John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to take this opportunity to discuss the range of petitions the Petitions Committee considers to be in readiness for presentation to the House. Today’s announcement provides a perfect illustration of the breadth of matters brought before the House through the longstanding practice of petitioning. It demonstrates a continuing tradition of Aus­tralians preparing petitions and collecting support for matters close to their hearts and then bringing them to the attention of their parliament.

The House of Representatives petitioning process enables Australians to engage with the House on issues of federal legislation, policy and administration. I also believe that a great strength of the process, fortuitously often underestimated by petitioners them­selves, is that the act of petitioning itself—regardless of the outcome—is a powerful mechanism to disseminate information, to air views with the Australian public and to gain support for a matter. Citizens are familiar with the activity of petitioning as a traditional right and they feel comfortable using this means to participate in democratic life at local, regional and national levels.

Every petition received by the Petitions Committee is assessed in the same way. The committee considers them for compliance with the House’s standing orders and not on the basis of their subject matter or any political views that are expressed in them. This was clear from the multifaceted petitions I have presented today. Every new petition on a subject that is presented in the House receives the same treatment. A petition with one signature receives as much consideration in terms of the request for a ministerial response as does a petition of many thousands of signatures. Today’s announcement emphasises this.

Three petitions had fewer than 20 signatures, one had more than 10,000 and another had more than 35,000 valid sign­atures. While a significant signature count will not affect the way a petition is treated in the parliamentary process, it could be expected to have other influences and benefits over a petition that is created and signed by a sole petitioner.

As a committee, we see great variety in the subject matter of petitions. Unlike other parliamentary committees that usually focus on one or two issues at a time, at any one time we see a picture of a large range of matters that Australians feel they must bring forward for debate and action. Sometimes the matters are very particular, but more often they are regional and national.

Today’s petitions reflect the span of issues concerning Australians in this decade of the 21st century. They capture a snapshot of the social, political and cultural attitudes of our times. If we were to analyse the petitions tabled in 1917 we would see a microcosm of the attitudes, concerns and social boundaries of Australia at the turn of the 20th century. I suspect we would even be able to see the subtle changes in the suite of petitions tabled in the year 2000 to the recurrent themes of petitions tabled in 2011.

Finally, I add that the subject of beer has been a popular one over the years, although the petitions have varied considerably in their support for it. Similarly, in today’s presentation we have seen two petitions with opposing views on the subject matter—one requesting the granting of a further pharmaceutical licence in a particular locale, while the other has collected support to maintain the status quo. The petitions will be treated equally and I will be presenting the ministerial responses to each of them in due course.