Tuesday, 20 September 2022

Standing orders

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (17:27): I move, by leave:

That:

(1) the draft standing orders, recommended by the Procedure Committee in its Standing Orders Review 2022, September 2022, be adopted as the standing orders of the Legislative Council;

(2) the new standing orders come into operation on the first sitting day of the next Parliament; and

(3) the temporary order agreed to on 2 February 2021 and amended on 4 May 2021 relating to Tuesday’s start time be rescinded, effective immediately.

I will be very brief. There is a report that was tabled by the Deputy President today. It is the cumulation of work from the Procedure Committee that has been occurring over the duration of the 59th Parliament. We have met on 16 occasions, and predominantly a lot of that has been this year. It is all about modernising and reflecting the true practices of the house and a lot of requests that have been made by the clerks in relation to errors that they may have picked up or language that is no longer fit for purpose.

It is a non-controversial report. First of all, people outside this house probably would be bemused about some of the practices of this place, but in terms of some of the amendments that we are making I think members would be familiar with them and not actually be aware that they are not part of the standing orders now and perhaps have been a part of our temporary orders, which we have become accustomed to. So picking up those temporary orders that have been working well and bringing them into some permanency are some of the features of this report.

I do want to commend the attention to detail and the commitment of our secretariat, led by Mr Keir Delaney and Ms Annemarie Burt and supported on occasion by the Clerk, Mr Andrew Young, as well as Ms Christina Smith and Ms Jody Milburn as executive assistants to the President. The President is of course the chair of this committee. I will make passing reference to the former President, Mr Leane, but he did not do half as much work as the current President in relation to the Procedure Committee. To Mr Elasmar, who has chaired the bulk of the work of this report, I pay my deepest respects. Other members of the committee include the Deputy President, as we know, who tabled the report today, Mr David Davis, Ms Georgie Crozier, Mr Stuart Grimley, Dr Tien Kieu, Ms Fiona Patten, Ms Jaala Pulford and obviously me.

The Procedure Committee go through all of the standing orders and discuss how they work and discuss whether there needs to be improvement or indeed updated language. The aim of our work in reviewing the standing orders was to create efficiencies in chamber procedures; reflect a house that is now far more diverse than when many of the rules were written; better reflect the house’s constitutional role as a house of review; improve understanding of and accessibility to the rules of the house; increase the relevance and responsiveness of the rules and functioning of the chamber to current attitudes, practices and changing needs; and to clarify contradictory and irrelevant rules that have made the application, explanation and interpretation of the standing orders difficult—which is code for ‘The clerks found things that really didn’t make much sense and brought them to our attention, and it made sense to agree to remove them’.

As you can see, it is quite a large report, and it is important because it covers the conduct of our chamber. They are the rules and procedures that we need to follow. Hopefully, as it is a unanimous report—we sought to be very reflective of the needs of all members of the chamber—there is in no way a benefit to the government in relation to the changes here, nor is there a benefit to the opposition or indeed the crossbench. It is about picking up and making sure that this house functions as best as possible whilst also modernising the language and indeed making sure that we use, as much possible, plain English to ensure that it is clear and that terminology is used consistently throughout the standing orders.

There is also a section in relation to the modernisation of practices in the Parliament. As we know, we now have e-petitions and the like, so there are sections in relation to petitions and, where those are matters of importance, how the chamber may wish to consider them. As we are aware, it is more than open to members of Parliament to raise a substantive motion in relation to a matter that is brought to the attention of the house by way of petition. But in relation to the recommendations on the standing orders, bringing in a discrete option for the debating of a petition on a Wednesday, which is when we would have similar conversations around statements on reports, was deemed by the committee to be an appropriate recognition of something that may attract a lot of attention from the public.

Overall it is predominantly reflecting practices of this house that we have become accustomed to, to ensure that at the commencement of the next Parliament, rather than having to perhaps go into that complex situation where we have several standing orders, sessional orders and temporary orders, we try as best as possible to start with a clean slate and make sure that we pick up on the experiences of this Parliament and that the non-controversial and straightforward elements can be reflected at the start of the next Parliament.

Hopefully with this motion people have had an opportunity to have a look at the standing orders review again. There is a lot of work that has been undertaken by the clerks. A lot of this is the will of the clerks, and we like to keep them happy, particularly at the end of a session. I think they deserve that at the very least. But also there have been some really productive conversations, with the members of that committee talking through how things apply, how we could make it easier, how we could better make sure the people that watch us get a rough idea of what is going on. So that was the attempt: simplifying, modernising and ensuring that this place functions well. Standing orders do not always compel us to behave appropriately, but this is indeed a way to ensure that the standing orders provide clearer guidance that is easy to read about what we do when—times and the like—and hopefully it will receive support from across the chamber. As I said, it is designed to reflect as best as possible the views of everyone that is in this chamber, in this Parliament, and indeed set us up for the next Parliament. With those words I am happy to conclude my remarks and seek the house’s endorsement of this motion.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (17:34): I will be brief on this matter. This is a traditional way that the Council conducts itself towards the end of a sitting. A sessional order review will occur, and what innovation and changes have been made across the period of the Parliament—what has worked and what has not worked—will be looked at closely by the Procedure Committee, as it is now called. Recommendations will then be made for what should be entrenched in the standing orders of the chamber.

It is the case, I might add, that I personally am very cautious about changing these. I see the Leader of the Government, and I pay tribute to the way the committee has operated. It has operated fairly collaboratively under your chairmanship, President. We have looked at these things and carefully reviewed matters. Often it is the case that there is no immediate reason, when you look at things phrased the way they are, but on deeper reflection there is a historic reason why things have come about in the way they have, and that is the point of caution. But I think we have struck the balance properly on this occasion. There are some changes and some steps forward that the Leader of the Government has outlined.

I should pay tribute to the work of Annemarie and Keir in particular, who have done the background work on this, and I am thankful for that. I think the whole committee is thankful for the work that has been done—bowling up things, only to have us then question these and say, ‘Does that really work in the way you intend?’. The outcome I think is an example of where such collaborative committee processes lead to something that is better than any individual would have achieved. I should also put on record Mr Rich-Phillips’s contribution. I had him informally look at a number of points, and he went through them carefully, alerting people to some of the points that we needed to think more carefully about. I do want that on record.

I also do think that by and large the Council does cover a large amount. We always smile at our Assembly colleagues when they say to us, ‘Oh, I’ve got an adjournment tonight’. We smile and think, ‘Well, we have a lot of those; we have a lot of speaking opportunities’. But the freedom and the flexibility of the chamber is actually something to be protected. The ability to innovate and the ability to ensure that messages have got through within a structured way is actually something that is quite important. So with that small number of comments I indicate that we will support these changes, and again I pay tribute to the work done by you, President, and the staff of the committee in reviewing many of the points.

Motion agreed to.

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (17:37): I move, by leave:

That the following changes to standing orders take effect from the 60th Parliament:

(1) Omit standing order 1.01(10) and substitute:

“The Council proceeds to the election of a President, following which the President takes the Chair, reads the Lord’s Prayer and makes an Acknowledgement of Country.”.

(2) Omit standing order 1.07(5) and substitute:

“The President will then take the Chair, read the Lord’s Prayer and make an Acknowledgement of Country.”.

(3) Omit standing order 4.02 and substitute:

“President takes Chair when quorum present

The President will take the Chair as soon after the time appointed for the meeting of the Council as a quorum* of members is present, and will read the Lord’s Prayer and make an Acknowledgement of Country.

*To constitute a quorum there must be present (inclusive of the President) one-third at least of the members of the Council [See section 32(1) of the Constitution Act 1975]”.

(4) Omit standing order 4.05(1) and substitute:

“The President will take the Chair as soon after the time appointed for the meeting of the Council as a quorum of members is present, and the President, or a local religious leader, will read the Lord’s Prayer and the President will make an Acknowledgement of Country.”.

I think this is self-explanatory, but the reason that I was keen to move this motion today was to ensure that the practice of an acknowledgement of country, which is part of our temporary orders at the moment, would be a feature of the first day of Parliament in the 60th Parliament. I do not think, again, that this is controversial, but if we did not do it this side of the expiration of the Parliament then we would not have an opportunity before the first day to ensure that an appropriate acknowledgement of traditional owners is part of our proceedings. So that is the drive and intention for this motion today. It sounds a bit clunky, but effectively the words that are important in this motion are ‘acknowledgment of country’.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (17:39): On this occasion the opposition will support these changes or not oppose these changes. I do just want to put on record our concern to protect the position of the Lord’s Prayer in the standing orders, and I notice the government’s amendments do that. I note that when earlier motions were brought to the chamber concerning the Lord’s Prayer and its significance in this chamber, effectively the debate was paused. The government have indicated that if they are re-elected they will bring back those changes to remove the Lord’s Prayer. I am quite prepared to indicate today that we will resist that change. We think that the historical significance of the Lord’s Prayer is great. We think that it is a very clear marker of the Westminster tradition and of the legal and administrative arrangements that we operate under in a Westminster democracy, and in that sense we will certainly be very clear about that. But I do indicate that this does not change the position of the Lord’s Prayer—I am just making that quite clear—and in that sense that is an important aspect for us in not opposing this change.

Motion agreed to.