President of the Australian Senate
The President of the Australian Senate is the presiding officer of the Australian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Australia. The presiding officer of the lower house is the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Australian Senate occupies a different position in the Australian Parliament from that of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, on which the Australian Parliament is partly modelled, because the Senate has always been a popularly-elected body.
The current President is Senator Stephen Parry (Lib, Tas).
The current Deputy President is Senator Gavin Marshall (ALP, Vic).
Constitution provisions[edit]
Section 17 of the Constitution provides:
Election[edit]
The President is elected by the Senate in a secret ballot. The Clerk conducts the election. The Presidency has always been a partisan office and the nominee of the government party has nearly always been elected—although this cannot be guaranteed since the government of the day does not necessarily have a majority in the Senate. The President is assisted by an elected Deputy President. The traditional practice has been that the government nominates a Senator to be elected as President, and the Opposition nominates a Senator to be Deputy President. If there are no other nominations, no election is required, however the Australian Greens in 2005 and again in 2007 put forward Senator Kerry Nettle as a rival candidate when the position of President was vacant. Neither Government nor Opposition Senators supported that candidacy.[1]
The position of President has been disproportionately held by Senators representing the least populous states and territories. Of the 23 Senate Presidents since 1901, 14 have come from the least populous states (Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) or the Australian Capital Territory, and 9 have come from the three most populous states (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland).
Following the election of the Howard government at the 1996 election, Labor's Mal Colston became an independent MP and Deputy President of the Senate.
Impartiality[edit]
Unlike the Speaker the President has a deliberative, but not a casting vote (in the event of an equality of votes, the motion fails). This is because the Senate is in theory a states' house, and depriving the President of a deliberative vote would have robbed one of the states or territories one of its Senators' votes.
Role[edit]
The President’s principal duty is to preside over the Senate, although he or she is assisted in this by the Deputy President and a panel of Acting Deputy Presidents, who usually preside during routine debates. The occupant of the Chair must maintain order in the Senate, uphold the Standing Orders (rules of procedure) and protect the rights of backbench Senators.
Although the President does not have the same degree of disciplinary power as the Speaker does, the Senate is not as rowdy as most Australian legislative chambers, and thus his or her disciplinary powers are seldom exercised.
The President, in conjunction with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, also administers Parliament House, Canberra, with the assistance of administrative staff. The President has accountability obligations to the Parliament for the Department of the Senate.
List of Presidents of the Senate[edit]
| # | Name | Party, State | Term in Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hon. Sir Richard Baker | FT-AS, SA | 9 May 1901 to 31 December 1906 |
| 2 | Hon. (Sir) Albert Gould | AS-Lib, NSW | 20 February 1907 to 30 June 1910 |
| 3 | Hon. Harry Turley | ALP, Qld | 1 July 1910 to 8 July 1913 |
| 4 | Hon. Thomas Givens | ALP-Nat, Qld | 9 July 1913 to 30 June 1926 |
| 5 | Hon. Sir John Newlands | Nat, SA | 1 July 1926 to 13 August 1929 |
| 6 | Hon. Walter Kingsmill | Nat-UAP, WA | 14 August 1929 to 30 August 1932 |
| 7 | Hon. Patrick Lynch | UAP, WA | 31 August 1932 to 30 June 1938 |
| 8 | Hon. John Hayes | UAP, Tas | 1 July 1938 to 30 June 1941 |
| 9 | Hon. James Cunningham | ALP, WA | 1 July 1941 to 4 July 1943 (died in office) |
| 10 | Hon. Gordon Brown | ALP, Qld | 23 September 1943 to 19 March 1951 |
| 11 | Hon. Ted Mattner | Lib, SA | 12 June 1951 to 7 September 1953 |
| 12 | Hon. (Sir) Alister McMullin | Lib, NSW | 8 September 1953 to 30 June 1971 |
| 13 | Hon. Sir Magnus Cormack | Lib, Vic | 17 August 1971 to 11 April 1974 |
| 14 | Hon. Justin O'Byrne | ALP, Tas | 9 July 1974 to 11 November 1975 |
| 15 | Hon. (Sir) Condor Laucke | Lib, SA | 17 February 1976 to 30 June 1981 |
| 16 | Hon. (Sir) Harold Young | Lib, SA | 18 August 1981 to 4 February 1983 |
| 17 | Hon. Doug McClelland | ALP, NSW | 21 April 1983 to 23 January 1987 |
| 18 | Hon. Kerry Sibraa | ALP, NSW | 17 February 1987 to 1 February 1994 |
| 19 | Hon. Michael Beahan | ALP, WA | 1 February 1994 to 20 August 1996 |
| 20 | Hon. Margaret Reid | Lib, ACT | 20 August 1996 to 19 August 2002 |
| 21 | Hon. Paul Calvert | Lib, Tas | 19 August 2002 to 13 August 2007 |
| 22 | Hon. Alan Ferguson | Lib, SA | 14 August 2007 to 25 August 2008 |
| 23 | Hon. John Hogg | ALP, QLD | 26 August 2008 to 7 July 2014 |
| 24 | Hon. Stephen Parry | Lib, Tas | 7 July 2014 to present |
| President of the Senate | |
|---|---|
| Appointer | Elected by the Australian Senate |
| Inaugural holder | Sir Richard Baker |
| Formation | 9 May 1901 |
| Deputy | Senator Gavin Marshall |
 |
| This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Australia |
No comments:
Post a Comment