• Abbreviations
• Preface to the fourteenth edition

Chapter 1 | The Senate and its constitutional role

• The Senate, bicameralism and federalism
• Bases of the two Houses
• Rationale of bicameralism
• Rationale of federalism
• The Senate and representation
  • Table 1: Votes and seats in elections, 1949–2019
  • Table 2: Party affiliations in the Senate, 1901–2019
• Functions of the Senate
• Legislative powers
• Other powers
• Composition of the Senate
• Casual vacancies
• Rotation of senators and terms of office
• The nexus
• Rules and orders

Chapter 2 | Parliamentary privilege: immunities and powers of the Senate

• Parliamentary privilege and the Senate
• Constitutional basis
• Privileges: immunities
• Relationship between immunities and powers
• Immunities and powers part of ordinary law
• Executive privilege
• Immunities of the Houses
  • Immunity of proceedings from impeachment and question
    • Statutory declaration of freedom of speech: background of the 1987 Act
    • Effect of the 1987 Act
    • Is the 1987 Act too restrictive?
    • Activities incidental to proceedings
    • Repetition of parliamentary statements
    • Provision of information to members
    • Subpoenas, search warrants and members
      • – [update: Guidelines for the execution of search warrants involving privilege]
      • – Search and seizure in other jurisdiction
    • Prosecution of members
    • Circulation of petitions
    • Freedom of speech in state parliaments
    • Other tribunals
    • Parliamentary privilege and statutory secrecy provisions
    • Preparation and publication of documents
  • Qualified privilege
  • Minor immunities
  • Detention of senators
• Powers of the Houses
  • Power of the Houses to determine their own constitution
  • Power to conduct inquiries
  • Rights of witnesses
  • Power to punish contempts
• Statutory definition of contempt
  • Defamation of the Houses and their members
  • Matters constituting contempts
  • Contempts and criminal offences
  • Criticisms of the power of the Houses to deal with contempts
  • Should the power to deal with contempts be transferred to the courts?
  • Penalties for contempts
• Procedural matters
  • Raising of matters of privilege
  • 'Waiver' of privilege
  • Proceedings before the Privileges Committee
  • Abuse of parliamentary immunity: right of reply
  • Reference to Senate proceedings in court proceedings
• Parliamentary precincts
  • Police powers in the precincts

Chapter 3 | Publication of Senate proceedings

• Proceedings public
• Reporting of proceedings
• Broadcasting of proceedings
• Broadcasting and privilege
• Journals of the Senate
• Notice Paper
• Hansard
• Committee proceedings
• Other publications
• Internet publication

Chapter 4 | Elections for the Senate

• The constitutional framework
• Bases of the constitutional arrangements
• Current electoral arrangements and proportional representation
• Terms of Service – State Senators
• Terms of service – Territory Senators
• Number of senators
• Election timing – periodical elections
• Election timing – simultaneous general elections
• Issue of writs
• Electoral rolls
• Nomination
• Polling
• Voting
• The ballot paper
• Counting the vote
• Formal voting in a Senate election
• Determining the successful candidates
• Recounts
• Return of the writ
• Meeting of new parliament
• Disputed returns and qualifications
• Division of the Senate following simultaneous general elections
  • [update: Alternative method for dividing the Senate]
• Casual vacancies
• Method of filling casual vacancies
• Delay in filling casual vacancies
• Territory senators

Chapter 5 | Officers of the Senate: parliamentary administration

• The President of the Senate
• Election and vacation of office of President
• Title and precedence of President
• Deputy President and Chair of Committees
• Temporary Chairs
• Rulings of the Chair
• Questions to the President
• Absence of President and Deputy President
• Voting by President and Deputy President
• The Clerk of the Senate
• The Department of the Senate
• Senate's appropriations and staffing
  • History of the Appropriations, Staffing and Security Committee
  • Committee's method of operation
• Other Departments

Chapter 6 | Senators

• Qualifications of senators
  • [update: s. 44(i) foreign allegiance and citizenship]
  • [update: s. 44(ii) disqualifying conviction]
  • [update: s. 44(iii) bankruptcy]
  • [update: s. 44(iv) office of profit under the Crown]
  • [update: s. 44(v) pecuniary interest in an agreement with the Commonwealth]
  • [update: "incapable of being chosen"]
• Determination of disqualifications
• Designation of senators
• Senators-elect
• Oath or affirmation of office
• Immunities of senators
• Leave of absence
• Parties and party leaders
• Other office-holders
• Seniority of senators
• Conduct of senators
• Questions to senators
• Pecuniary interests
• Places in chamber
• Dress
• Senators' remuneration and entitlements
• Resignation of senators
• Distinguished visitors

Chapter 7 | Meetings of the Senate

• Executive government's power to determine sessions
• Parliaments and sessions
• Place of meeting
• Opening of a new Parliament
• Governor-General's speech
• Opening of a new session of an existing Parliament
• Opening by the monarch
• Address-in-reply
• Swearing of senators elected to periodical vacancies
• Proposals to change the opening of Parliament
• Sittings and adjournment of the Senate
• [update: Arrangements for extraordinary meetings]
• Summoning of the Senate when not sitting
• Meetings after prorogation or dissolution of House
• Business in a new session of an existing Parliament
• Times of meeting
• Suspension of sittings
  • – effect on delegated legislation

Chapter 8 | Conduct of proceedings

• Quorum
• Notice Paper
• [update: Changes to the routine of business]
• Routine of business
• Special precedence for certain business
• Government and general business
• Treatment of routine committee business
• Consideration of committee reports and Auditor-General's reports
• Consideration of documents
• Curtailment of non-government business
• Presentation of other documents
• Senators' statements
• Notices of motion and orders of the day
• New business
• Postponement and rearrangement of business
• Interruption of business
• Resumption of postponed and adjourned business
• Leave of the Senate
• Suspension of standing orders
• Items of business taken together
• Questions to senators concerning business
• Recording of proceedings
• Senate Routine of Business

Chapter 9 | Motions and amendments

• Resolutions and orders
• Motions
• Notice of motion
• Contingent notices
• Formal motions
• Determination of motions
• Avoidance of question
• Rescission of resolutions and orders
• Privilege motions
• Same question rule
• Anticipation rule
• Amendments
• Duration of resolutions and orders
• Urgency motions and matters of public importance

Chapter 10 | Debate

• Motions debatable
• Right to speak
• Time limits on debates and speeches
• Reading of speeches
• Quotation of documents
• Personal explanations and explanations of speeches
• Relevance
• Anticipation rule
• References to committees
• Sub judice convention
• Discussion of court decisions
• Rules of debate
• Declarations of interests
• Interruption of speaker
• Interjections
• New senator's first speech
• Conduct of senators
• Questions of order
• Objection to ruling of the President
• Disorder
• Adjournment of debate
• Closure of debate
• Reply
• Question read
• Question put
• Dividing the question
• Debating Opportunities and Time Limits

Chapter 11 | Voting and divisions

• Majority voting
• Special majorities
• Voting by voices
• Divisions
• Declaration of interest
• Pairs
• Ballots
• Roll call
• Free votes
• Electronic voting

Chapter 12 | Legislation

• Proposed laws
• Proceedings on legislation
• Initiation
• Deadline for receipt of bills from House
• First reading
• Second reading
  • Second reading amendments
• Reference to standing or select committee
• Procedures for regular referral to committees
• Role of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee in legislative scrutiny
• Instructions to committee of the whole
• Division and consolidation of bills
• Committee of the whole: amendments
• Relevance of amendments
• Report from committee
• Recommittal on report
• Third reading
• Discharge of bill
• Transmittal to House of Representatives
• House amendments on Senate bills
• Disagreement of House with Senate amendments
• Bills to alter the Constitution
• Amendments proposed by the Governor-General
• Revival of bills
• Control of bills
• Limitation of debate – urgent bills
• Governor-General's assent
• Commencement of legislation
• Passage of Legislation by Senate

Chapter 13 | Financial legislation

• Constitutional provisions relating to financial legislation
  • Section 53 of the Constitution
  • Constitutional safeguards: sections 54 and 55 of the Constitution
  • Governor-General's messages: section 56
  • Requests and section 57
• Procedure for dealing with financial legislation
  • Debate on first reading of a non-amendable bill
  • When requests can be made
  • Requests to omit items/clauses etc
  • Procedure after requests agreed to
  • Making requests and amendments to the same bill
  • Pressing of requests
    • Senate's right to press requests
  • Amendments changed to requests
  • Requirement for statements of reasons
  • Decision as to amendments or requests
  • Consideration of appropriation bills by estimates committees and in committee of the whole
• The interpretation of section 53 and related provisions
  • Terminology
  • Bills appropriating money
  • Bills appropriating money for the ordinary annual services of the government
    • Meaning of ordinary annual services of the government
  • Taxation bills
    • Bills imposing taxation
    • Bills dealing with taxation
    • Retrospectivity of tax legislation
      • – tariff proposals
  • Other "money bills" or measures
    • loan bills
    • advances to the Finance Minister
    • fees for licences or services
    • standing or special appropriations
  • Initiation of bills with financial implications
  • When are requests required?
    • bills appropriating money for the ordinary annual services of the government
    • bills imposing taxation
    • increase in any proposed charge or burden on the people
      • Early discussion of the paragraph
      • Rationale for the application of the third paragraph to appropriations
      • Rationale for the third paragraph not applying to taxation bills
• Parliamentary appropriations

Chapter 14 | Committee of the whole proceedings

• Appointment of committee
• Chair of Committees
• Proceedings in committee
• Quorum
• Debate in committee
• Report of committee
• Reporting progress
• Interruption of committee
• Instructions to committees
• Matters of privilege

Chapter 15 | Delegated legislation, scrutiny and disallowance

• The nature and extent of delegated legislation
  • Executive law-making
  • Types and volume of delegated legislation
• Scrutiny of delegated legislation
  • Parliamentary control: historical background
  • Regulations and Ordinances Committee [update: /Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation Committee]
    • [update: Development of the committee’s principles and approach]
    • Figure 1: Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation
  • Ministerial undertakings
• Making, tabling, disallowance and remaking of delegated legislation
  • Making of delegated legislation
  • Tabling
  • Consultation
  • Remaking instruments subject to tabling and disallowance
  • Disallowance
    • Disallowance motion without notice
    • Tabling as a condition of disallowance
    • Precedence of disallowance motion
    • Consideration in committee of the whole
  • Amendment of disallowance motion
  • Effect of end of a Parliament or session
  • Remaking of instruments following disallowance
  • Disallowance of a repealing instrument
  • "Sunsetting" of instruments

Chapter 16 | Committees

• Role of committees
• Types of committees
• Evolution of the committee system
• Standing domestic committees
  • Procedure Committee
  • Committee of Privileges
  • Appropriations, Staffing and Security Committee
  • Library Committee
  • House Committee
  • Publications Committee
  • Senators' Interests Committee
  • Selection of Bills Committee
• Legislative Scrutiny Committees
• Legislative and general purpose standing committees
• Legislation committees considering estimates
  • Questions taken on notice at estimates hearings
  • Scope of questions at estimates hearings
  • Role of the Australian National Audit Office
  • Supplementary estimates hearings
• Select committees
• Joint committees
• Appointment and membership of committees
  • Membership of committees
  • Chairs and deputy chairs of committees
  • Substitute and participating membership
  • President and Deputy President on committees
  • Senators on committees before taking their seats
  • Ministers and parliamentary secretaries on committees
  • Conflict of interest
  • Disqualification for bias
  • Suspension from the sittings of the Senate
• Powers of committees
  • Power to call for persons and documents
  • Power to take evidence in private
  • Power to meet and transact business notwithstanding any prorogation of the Parliament or dissolution of the House of Representatives
  • Power to appoint subcommittees
• Access to other committees' documents
• Instructions to committees
• Conduct of inquiries
  • Referral of matters to committees
    • General references
    • Legislation
    • Estimates
    • Annual Reports
    • Performance of government agencies
    • Petitions
  • Evidence gathering
    • Advertising the reference
    • Inviting submissions
    • Selecting witnesses
    • Public hearings
    • Briefings, inspections and seminars
    • Hansard
  • Broadcasting of committee proceedings
  • Reports
  • Uncompleted inquiries and a new Parliament
• Conduct of proceedings
  • Meeting and election of chair
  • Role of chair in maintaining order
  • Quorum
  • Equally divided votes
  • Meetings during sittings
  • Public and private meetings
  • Meetings by electronic means
  • Disclosure of evidence and documents
  • Investigation of unauthorised disclosures
  • Access to historic committee material
  • Staff of committees
  • Privilege of proceedings
• Questions to chairs of committees
• Presentation of reports
  • Reports when Senate not sitting
  • Consideration of committee reports
  • Government responses
• Action on committee reports
• Meeting with House committees
• Stages of a Senate Committee Inquiry

Chapter 17 | Witnesses

• Inquiries and witnesses
• Protection of witnesses
  • Legal protection
  • Procedural protection
    • Adverse reflections in evidence
    • In camera evidence
    • Objections to questioning
    • Legal representation of witnesses
    • Witness expenses
• Summoning of witnesses
• Immunity from summons
• Senators as witnesses
• Members or officers of other Houses
• Former members of other Houses as witnesses
• Ministerial staff as witnesses
• Public servants as witnesses
• Statutory office-holders as witnesses
• Foreigners as witnesses
• Evidence from overseas
• Witnesses in custody
• Swearing in of witnesses
• Procedures for the examination of witnesses
• Publication of in camera evidence
• Offences by witnesses
• Evidence given elsewhere by senators or officers
• Witnesses as participants in the legislative process

Chapter 18 | Documents tabled in the Senate

• Tabling of documents
• Types of tabled documents
• Orders for production of documents
  • [update: Guidance on responding to orders]
• Resistance by government to orders
• Addresses for documents
• Presentation of documents when Senate not sitting
• Publication of documents
• Petitions
• Other submissions to the Senate
• Government documents – consideration
• Committee reports – consideration
• Annual reports – scrutiny
• Documents quoted in debate
• Treaties
• Custody and alteration of documents

Chapter 19 | Relations with the executive government

• The Governor-General and the Senate
• Effect of prorogation and of the dissolution of the House of Representatives on the Senate
  • • Prorogation
    • Dissolution of the House
• The Senate and the ministry
  • Ministers in the Senate
    • Procedural rights of ministers
    • Parliamentary secretaries or assistant ministers
  • Questions to ministers
    • Questions without notice: question time
    • Supplementary questions
    • Questions on notice
    • Rules for questions and answers
    • Declaration of interest
    • Sub judice matters
    • Questions concerning statutory authorities
    • Questions concerning security matters
    • Questions involving orders for returns
    • Additional responses to questions without notice
    • Motions to take note of answers
  • Ministerial accountability and censure motions
  • Orders to ministers and public interest immunity claims
    • Public interest immunity in the courts
    • Development of methods for dealing with public interest immunity issues
    • Public interest immunity claims—the development of guidelines for official witnesses
  • [update: Tracking public interest immunity claims]
    • Public interest immunity claims—potentially acceptable and unacceptable grounds
      • – Potentially acceptable grounds
      • – Potentially unacceptable grounds
    • Statutory authorities and public interest immunity
    • Remedies against executive refusal of information
    • Other jurisdictions

Chapter 20 | Relations with the judiciary

• Appointment and removal of judges
• Constitutional questions
  • Section 72 and other provisions
  • The meaning of misbehaviour
  • Review of removals on address
  • Discretion of the Governor-General
  • Advice on misbehaviour
  • Procedural requirements
  • Compellability of judges as witnesses
  • The rights of the accused judge
  • Interested senators
  • Should section 72 be changed?
• Inquiries into conduct of a judge
  • The first Senate committee
  • Report of the first committee
  • The second Senate committee
  • Report of the second committee
  • Criminal proceedings against the judge
  • The parliamentary commission of inquiry
  • Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Act 2012
  • Queensland precedent
  • New South Wales precedents
  • Other office-holders
• Other aspects of relations with the judiciary
• Scrutiny of judicial administration

Chapter 21 | Relations with the House of Representatives

• Communications between the two Houses
• Messages
• Conferences
• Simultaneous dissolutions of the Houses
  • Constitutional provisions and their application
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1914
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1951
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1974
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1975
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1983
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 1987
  • Simultaneous dissolutions of 2016
• Joint sittings of the Houses 764
• Reform of section 57
• Disagreement between the Houses

Appendices

1. Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987
2. Parliamentary privilege resolutions agreed to by the Senate on 25 February 1988
3. Committee of Privileges Reports 1966–2020
4. Matters of privilege raised and rulings of the President
5. Private senators' Bills
   • Private senators' Bills passed since 1901
   • Private senators' bills which have passed the Senate since 1901
6. List of bills in which the Senate has made requests for amendments and results of such requests, 1901–2020
7. Casual vacancies in the Senate 1977–2020
8. [update: Senators disqualified under section 44 of the Constitution–31 July 2020]
9. Committees on which senators served 1970–2020
10. Select Committees 1985–2020
    • Senate Select Committees:
    • Joint Select Committees:
11. A Chronology of the Senate: 1901–2020