Parliamentary Procedure

We continue on with our weekly snippets on parliamentary procedure
The Norfolk Island Act of 1979 (Clth), section 45, provides – That the Legislative Assembly may make standing rules and orders, not inconsistent with a law of the Territory, with respect to the order and conduct of its business and proceedings. These are commonly referred to as The Standing Orders and they may be accessed on www.info.gov.nf under Legislative Assembly/Standing Orders. Drafting of the original Standing Orders was done with the assistance of the Clerks of the House of Representatives (Clth) back in 1979 with subsequent changes being made over the years; the most recent change being made in this Assembly was in April when the House changed Standing Order 20B to provide that, in addition to the Speaker ex officio, the number of members on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee be increased from two to three. Standing Order No. 1 provides our Assembly with a general rule that – Any questions relating to procedure or the conduct of business of the House not provided for in our Assembly’s Standing Orders shall be decided according to the practice in the House of Representatives in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.

We have covered the Notice Paper and the Programme in recent weeks and this week we will turn to the Minutes of Proceedings and Hansard.

Minutes of Proceedings
The Norfolk Island Act 1979, s.44, requires Minutes of Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly to be kept and to be made available for inspection or purchase. The Clerk to the Legislative Assembly produces the Minutes of Proceedings, and in normal circumstances, they are available within seven days on www.info.gov.nf under Legislative Assembly/Minutes of Proceedings.

Hansard
Hansard, in brief, is the informal title for the verbatim printed reports of what is said in the Assembly; and whilst it has no statutory origin in Norfolk Island. Hansard is the only complete and permanent record of the full debates of the Legislative Assembly. The history of Hansard is interesting to note. From the second half of the sixteenth century the British Parliament prohibited all reporting and publishing of its proceedings. The Parliament believed it should deliberate in private and regarded any attempt to publicise its proceedings as a serious, punishable offence. By the late eighteenth century dissension among more progressive Members of Parliament, the growing weight of public opinion and the increasingly outspoken attacks of the press, persuaded the Parliament to relax its stance and in 1803, the Legislative Assembly of Commons passed a resolution giving the press the right to enter the Public Gallery. That same year William Cobbett, publisher of Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, added to his newspaper a supplement entitled Parliamentary Debates, which was a reprint of journalists’ reports of speeches extracted from other newspapers.

In 1812 that publication was taken over by Cobbett's assistant, T.C. Hansard, who in 1829 changed the title of the reports to Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. By the late 1870s dissatisfaction with the accuracy of the report was being expressed. As a result parliament voted Hansard the sum of 300 pounds a year for shorthand assistance. The Hansard family continued to produce the Parliamentary Debates until 1889. Other publishers continued to print transcripts of the debates until in 1909 the House of Commons took control of the reporting and printing of parliamentary debates. It was, however, during the 60 years of the Hansard family's publication that the name Hansard became synonymous with the printed debates. In 1943 the British Parliament reinstated the name Hansard in the title of its formal records. And as they say, the rest is history!

By way of interest In the 23 July issue of Your Parliament Your Voice, I mentioned that the Legislative Assembly was that evening hosting a small reception to celebrate the outstanding performance of Alex (Macca) McKenzie in his setting on Norfolk Island a world record for running 200 kms on a grass track.Macca has now posted a write up on his Norfolk run on the blog site http://www.suno.co.nz/Blogs/macca/.

Issued from the Office of the Speaker on 6 August 2010.