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Supporting the operations of the Chamber and Federation Chamber is a key focus of the work of the department. The Clerk’s Office, Table Office and Chamber Research Office work together to support the day-to-day operations of the chambers, with other areas contributing as necessary.

This reporting period comprises the first full year of the Forty-fourth Parliament, during which the changes made following a return to majority government were consolidated. We continued to:

• advise the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives

• advise on programming of House business and provide procedural support

• process and draft bills

• prepare and publish the record of proceedings of the House

• process, provide access to and manage the custody of the documents and records of the House

• undertake procedural and parliamentary research

• produce information and publications on House practice and procedure

• maintain procedural and statistical records on the work of the House

• provide secretariat support to several domestic committees.

In 2014–15, the budget allocation for the component was $3.232 million and expenditure was $3.360 million. Progress against the deliverables and key performance indicators for the component is summarised in Appendix 1. Staff levels, by location, are shown in Appendix 2.

Performance summary

The program component’s work is focused on supporting the sittings of the House of Representatives Chamber and meetings of the Federation Chamber. Performance is measured in two ways—qualitatively, through the annual survey of members; and quantitatively, through information on the sittings of the House, the meetings of the Federation Chamber and the business conducted in the Chamber and Federation Chamber.

The annual survey of members (see Appendix 3) showed a continuing high level of satisfaction with the department’s support for the Chamber and Federation Chamber. All respondents were satisfied with our advice and support. Respondents were ‘extremely satisfied’ or ‘highly satisfied’ with the following areas:

• advice and services received from the Clerks-at-the-Table in the Chamber and Federation Chamber—90 per cent (100 per cent in 2013–14)

• advice and services received from other staff in relation to Chamber and Federation Chamber duties—82 per cent (100 per cent in 2013–14)

• quality and availability of procedural and statistical publications and support in obtaining such information—62 per cent (81 per cent in 2013–14).

Statistical information on the sittings of the House and meetings of the Federation Chamber in 2014–15 and the two preceding years is shown in Table 1.

In 2014–15, sitting days totalled 77. This figure represents an increase of 24 days, or 31 per cent, on 2013–14, which was an election year. There was a corresponding increase in the total number of sitting hours. In 2014–15, the House sat for 203 more hours than in the previous year (28 per cent more time) and the Federation Chamber met for 56 more hours than in the previous year (27 per cent more time). Legislative activity continued at a relatively high level during the period, with 203 bills introduced (182 in 2013–14) and 168 bills passed by both Houses and assented to (94 in 2013–14).

Detailed information on the business of the House and the Federation Chamber is in Appendix 4 and in the department’s publication Work of the Session (available on the Parliament of Australia website).

Table 1: Performance summary, Chamber and Federation Chamber, 2010–11 to 2014–15

Aspect of performance	2010-11a	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14a	2014-15
Number of sittings of the House	52	68	59	53	77
Number of meetings of the Federation Chamber	46	59	55	40	57
Hours of sittings of the Houseb	511	691	602	523	726
Hours of meetings of the Federation Chamberb	248	306	256	152	208
Number of bills introduced	186	256	241	182	203
Number of bills that passed both Houses and were assented toc	116	221	228	94	168

a Election year.
b Excludes suspensions; rounded to the nearest hour.
c Includes bills that passed both Houses in the financial year but were assented to in the following financial year.

Advice on practice and procedure

The Clerk, Deputy Clerk and other staff members provided advice to the Speaker, members and others on the practice and procedure of the House.

We provided immediate advice and support to the Speaker, ministers, shadow ministers, members and others during proceedings. We also provided detailed written advice. Subjects addressed in our advices included the application of the standing orders and the practice of the House; the content of questions without notice; procedures for private members’ business; delegated legislation and the disallowance process; the requirements of the Constitution and standing orders with respect to financial legislation; privilege matters; and requirements of the House for the registration of members’ interests.

Programming and coordination of business

During the year, we continued to provide advice and services to facilitate sittings of the House and meetings of the Federation Chamber, including:

• offering programming and procedural advice to ministers, shadow ministers, party whips, other members, their staff and others

• preparing and publishing each sitting day:

• the Notice Paper—a document listing all unresolved business before the House in the proposed order of consideration

• the Daily Program (also known as ‘the Blue’)—an informal agenda for the day

• procedural scripts for all items of business for use in the Chamber and Federation Chamber

• providing staff from the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office to support sittings of the House and meetings of the Federation Chamber, to oversee ceremonial and security arrangements, and to ensure the availability of chamber papers

• processing members’ questions in writing to ministers, including editing them for compliance with the standing orders and publishing them in the Notice Paper for the next sitting day, and managing answers to questions

• providing a captioning service for the televised and webcast proceedings of the House and Federation Chamber

• publishing This Week in the House, a weekly online forecast of expected business for the House, and its counterpart, Last Week in the House.

Table 2 provides details of the number of questions in writing to ministers dealt with by the House in the five years from 2010–11 to 2014–15.

	2010-11a	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14a	2014-15
Questions in writingb	441	678	411	201	633
Questions answeredc	335	491	374	126	623

a Election year.
b Excludes questions withdrawn.
c The responsibility for responding to questions in writing rests with the individual ministers to whom the questions are put.

All sittings required the coordination of people, documents and actions, and the programming of the following categories of business:

• government business (for example, government legislation)

• private members’ business (motions and bills proposed by private members)

• House business (matters potentially involving all members—for example, question time, debate on committee reports or matters of privilege).

A longitudinal view of the amount of time the House (Chamber and Federation Chamber inclusive) devoted to each of these types of business is shown in Figure 4. In 2014–15, the proportion of time allocated to government business returned to a level typical of majority government, following a decline in the Forty-third Parliament.

Figure 4: Government and private members’ business and business of the House (Chamber and Federation Chamber), 2010 to 2014 [Text-only description]

Note: Private members’ business includes consideration of private members’ motions and bills and other opportunities for private members, such as adjournment debates and discussion of matters of public importance.

Processing and drafting of bills

Support for the legislative process in 2014–15 included our traditional responsibilities of:

• receiving bills from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and keeping them in custody under embargo before their introduction in the House

• providing bills to ministers for introduction, and to all members in the Chamber after introduction

• uploading bills, explanatory memorandums and proposed amendments to the Parliament of Australia website, and providing an over-the-counter inquiry service for access to hard copies of bills and associated material

• processing all bills and amendments to bills—from introduction to assent for bills initiated in the House, and from introduction in the House until passage by the House for bills initiated in the Senate

• providing a legislative drafting service for private members

• preparing and delivering messages to the Senate—we prepared 209 messages relating to the passage of bills in 2014–15 (162 in 2013–14) and 21 other messages (24 in 2013–14)

• preparing and issuing each sitting day a Daily Bills List, which provides cumulative information on the status of all bills before the parliament or assented to in the current calendar year.

Chamber staff of both Houses continued to work with the developer of the bills system to maintain optimal levels of technical support. The Bills System Advisory Group continued its role in advising the Bills System Advisory Board on system enhancements and satisfying business requirements.

Queries of the bills and legislation collection on the website totalled 23.6 million during the year, an increase of 8.8 per cent from the previous year (21.7 million in 2013–14). This total represented 22.0 per cent of the queries made through ParlInfo Search. Work to include bills from earlier parliaments back to 1998 in the electronic storage system was completed during the reporting period.

 
The Speaker presiding over a division in the House of Representatives. Photo: David Foote AUSPIC/DPS.

 

Legislative workload

During the year, 203 bills were introduced (182 in 2013–14), an increase of 10.3 per cent from the previous year. Of these, 192 were initiated in the House of Representatives and 11 were received from the Senate. A total of 168 bills passed both Houses (94 in 2013–14), of which 158 were initiated in the House of Representatives (92 in 2013–14) and 10 in the Senate (two in 2013–14). Table 3 shows the number of bills introduced and assented to in the five years from 2010–11 to 2014–15.

In 2014–15, the House passed 185 bills (154 in 2013–14). This represented 2.4 bills on average for each sitting, compared with 2.9 bills on average in the previous year.

The House amended 17 (9.2 per cent) of the bills it passed (six (3.9 per cent) in 2013–14). The Table Office incorporated the amendments into the text of the bills and arranged for their reprinting (as third-reading prints) before transmittal to the Senate. The House also agreed to Senate amendments, made amendments requested by the Senate, or both, to 23 House bills (six in 2013–14). After further processing by the Table Office, the bills were presented to the Governor-General for assent.

The number of amendments moved during consideration in detail rose sharply, from 66 in 2013–14 to 303 in 2014–15. Of the amendments moved, 219 were passed, of which four were private members’ amendments. The House did not amend any bills initiated in the Senate in 2014–15, or in the previous year.

The Table Office prepared 17 third-reading prints (six in 2013–14) and 158 assent prints (92 in 2013–14). All documents accurately reflected the decisions of both Houses.

Table 3: Number of bills introduced in the House, and number of bills assented to, 2010–11 to 2014–15

	2010-11a	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14a	2014-15
Bills introduced	186	256	241	182	203
Bills assented tob	116	221	228	94	168

a Election year.
b Includes bills that passed both Houses in the financial year but were assented to in the following financial year.

Legislative drafting

The department drafts bills, amendments and second-reading (in-principle) amendments for private members, and ensures that these documents comply with the Constitution and the standing orders. The department also prepares bills and amendments in correct form and arranges copies for circulation.

In 2014–15, 12 private members’ bills were introduced. Of the 303 amendments moved during consideration in detail, 88 were private members’ amendments, four of which were agreed to. Table 4 provides chamber statistics for private members’ legislation. The table does not reflect all of the department’s work in this area, as some drafted material is not introduced into the House.

Since 2010, the department has had an arrangement with the Office of Parliamentary Counsel (OPC) whereby a senior OPC drafter is seconded to the department. This arrangement continues to provide mutual benefits for the department and the OPC.

Table 4 Private members’ bills introduced and amendments moved (Chamber and Federation Chamber), 2010–11 to 2014–15

	2010-11a	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14a	2014-15
Bills introduced	17	25	30	182	12
Second-reading amendments moved	14	17	9	94	22
Consideration in detail amendments movedb	292	732	923	66	303

a Election year.
b Includes government amendments.

1 Figure includes the Constitution Alteration (Local Government) 2013, which was passed by both Houses but not submitted to a referendum—see section 128 of the Constitution.

Record of proceedings and House documents

Votes and Proceedings

The Votes and Proceedings continued to provide an accurate, comprehensive and concise record of proceedings. The draft document for each sitting day is published on the Parliament of Australia website, usually within an hour of the adjournment of the House.

The Votes and Proceedings is prepared from the Votes Officer’s Minutes, an electronic draft record of the proceedings of the House and the Federation Chamber. The Votes Officer’s Minutes (also known as the Live Minutes) are more detailed than the Votes and Proceedings and are compiled progressively throughout a sitting day. The Votes Officer’s Minutes enable anyone with access to the internet to follow events in the House and Federation Chamber as they occur. Internal and external clients continued to rely on this service and to provide positive feedback.

Table Offices Production System

Development of the Table Offices Production System continued during the year. It is replacing an old document production system, and is designed to produce the Notice Paper, Daily Program, Votes and Proceedings and Live Minutes and, to a lesser degree, procedural texts used by members in the Chamber and Federation Chamber. The system is a joint project with the Department of the Senate and was put into partial production in May 2014. Since then, staff have had a sustained period of testing and working with the system and have begun to realise the benefits of some efficiencies. Almost all areas of the Table Office now rely solely on the system.

The implementation of the system has been important for recording and reporting on documents presented to the parliament and linking them to the Votes and Proceedings, and, as anticipated, these processes have been simplified, although there are still some improvements to be made. Use of the system to manage documents continues to require constant liaison with our Senate counterparts to ensure that the shared database is appropriately managed.

Some of the technical issues arising from the complexity of the design and changed business processes have continued to place additional demands on staff and in some cases have required additional hours on already long sitting days. Sustained efforts were made by staff during the reporting period to improve the system’s performance to meet the needs of the Table Office.

A change in priorities—and cause for delay in finalisation of the project—occurred towards the end of the reporting period. In the short term, the focus will be on developing enhancements to the system so that it can generate data for use beyond the Table Offices and the department and Department of the Senate.

Documents

During the year, we processed all documents presented to the House and recorded their details in the Votes and Proceedings and the Index to Papers Presented to Parliament. We made copies available on request to members and their staff and others, principally in Parliament House. The original documents were added to the records of the House, which we continued to maintain. We also continued to review our requirements for tabling stock in light of the online availability of documents and declining demand for hard copies.

In 2014–15, documents presented to the House numbered 3,308, a decrease of 30 per cent compared to the previous year (4,253 in 2013–14).

Each sitting day the Table Office prepares and issues a Disallowable Instruments List in both electronic and hard-copy form. The list provides details of all instruments presented to the House that are subject to disallowance, by the number of sitting days remaining in which a notice of disallowance can be lodged.

Parliamentary Papers Series

The Parliamentary Papers Series consists of documents of a substantial nature presented to the parliament since 1901. An electronic repository for the series, instituted in 2013, enables centralised electronic access to the documents through the ParlInfo Tabled Papers Register. The documents section of the Table Offices Production System has helped to streamline the process of uploading parliamentary papers to the repository.

The department is responsible for the custody and preservation of, and the provision of access to, the official records of the House, including Acts, bills, the Votes and Proceedings and all documents presented to the House dating from 1901. The records are stored in an archive in the basement at Parliament House. We continue to monitor the suitability of the archive environment.

Petitions

The House petitioning process continues to enable Australians to raise issues with the House that are of interest to them. Table 5 shows the number of petitions presented to the House, and the number of signatories, for the past five years.

In 2014–15, 101 petitions were presented, compared to 75 in 2013–14. The number of signatures dropped to 250,369 in 2014–15 from nearly 1.4 million the previous year. The wide disparity is mainly due to the presentation in 2013–14 of the largest petition on record, regarding funding support for community pharmacies, which was signed by more than 1.2 million petitioners (signatures were first recorded in 1988). In addition, many of the petitions received in 2014–15 focused on localised issues, such as access to telecommunications infrastructure, or were organised by local organisations, and therefore contained a relatively small number of signatures.

Table 5 Petitions and signatories to petitions, 2010–11 to 2014–15

	2010-11a	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14a	2014-15
Number of petitions presented	129	183	125	75	101
Number of signatories	445,921	446,619	325,360	1,365,151	250,369

a  Election year

Research

The Chamber Research Office continued in its principal function of collecting, analysing and publishing procedural and statistical information on the work of the House and its committees.

In 2014–15, the office provided:

• advice, and assistance with advice, to the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and members on the application of the standing orders and House practices

• secretariat services to the Standing Committee on Procedure and the Standing Committee on Petitions (in October 2014, the Petitions Committee secretariat was moved to the Committee Office, but the Chamber Research Office continued to provide some administrative support during the year)

• advice about and publications on House statistics, practices and procedure information to the public, the media and other parliaments on the operations of the House.

The services of the office continued to be in high demand, reflecting sustained high levels of interest in the procedures and operations of the House.

Publications

The office continued to produce regular publications outlining significant procedural events and popular statistics, catering to the wide variety of readers interested in the work of the House by varying the complexity and style of its publications. The Procedural Digest, an online subject-based record of proceedings; the Procedural Extracts, a technical document; and the Statistical Digest, a statistical record of the work of the House, were published after each sitting fortnight. Work of the Session, a comprehensive six-monthly overview of the business of the House and committees, was published in August 2014 and January 2015. Some infosheets in the series of 22 infosheets on the work of the House were updated in August 2014. Together, these publications provide a current and concise record of the work of the House and the more significant aspects of that work. The department’s publications, including the infosheet series, are listed in Appendix 7.

The Chamber Research Office maintains, publishes and distributes the standing orders of the House. The standing orders were reprinted as at 26 March 2015, incorporating a number of amendments made by the House on 13 February 2014, 19 March 2014 and 26 March 2015.

Collaboration with the Department of the Senate

The office continued its longstanding collaboration with colleagues in the Department of the Senate, including through participation in orientation seminars for the Australian National Internship Program and the Australian Defence Force parliamentary exchange program, as well as on preparation of a virtual tour of the House and the Senate.

Collaboration with other parliaments

Staff members are frequently asked to share their experiences and knowledge with counterparts from other parliaments. The office continued to collaborate with colleagues and members from other parliaments by participating in study programs, meetings during delegation visits, and capacity-building work. Colleagues from other parliaments continue to be particularly interested in the longstanding practices of the office in recording, analysing and publishing information on the procedural work of the House.

Parliamentary committees

The department continued to provide effective secretariat and advisory support to a number of House committees, and to one joint committee dealing with the powers and procedures of the House (see Table 6).

In 2014–15, these committees held a total of 78 meetings (55 in 2013–14) and produced 35 reports (17 in 2013–14). Details of meetings and reports are set out in Appendixes 5 and 6.

Table 6 Committees supported by the Chamber and Federation Chamber component, 2014–15

House committees
Selection Committee
Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration
Standing Committee on Petitions
Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests
Standing Committee on Procedure
Standing Committee on Publications
Joint Committee
Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings

Selection Committee

The standing orders require the Selection Committee to fulfil three important roles:

• selecting and programming private members’ business and committee and delegation business

• setting speaking times for second-reading debates (the committee has not as yet exercised this role)

• considering all bills introduced and determining whether to refer bills directly to House or joint committees for inquiry.

The committee has 11 members: the Speaker (as chair), the chief whips of the three parties, four government members and three non-government members. The committee met 18 times during the reporting period. It is supported by Table Office staff.

Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration

The Standing Committee on Appropriations and Administration considers, among other things, estimates of the funding required for the operation of the department each year. When conferring with its counterpart Senate committee—the Senate Standing Committee on Appropriations and Staffing—the House committee may consider estimates of the funding required for the operation of the Department of Parliamentary Services each year.

The committee has nine members: the Speaker (as chair), four government members and four non-government members. It is supported by the Clerk, the Serjeant-at-Arms and other officers of the department. During the year the committee met four times and presented three reports.

Standing Committee on Petitions

The Standing Committee on Petitions continued to assess petitions for compliance with relevant House standing orders and to enable the presentation of petitions found to be in order and of ministerial responses to petitions presented previously. The committee and secretariat continued to interact with principal petitioners about petitions being prepared for collection of signatures and about completed petitions received by the committee.

On sitting Mondays, the chair of the committee presented in-order petitions that other members had not elected to present, and also presented written responses from ministers to petitions presented earlier on which the committee had sought comment. The ‘terms’ (the stated reasons for the petition and the action requested) of petitions presented and the corresponding ministerial responses were published in Hansard and on the Parliament of Australia website in accordance with standing orders.

During the year, 101 petitions were presented with a total of 250,369 signatures. A total of 71 ministerial letters were presented responding to 79 petitions (in some cases, a single letter may respond to similar requests made in multiple petitions). Responses from ministers explain the government’s policies and programs on the subject matter of petitions.

The committee may hold public roundtable hearings with principal petitioners and representatives of relevant government agencies to explore issues with petitioners and to allow public servants to explain the relevant legislation, policy, programs or administration. Four roundtable hearings were conducted in 2014–15, as well as a school visit. In October 2014, the secretariat of the Petitions Committee was moved to the Committee Office, but the Chamber Research Office continued to provide some administrative support to the committee during the year.

Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests

The Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests met five times during the reporting period and presented one report to the House on a right of reply matter. The committee’s inquiry referred by the House in February 2014 into whether the former Member for Dobell (Mr Craig Thomson) deliberately misled the House in the course of his statement to the House and having regard to the findings of the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 18 February 2014, is ongoing.

In March 2015, the committee reported on its operations in connection with the registration and declaration of members’ interests in 2014, and it presented four sets of alterations of interests during the period.

Standing Committee on Procedure

The Standing Committee on Procedure usually meets once each sitting week to carry out its responsibilities: ‘to inquire into and report on the practices and procedures of the House and its committees’. In June 2015, the committee reported on its inquiry into the role and operations of the Federation Chamber and adopted an inquiry into the consideration in detail of the main appropriation bill. It continues with its regular inquiry into the maintenance of the Standing and Sessional Orders.

Standing Committee on Publications

The House Publications Committee held one meeting in 2014–15, and met with the Senate Publications Committee on nine other occasions. The committee presented 10 reports
containing recommendations on which documents presented to parliament should be included in the Parliamentary Papers Series. All recommended documents were agreed for
inclusion. 

Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings

The Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting Act 1946 requires ABC radio and, in some circumstances, ABC television to broadcast the proceedings of parliament. It is the statutory role of the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings to advise parliament on general principles for the allocation of radio broadcasting time between the House and the Senate chambers and to determine a more detailed schedule of broadcasting allocations.

Under the Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting Act, the committee has nine members, including the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. By tradition, the Speaker is chair and the President is vice-chair. The committee, which is supported by the Serjeant-at-Arms’ Office, did not meet during the reporting period.

Procedural training

The department continued to use a range of measures to support its staff to develop the necessary specialised knowledge and skills in the application of parliamentary law, practice and procedure. These included:

• sitting debriefs following each sitting week or fortnight, focusing on matters of procedural interest

• regular parliamentary briefings delivered by senior departmental staff

• training programs run by senior departmental staff

• shadowing opportunities, enabling staff to learn specialist skills such as the preparation of House procedures, the Notice Paper and the Votes and Proceedings. With sufficient experience, the use of shadowing allows chamber support staff to finish work earlier on some sitting nights and provides a backup in the event of staffing absences or turnover

• opportunities for participation in the annual Australia and New Zealand Association of Clerks-at-the-Table (ANZACATT) professional development seminar

• participation in the Graduate Certificate in Parliamentary Law and Practice, currently taught by the University of Tasmania under the auspices of ANZACATT.

Improving performance

With a return to majority government, many of the procedural challenges experienced during the Forty-third Parliament have lessened. However, as the House settled into the first full year of the Forty-fourth Parliament, our advisory services continued to be called on as new members became familiar with using the procedural opportunities available to them. Procedural training and development continued to be a priority during the year.

Outlook

In 2014–15, considerable time and resources were invested in the transition to the Table Offices Production System. Improvements have been made to the system and associated workflows, and some efficiencies have been realised, although they are not as significant, at this stage, as had been hoped. Implementation of some enhancements has been delayed, and it is now likely that the system will not be finalised until mid-2016. As staff become increasingly familiar with the system, further efficiencies will be realised.

During the year there was a return to the long-term pattern of Chamber and Federation Chamber support activity, although the time available for meetings of the Federation Chamber was not fully used.

The focus in 2015–16 will continue to be on providing high-quality services to meet the needs of members and other clients. The department’s budgetary situation will remain tight, but within those constraints the department will continue to ensure that staff are well trained and equipped to deal with challenges that might arise.

 

Two of the department’s 2015 graduate program participants, Michael Currie and Georgina Alsop. Photo: David Foote AUSPIC/DPS.