subject of complaint)
|
| |
Your petitioners ask/request that the Senate:
(state the redress or action desired)
|
| |
| | Name |
| Address |
| Signature |
| |
|
