What Do Parliamentary Committees Do?

Subdivision VI.2.E of the Constitution establishes the committee system. Committees are where a legislature does the work that a chamber of a hundred-odd members cannot do on the floor.

The constitutional basis

The Constitution provides for a committee system in Parliament, and the detail — which committees exist, how they are constituted, and what they do — is left to the Standing Orders and to Acts of Parliament. The principal statute is the Permanent Parliamentary Committees Act 1994.

Two committees have their own constitutional footing:

• the Public Accounts Committee, established under Part VIII (Supervision and Control); and
• the Public Works Committee, under the Public Works Committee Act (Chapter 28).

What committees actually do

1. Scrutinise legislation. Examining Bills in detail, taking submissions, and reporting to the House.
2. Examine public accounts. The Public Accounts Committee works with the reports of the Auditor-General on the public accounts and on public bodies.
3. Question officials. Committees can require departmental heads and statutory office-holders to attend and answer.
4. Inquire into subjects referred to them, and report with recommendations.
5. Review subordinate legislation. Under section 116, all subordinate legislative enactments must be tabled within seven sitting days and are subject to disallowance in whole or in part by Parliament.

The summons power — and why witnesses are protected

This is what makes committee inquiries workable. A public servant summoned to give evidence, or to produce documents, is protected from being sued or prosecuted for doing so. Section 115(2) protects the proceedings themselves from being questioned in any court.

Committees and access to information

Section 51(4)(b) is directly relevant: section 51 does not authorise withholding information from the Parliament. Whatever the position on public access to a document, section 51 provides no basis for keeping it from Parliament — and therefore none for keeping it from a committee acting under the authority of Parliament.

Reports that come to Parliament

Several constitutional office-holders report to Parliament, and those reports are the raw material of committee work:

• the Auditor-General, on the public accounts and on public bodies;
• the Ombudsman Commission;
• the Judges, under section 187, including on the development of the underlying law (Sch.2.5);
• the Chief Justice, where a trial has not commenced within four months of committal (s 37(14)) — though that report goes to the responsible Minister.

Membership and independence

Committee membership is drawn from members of Parliament, including Opposition members, under the Standing Orders and the Permanent Parliamentary Committees Act. The constitutional context reinforces the point that committees are the Parliament’s instrument, not the Executive’s: no Minister may preside in the Parliament or in a Committee of the Whole (s 112(2)), and no Minister or Parliamentary Leader of a registered political party may be Speaker or Deputy Speaker (s 107(4)).