Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good evening, and welcome to the 151st meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I should also say good morning to our witness, who is in Canberra, where it's 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

As we continue our study of parallel debating chambers, we are pleased to be joined by Claressa Surtees, the Acting Clerk of the Australian House of Representatives, who is appearing via video conference. Before we get to your opening statement, the clerk and analysts, at my request, pulled together a few short clips from both Westminster Hall and the Federation Chamber, so we can have a better sense of what these second chambers actually look like. There are two videos from each chamber, the first being the opening of the sitting and the second showing the lead-up to a suspension for division bells in the main chamber.

[Video presentation]

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Andrew Lauzon]

That was Westminster Hall.

Next, you'll see the Federation Chamber in Australia.

[An hon. member]

Can the witness see this video?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

She's there every day.

[Video presentation]

That was fascinating. Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk. That was great. It really gives us a sense of what they do there.

We have before us, Claressa Surtees, the Acting Clerk of the Australian House of Representatives. Hello, can you hear us now?

[Claressa Surtees, Acting Clerk of the House, House of Representatives of Australia]

Yes, I can hear you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Perfect.

Thank you very much for being here for us.

We will give you some time to give us introductory remarks, and then some of the committee members will probably have questions for you.

[Claressa Surtees]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good evening, members.

My name is Claressa Surtees. I appear before the committee in my official capacity as Acting Clerk of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia.

I'm pleased to be able to speak with you in relation to your committee's study of parallel debating chambers. In 1994 the House of Representatives amended the Standing Orders to establish the Main Committee, as it was then called, as a parallel debating chamber. This establishment gave effect to recommendations of the House procedure committee in a 1993 report. The Main Committee met for the first time on June 8, 1994, so as you see, it's coming up for it's 25th birthday next month.

The Main Committee was renamed the Federation Chamber in 2012. Over time its role has expanded, as have its hours of meeting. The parallel chamber allows extended time to debate mostly non-contentious bills, as well as committee and delegation reports and government papers. The agenda also permits private members, other than the Speaker and the ministers, opportunities to raise and debate matters of concern to them. Overall it assists the House with not only its legislative function but also government accountability, ventilation of grievances and matters of interest or concern.

The Standing Orders provide that the Deputy Speaker has principal authority in relation to the Federation Chamber in the same manner as the Speaker does in the House. With the establishment of the Main Committee, the office of Second Deputy Speaker was created to assist the Deputy Speaker in this regard. This office is filled through an election process and is held by a non-government member.

Through practice, the Deputy Clerk is the clerk of the Federation Chamber and has responsibilities for the minutes of proceedings.

The establishment of this second debating chamber has had an enduring impact on the work of the House of Representatives. Aside from the additional opportunities it has provided to members to speak on proposed legislation and matters of their own choosing, it has had an impact on resourcing. Just like the chamber, the Federation Chamber must be supported by chairs and clerks and broadcasting and Hansard services.

Of course, the other aspect of this is that those requirements have contributed to building capability. The Federation Chamber has been a valued initial venue for the professional development of chairs and of clerks.

The venue itself must be suitable for the purpose. For us, this meant the adaptation of a committee room, but that means that room is alienated for most other purposes for which it had previously been used.

The Federation Chamber meets every day the House sits, for 21.5 hours each sitting week.

It meant a fundamental change to the legislative process. Prior to the establishment of the Main Committee, detailed consideration of bills was taken by a committee of the whole membership of the House in the chamber. However, with the establishment of the Main Committee, the name of this stage of the legislative process was changed to consideration in detail. The key motivating factor for the establishment of the Main Committee was to provide a second legislative stream to ease pressure on the legislative business of the House, because the guillotine had been increasingly used and, therefore, debate often was limited.

In particular, the parallel debating chamber may consider bills referred to it for the second reading stage and the consideration-in-detail stage. An immediate improvement was noted by the reduction of the use of the guillotine in 1994. Only 14 bills were guillotined in that year, compared to 132 in the previous year.

Originally only bills where there was no disagreement were to be considered in the Main Committee. However, before long, more controversial bills were referred, as long as there was agreement to this end. The role of the Main Committee has expanded over the years.

The enduring feature of the Federation Chamber is that it operates on the principle of consensus, and from the beginning, procedures were designed to strongly encourage co-operative debate. In particular, the quorum requirements—the Deputy Speaker or the chair, one government member and one non-government member—mean that quorum can be lost easily. The requirement for unanimous decisions provides any member with the ability to have a question considered unresolved and the matter then reported to the House for a decision.

Although it is formally the government's decision which bills and other matters are referred to the Federation Chamber, the co-operative nature of operations in this second chamber makes referral of government business items also contingent on agreement with the opposition.

There have been several reviews into the operation of the second chamber. The procedure committee's 2015 inquiry labelled the Federation Chamber an unparalleled success and concluded that it had earned its permanent place in the functioning of the House, having met the aims first put forward and evolved with the needs of the House. Review and recommendations designed to increase effectiveness have continued, including in relation to providing for a more interactive debate.

Some of the measures that are trialled in the Federation Chamber are later confirmed in the standing orders and then introduced into the House itself.

Thank you, Chair. Those are my opening remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you very much. This is very interesting.

Before I go to questions, I'll ask a quick one.

In our system, when a bill is passed at second reading, it then goes to one of 30 different committees, depending on the subject. Are you saying that detailed study of your bills used to be in committee of the whole, but the bills now go to a main committee that sits in the Federation Chamber?

[Claressa Surtees]

Our system is a little bit different, Chair. The stage you have of referral to the investigative committees doesn't happen in the House of Representatives as a matter of course. It is possible for individual bills to be referred to committees, but it isn't a common practice in our House.

The way the legislative process takes place is that the bill is presented in the House and read a first time. The sponsoring minister moves the second reading and makes the significant second reading speech, and after that, a bill may be referred to the Federation Chamber for the remainder of the second reading debate and then the consideration-in-detail stage, at the conclusion of which it must be referred back to the House for the final process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Madam. We really appreciate this.

I'm going to follow up on the Chair's questioning, because it fascinates me that consideration-in-detail stage.

We have a committee system. We have 24 standing committees here. Once bills have passed second reading stage, they go into the committee stage for detailed study. What you're telling us is that consideration in detail now takes place in that chamber, and it is similar to the process of committee of the whole.

Is that correct?

[Claressa Surtees]

That is correct. There is no strong practice in our House for bills to be referred to standing committees for inquiry.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

That leads to my question.

So there is no voting at second reading; it automatically goes there. Is that correct, or do they vote to send it there?

[Claressa Surtees]

There is a vote when the question on the second reading is put. If a bill is to be referred to the Federation Chamber, that would usually happen before the conclusion of the second reading stage.

It is possible for a bill to be referred to a committee, and that would also happen before the conclusion of the second reading stage. The expectation would be that the committee's report back to the House would then be a matter to be considered during the second reading debate. If any amendments were to be moved, they would be moved on the bill during the consideration-in-detail stage.

Our two processes between the two Houses are really quite different, I think

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Yes, it is, and I find it fascinating.

I want to go back to the comment you made about the guillotining of certain bills. Here we call it “time allocation”. The current government receives criticism about time allocation; the former government probably received even more. However, it is quite common, and we do it for that reason.

It seems that we don't have the mechanism by which to quell that. For instance, I know that in Great Britain in the mid-1990s, in the Westminster system, they introduced bill programming.

Your answer to that, though, is the parallel chamber. You went from over 100 guillotining motions down to about 14.

[Claressa Surtees]

That's correct.

These days we also refer to them slightly differently. We refer to “debate management motions” these days, but they're not as common as they used to be. The process for them is usually by a notice on the Notice Paper. Even though we still have provisions in the Standing Orders for these arrangements, they're no longer relied upon.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I see.

You said that you have certain committees that deal with this. You can refer to an actual standing committee.

[Claressa Surtees]

We do. We have quite an extensive list of standing committees established under the Standing Orders, and some other committees that are established through resolution. The Standing Order committees reflect, in a general sense, the portfolio areas of the government. If a bill were to be referred to a committee, it would go to the related subject matter committee.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you for that.

There are two themes we're getting from our debate here about a parallel chamber. Yours obviously is the originator and the U.K. followed shortly thereafter. There are two schools of thought, for me, anyway. One would be allowing other material to be addressed through the parallel chamber, such as with petitions, with other forms of debate, something that's not being talked about in the primary chamber. What fascinates me more is the fact that we can ease the pressure on the main chamber so that more people can have a say in the debate.

Was that the genesis of your Federation Chamber?

[Claressa Surtees]

If I understand your question, the genesis of the Federation Chamber was that because of the pressure on the legislative program, members were very unhappy that they had no opportunity to take part in the debate.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Is that the case?

[Claressa Surtees]

That was the case.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Interesting. That's what I was looking for, because I think in our case that is of a great deal of interest, or at least it is to me personally.

With regard to the other aspects of the Federation Chamber, is it say, open to petitions? Can you debate certain petitions that come to the House?

[Claressa Surtees]

The process we have in place for petitions is that when they are presented, there is a petitions committee that considers whether or not to accept petitions. They are approved by that committee. They can be physically presented by a member during a short speech in the Federation Chamber or in the House, but we don't have a period during which the petitions are routinely debated.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Okay.

You also brought up this prospect. If I want to introduce a topic into the legislature, the most common way for me as a Canadian member of Parliament is to introduce it through a motion or a private member's bill. Then I have to wait my turn to talk about it within the main chamber.

If I want to bring up a specific topic to discuss in the Federation Chamber, whether it's a motion or a bill, how would I do that?