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

The last time I addressed the House following the presentation of petitions on behalf of the Petitions Committee, I commented on the very large volume of petitions that were tabled that day. Today’s announcement is in stark contrast to the previous one, with only two petitions presented. Interestingly, this lower volume of petitions tabled today is also worthy of comment.

Understandably, during a recess in the parliamentary sittings, as we had in July/August, the volume of petitions that await presentation builds—that is one reason we have ebbs and flows in the number of petitions tabled and, indeed, in the number of ministerial responses presented. However, the number of petitions presented in the House does not necessarily reflect the volume of potential petitions submitted to the Petitions Committee for consideration.

Unfortunately, a large number of petitions that are received by the committee do not comply with the House standing orders, and, as such, cannot be presented in the House—either by me, as Chair of the Petitions Committee, or by any member of the House. As an example, at its last meeting the committee assessed 12 petitions but only half of them were found to be compliant—two have been presented today and four were presented by individual members in the last sitting week in August.

Petitions found not to comply are the result of a failure to meet one or more of the standing order requirements. A commonly seen error is that the petition is not addressed to the House of Representatives but is instead addressed to a particular member of parliament—for example, to the Prime Minister or to a constituent’s local member. Similarly, petitions which make requests to anyone other than the House of Representatives do not meet the standing order requirements. As such, a petition directly requesting that the government, or a particular minister, take action on a matter would not be compliant with the standing orders, even if the petition were correctly addressed to the House.

Another frequent misconception is that the House accepts petitions sent electronically or with electronically reproduced signatures—for example, faxed signature pages, photocopied pages or emails. Quite often photocopied petition pages are sent to the committee, and, despite attempts by the secretariat to track down the original copies, the originals are unavailable. So it is very important for petitioners to remember that petitioning the House is still conducted in a traditional manner. Standing order 205(b) specifies that all signatures on a petition must be original handwritten versions—and that includes the signature of the person who is the chief organiser of the petition, the ‘principal petitioner’.

Other petitions are found to be out of order because they fail to respond to a number of standing orders, indicating the likelihood that the petitioner is unaware that formal requirements for petitioning the House exist. Naturally this is very disappointing for those who organise petitions and collect signatures. It is also frustrating for the committee—and, indeed, for all members of parliament—who receive non-compliant petitions, especially given the resources available to assist citizens in preparing a petition. Non-compliant petitions are not forwarded by the committee to relevant ministers for a response, and this means the matters raised in them may not be brought to the attention of the relevant minister and will not receive a detailed response.

The petitions committee provides various materials to assist petitioners in understanding the House's requirements—for example, we have a website which provides background material on the petitioning process, including a sample petition format, a checklist of things to consider before collecting signatures and a link to petitions previously tabled that shows in-order formats. In addition, members of the House of Representatives are provided with stocks of information sheets and brochures to assist constituents who come to them for advice on the process.

The committee secretariat is also available to assist members and the Australian public by telephone, post and email to provide information on petitioning requirements. The general public is encouraged to send proposed petition formats either electronically or by mail to the committee secretariat for information on compliance before they start collecting signatures. It is encouraging that many petitioners are making early contact with the secretariat for advice on the process before sending in a completed petition.

In the remainder of my statement today I would like to mention the ongoing stream of ministerial responses to petitions which are presented each sitting Monday. The announcement on 22 August contained 20 ministerial responses, and today we see another seven presented. Once a petition is found to comply and is presented to a House, the terms—that is, the reasons and the request—are published in Hansard. The committee also decides in most instances to refer the petition to the minister or ministers holding the relevant portfolio areas to seek their comment.

Not all petitions are referred for a response. For example, when many petitions are tabled on the same subject matter with the same terms and within a similar time frame, additional petitions on that issue are not usually referred. As can be seen from the responses tabled today, not all responses meet the petitioners' requests. For example, a number of responses today explain to various petitioners why certain post office locations could not be maintained. Sometimes the response does detail changes which have occurred in favour of the petition request, but more often the purpose of a ministerial response is to explain the government perspective on a situation or matter that has been raised in the petition.

Finally, as all ministerial responses are published both in Hansard and on the committee's website, the explanations of issues provided by ministers are available to all interested parties, not just to principal petitioners. All citizens, therefore, have access to information about petitions brought before the House.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for his sterling and brave efforts and commend to him hot lemon juice and honey.