Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my statement today as Chair of the Petitions Committee, I would like to focus on some of the rules for petitioning the House, in particular the rules around signatures.

The most important rule regarding signatures is the requirement for all petitions to have a principal petitioner. The principal petitioner, usually the person responsible for organising the petition, must provide their full name, postal address and signature on the front page of the petition. This information is not published on the committee website or in Hansard. It is used by the committee to communicate with the petitioner to keep them informed of the progress of their petition. They are notified when their petition is presented, referred to the responsible minister and when the minister responds. Additionally, when the committee holds public hearings to discuss petitioners' experiences, it is the principal petitioner who is invited to appear.

I would also like to remind my colleagues in this House that they cannot be either principal petitioners or signatories to petitions. While there are many roles for members to play with regard to petitions, signing them in any capacity is not one of them. If a member were to sign a petition, that signature would simply not be counted. If a member is acting as the principal petitioner, the entire petition would be deemed to be noncompliant.

Another very important rule for signatures is that they must be handwritten originals. No copied, pasted or electronic signatures can be accepted. Of course, this means that petitioners must send their original documents to the committee by mail, rather than faxing or emailing scanned copies. This also rules out the use of electronic or e-petitions when petitioning the House. Other chambers around Australia and, indeed, around the world have moved towards accepting e-petitions, but at this stage the House standing orders do not allow for e-petitions.

People signing e-petitions should be aware of this fact. The committee has considered many e-petitions signed exclusively online by, at times, tens of thousands of Australians, and has had no choice but to find them noncompliant and thus unable to be presented in the House. This is always disappointing, as it means that despite the efforts of the principal petitioner, not to mention all those who have signed the petition electronically, they are not able to access the benefits of petitioning the House.

Signatures must also appear on pages which contain at least the request, in exactly the same wording as appears on the front page of the petition. Another issue the committee commonly encounters with petitions is that pages of signatures cannot be included in the final count as they appear on pages which do not contain the request, or which contain a version of the request which does not appear on the front page of the petition. Again, this is very disappointing for the committee, as it means that the House cannot be made fully aware of the level of support in the community for a particular request.

I would encourage anyone seeking to petition the House to consult the committee's web page and to contact the committee secretariat, before they start gathering signatures, for guidance on how to make sure that every signature gathered will count. The secretariat can provide detailed advice for drafting petitions that meets the House's requirements, thus helping petitioners to successfully access all of the benefits that petitioning the House can bring.