| This article is part of a series on the |
| Australian House of Representatives |
|---|
 |
| History of the House |
| Members |
| Electoral divisions |
| Politics and procedure |
| Places |
 Australiaportal |
Parliamentary committees of the Australian House of Representatives are groups of Members of Parliament, appointed by the House of Representatives, to undertake certain specified tasks. They comprise government and non-government Members and have considerable powers to undertake work on behalf of the Parliament. [1]
The Federation Chamber, formerly the Main Committee, provides an additional forum for the second reading and consideration in detail stages of bills and debate of committee reports and papers presented to the House. All Members of the House are automatically members of the Federation Chamber and eligible to participate in its meetings. [2]
Under the Standing Orders of the House, standing committees are appointed for the life of the Parliament and they are usually re-established in some form in successive Parliaments (that is, after each election).
The House has two types of standing committees:
Select committees are appointed as the need arises for a specific purpose, and have a limited life.
Joint committees are established by both Houses of the Australian parliament and include both Members and Senators. An example of this is the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia, appointed by resolution by the House of Representatives on 4 July 2019 and the Senate on 22 July 2019. [3] The Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia was referred to this Committee in June 2020. [4]
Members receive no additional pay for their service as ordinary members on committees. Committee Chairs and Deputy Chairs receive additional pay depending on the committee on which they serve, which is specified as a percentage of the base pay of an MP and Senator ($225,750 as of October 2023). Additional pay for committee chairs is 11-16% of the base pay ($24,832.5- $36,120). Deputy Chairs receive 5.5-8% ($12,416.25-$18,060). [5]
 |
| Committee | Chair | Deputy Chair | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| House General Purpose Standing Committees [6] [7] | ||||
| Agriculture | Meryl Swanson | Rick Wilson | ||
| Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water | Tony Zappia | David Gillespie | ||
| Communications and the Arts | Brian Mitchell | Bridget Archer | ||
| Economics | Daniel Mulino | Garth Hamilton | ||
| Employment, Education and Training | Lisa Chesters | Terry Young | ||
| Health, Aged Care and Sport | Mike Freelander | Melissa McIntosh | ||
| Industry, Science and Resources | Rob Mitchell | Michelle Landry | ||
| Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport | Luke Gosling | Tony Pasin | ||
| Social Policy and Legal Affairs | Susan Templeman | Pat Conaghan | ||
| House Domestic Committees [6] | ||||
| Appropriations and Administration | Milton Dick | Mark Coulton | ||
| Petitions | Susan Templeman | Ross Vasta | ||
| Privileges and Members' Interests | Rob Mitchell | James Stevens | ||
| Procedure | Shayne Neumann | Ross Vasta | ||
| Publications | Fiona Phillips | Ross Vasta | ||
| Selection | Milton Dick | Sharon Claydon | ||
| House Select committees | ||||
| Workforce Australia Employment Services | Julian Hill | Russell Broadbent | ||
| Joint Statutory Committees | ||||
| Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings | Milton Dick MP | Senator Sue Lines | ||
| Corporations and Financial Services | Senator Deborah O'Neill | Alex Hawke MP | ||
| Intelligence and Security | Peter Khalil MP | Andrew Wallace MP | ||
| Law Enforcement | Senator Helen Polley | Llew O'Brien MP | ||
| Human Rights | Josh Burns MP | Henry Pike MP | ||
| Public Accounts and Audit | Julian Hill MP | Senator Linda Reynolds | ||
| Public Works | Graham Perrett MP | Keith Pitt MP | ||
| Joint Standing Committees | ||||
| Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs | Senator Jana Stewart | Melissa Price MP | ||
| Electoral Matters | Kate Thwaites MP | Senator James McGrath | ||
| Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade | Shayne Neumann MP | Senator David Fawcett | ||
| Implementation of the National Redress Scheme | Senator Catryna Bilyk | Senator Dean Smith | ||
| Migration | Maria Vamvakinou MP | Anne Webster MP | ||
| National Anti-Corruption Commission | Senator Karen Grogan | Helen Haines MP | ||
| National Capital and External Territories | Alicia Payne MP | Nola Marino MP | ||
| National Disability Insurance Scheme | Libby Coker MP | Senator Hollie Hughes | ||
| Northern Australia | Marion Scrymgour MP | Warren Entsch MP | ||
| Parliamentary Library | Anne Stanley MP (Joint Chair) | |||
| Senator Slade Brockman (Joint Chair) | ||||
| Publications | Fiona Phillips MP | Senator Fatima Payman | ||
| Trade and Investment Growth | Steve Georganas MP | Scott Buchholz MP | ||
| Treaties | Josh Wilson MP | Phillip Thompson MP | ||
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are set down in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia.
The Parliament of Australia is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Australia. It consists of three elements: the monarch, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The combination of two elected chambers, in which the members of the Senate represent the states and territories while the members of the House represent electoral divisions according to population, is modelled on the United States Congress. Through both chambers, however, there is a fused executive, drawn from the Westminster system.
Warren George Entsch is an Australian politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2007 and since 2010, representing the Division of Leichhardt. He is a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland, and sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.
Warren Edward Snowdon is an Australian former politician who served as a member of the House of Representatives from July 1987 to March 1996, and again from October 1998 until May 2022. Initially representing the Division of Northern Territory, and later the Division of Lingiari, his constituents consisted of all the residents of the Northern Territory located outside Darwin, as well as Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean. He was the last sitting MP who was first elected in the 1980s, and the last who served in Old Parliament House.
Rachel Mary Siewert is an Australian politician. She was a senator for Western Australia from 2005 to 2021, representing the Australian Greens, and served as the party's co-deputy leader from 2017 to 2018. She previously worked as coordinator of the Conservation Council of Western Australia.
The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The range was named on 12 June 1861 by explorer Francis Thomas Gregory after Edward Hamersley, a prominent promoter of his exploration expedition to the northwest. Karijini National Park lies within the range.
The Kurrama people, also known as the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people, are an Aboriginal Australian people from the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The Australian Law Reform Commission is an Australian independent statutory body established to conduct reviews into the law of Australia. The reviews, also called inquiries or references, are referred to the ALRC by the Attorney-General for Australia. Based on its research and consultations throughout an inquiry, the ALRC makes recommendations to government so that government can make informed decisions about law reform.
Patrick Lionel Djargun Dodson is an Australian indigenous rights activist and former politician. He was a Senator for Western Australia from 2016 to 2024, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
The committees of the Australian Senate are committees of Senators, established by the Australian Senate, for purposes determined by that body. Senate committees are part of the operation of the Australian parliament, and have for some decades been involved in maintenance of government accountability to the Australian parliament, particularly through hearings to scrutinise the budget, and through public inquiries on policy questions.
An Australian Aboriginal sacred site is a place deemed significant and meaningful by Aboriginal Australians based on their beliefs. It may include any feature in the landscape, and in coastal areas, these may lie underwater. The site's status is derived from an association with some aspect of social and cultural tradition, which is related to ancestral beings, collectively known as Dreamtime, who created both physical and social aspects of the world. The site may have its access restricted based on gender, clan or other Aboriginal grouping, or other factors.
Dean Anthony Smith is an Australian politician and Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since 2012, representing Western Australia.
In the Parliament of Australia, the political parties appoint party whips to ensure party discipline, help manage legislative business and carry out a variety of other functions on behalf of the party leadership. Additional functions of the government party whips is to ensure that a sufficient number of government members and senators are present in the chamber to ensure passage of government legislation and measures and to prevent censure motions succeeding, and to ensure presence of a parliamentary quorum. Their roles in the chamber include tally votes during divisions, and arranging pairs which affects the ability of members and senators to leave parliament during sittings, as well as the entitlement to be absent during divisions.
Anthony David Chisholm is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and has been a Senator for Queensland since 2016. He was appointed an assistant minister in the Albanese government following the party's victory at the 2022 federal election. He previously served as the party's state secretary from 2008 to 2014.
Jean-Sébastien Dominique Francois Jacques is a former chief executive officer of Rio Tinto Group. He succeeded Sam Walsh in July 2016. He was succeeded by Jakob Stausholm in early 2021.
Phillip Bruce Thompson, is an Australian politician. His party is the Liberal National Party of Queensland and he sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.
The Binigura people, these days usually spelt Pinikura, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Anika Shay Wells is an Australian politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives since the 2019 federal election. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and represents the Division of Lilley in Queensland. Wells is currently the Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Sport.
The Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (AHA) is a law in the state of Western Australia governing the protection of Aboriginal cultural sites, which was superseded by the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021 on 1 July 2023.
Juukan Gorge is a gorge in the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, about 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Tom Price. It was named by the daughter of Puutu Kunti Kurrama man Juukan, also known as Tommy Ashburton, who was born at Jukarinya.
| Components |
|  | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parliamentary officers |
| ||||
| Members |
| ||||
| Parliaments | |||||
| Procedure | |||||
| Elections |
| ||||
| Locations | |||||
| See also | |||||