Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House some further aspects of the work of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Petitions and the revised arrangements that now apply to how petitions are received and responded to by the House. I would like to point out to the House that a further five ministerial responses were presented tonight. If we also take into account the several responses the committee has received since its meeting in the last sitting week, there are now only three petitions to which there has not yet been a ministerial response within the 90-day time frame. I am sure that all members will agree that this is a significant achievement and ministers should be commended for their prompt response to petitions. We look forward to the day when we can proudly indicate that we have had a 100 per cent response rate within the 90-day period.

When I last spoke to the House about the work of the committee, there was insufficient time for me to go into detail on several aspects of the petitioning process. I am grateful that the committee agreed that I could have the full allocation of time tonight to complete my remarks. I would first like to say a few words about how the new petitioning arrangements affect individual members of parliament.

It was past practice that all petitions had to be lodged by a member. This usually involved counting up the number of signatures, signing the document and lodging it with the Table Office, who then arranged for its presentation. Under the new arrangements petitioners have two options: either lodging them with a member, who should pass the petition to the committee, or sending them directly to the Petitions Committee. Regardless of how a petition gets to the committee, it will be assessed to ensure that it complies with standing orders.

• Is the petition addressed to the House?
• Are the terms of the petition no more than 250 words?
• Is the petition on a matter on which the House has the power to act?
• Does it contain a request for action by the House?
• Is there a principal petitioner?
• And are the signatures originals and on a page that contains at the very least the request to the House?

Where a member would like to present a petition personally, it must first come to the Petitions Committee for this assessment against standing orders. I strongly encourage all members to follow this procedure. We aim to get the petition back to the member as soon as possible after the committee meets, so members can arrange time for its presentation. Where a member attempts to present a petition that has not yet gone to the committee, it is not recorded as a petition and confusion follows as to its status. Further delays are caused as the petition comes to the committee for consideration. Petitions have a greater risk of falling through the cracks, and it also makes it harder for the principal petitioners to be advised where their petition is up to.

Under the old system, a member had quite limited opportunities to present a petition themselves—usually only during the period for members’ 90-second and three-minute statements. Most petitions were in fact announced by the Clerk on Monday afternoons. Under the new arrangements members now have much greater opportunity to present petitions that have been endorsed by the committee as in order.

As in the past, members can present a petition in 90-second or three-minute constituency statements, both of which occur in the Main Committee. Petitions may also be presented during the grievance debate (in the Main Committee on Monday evenings) and also during the adjournment debates in both the House and the Main Committee. I would encourage members to speak to their whips’ offices about speaking opportunities at these various times as this is not something that the Petitions Committee manages. I would also draw the House’s attention to Members’ guide to presenting petitions, available through the senators and members portal, and encourage members to contact the Petitions Committee secretariat if they have any questions about the process.

I would now like to turn to the follow-up action being taken by the Standing Committee on Petitions. As I noted earlier, we have had an excellent ministerial response rate to petitions and these of course are tabled in the House, placed on the committee’s website and sent to the principal petitioner. The committee recently went further, holding a public hearing on 1 September 2008 to discuss petitions in three separate portfolio areas. I thank the departmental staff from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Department of Health and Ageing and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They were very much guinea pigs as we experimented with what we might usefully obtain from such an exercise.

We were also delighted to have our first principal petitioner appear as a witness at that hearing. Chris Inglis is a college student from Canberra who is passionate about child soldiers and their depiction in the media. He would like to see more attention given to their plight. The committee was very interested to hear how Chris came to be involved in petitioning, what he thought of the process and whether he thought it was an effective means of raising an issue with the House of Representatives.

We will be speaking to more principal petitioners in the future around Australia. We hope to give them an opportunity to talk directly to the committee about the issue that galvanised them into action and led to them starting up a petition and allow them a public venue to raise their concerns and if possible comment on any ministerial responses received. We also hope they will give us some feedback on how the petitioning system might be improved.

During the hearing, the committee felt it important to try and seek from the departmental witnesses information that would assist petitioners. To this end, we asked about aspects of the written response and whether there was anything further that could be added to the response if some time had passed since it had been signed off by the minister. We also asked questions which aimed to shed light on government processes and rules, and also asked for information about other options that might exist for petitioners to get their message heard or to get more information on how to promote their concerns.

As with petitions and ministerial responses, the transcripts of these hearings will be placed on our website and sent to the principal petitioners as well. In this way, we hope a more detailed picture of particular issues can be developed which can be of assistance to future petitioners.

Finally, I would like to say a few words about the inquiry we are conducting into electronic petitioning. Although we wrote to all members seeking their input into the inquiry, there has only been one response from a member so far. The nominal closing date for submissions has passed, but the committee would still welcome any comments members might wish to make. The whole issue of electronic petitioning is quite complicated and it is not as straightforward as being either in favour of it or not. There are a number of quite complex questions that we will be seeking to address over the next couple of months. We will of course be looking at the two Australian jurisdictions that have electronic petitioning—Queensland and Tasmania. (Time expired)