Procedure and House Affairs committee  The reason we start at noon on the Tuesday is that it's in the morning when the political parties will have their meetings. Typically, the parties will have their party meetings on that morning prior to the House sitting.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's right. Typically members would be here at seven, 7:30, or eight o'clock.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're not doing it, but it is a very interesting phenomenon that, first, the level of female representation does seem to have plateaued around that 25% to 30% mark and, second, that Australia's rankings have fallen significantly over the last 15 years. I think we were up there at about 20th.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair, and yes, please, if there are any other queries or follow-ups, please be in contact, and we'll be only too happy to help.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The child care centre does stay open until 9 o'clock at night on parliamentary sitting days. It goes from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on a sitting day, and it goes from 8 a.m. until 6 o'clock in the evening on a normal non-sitting day. It is open and members can leave their children there if they wish.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Very fortunately, one feature of the hours that we have now is that we very rarely have later sittings. They certainly do happen but they're quite unusual. They could be as rare as only one or two times a year now. It's really quite unusual for us to sit beyond those standard sitting times.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. The times I mentioned are fixed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, there isn't any predictability. It can take place at any time and, frankly, it does take place at any time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was a very long time ago. It might be 30 years. It's a very long time. I'd have to go back and check. I'm happy to do that, but it would be a very long time ago.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  An important issue is that the House didn't lose any sitting time as a result of eliminating the Friday sittings, because they sat earlier. For example, at that time we didn't meet until 2 p.m. on individual days. Now we meet at 10 a.m. on Mondays, we meet at 12 noon on Tuesdays, and we meet at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We start off at 9 a.m., and we run with government business from 9 a.m. through to 1:30 p.m. We then have quite an innovative procedure, which is called “90-second statements”. Between 1:30 and 2:00, members can make a very short 90-second statement on any subject of their choice or interest.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would tend to stay fairly strong right until, say, 4:30. When the House goes on to the adjournment debate, you'll often see members starting to leave. There could be divisions in the House right up until 4:30, so members are very conscious of that. They pretty much stay around until probably 4:30, and then you'll hear them starting to depart after that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It only happened for one day, so it was a new arrangement that was introduced. The House used to sit on Fridays going back historically. There were Friday sittings, and then they changed it to this Monday to Thursday pattern. That was very much built around the members being able to return to their constituencies in good time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I wouldn't know, off the top of my head. We do have quite a number of younger female members now, who are in that child-bearing age, but then we also have a number of older female members. I don't know. I haven't done the figures, I'm sorry. We could certainly look at that and provide the committee with information if you'd like.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In terms of the procedural changes, I think there was a clear recognition there was an increasing number of women of child-bearing age, and there were genuine issues for them in addressing the balancing of the needs of looking after their children, with the fulfilling of their obligations as parliamentarians.