Book Description

The Legislative Assembly adopted new standing orders in 2004. This followed a comprehensive review of the standing orders by the Standing Orders Committee in 2003, which streamlined procedures, deleted obsolete standing orders and rewrote all standing orders in plain English and with gender-neutral language. The House made substantial changes to the standing orders relating to committees at the start of this Parliament to facilitate the establishment of Assembly Standing Committees. Otherwise, apart from some minor amendments, the standing orders remain largely the same as those adopted in 2004. Given the standing orders have now been in operation for 15 years, the Standing Orders Committee decided it was timely to undertake another review to address areas where procedures are unclear, ambiguous or need to be updated to reflect technology or legislative changes. We have also taken the opportunity to suggest some improvements to Assembly practice.