The Impact of Senate Committees
The impact of the Senate's committees varies and has been the subject of debate. The work of the committees is frequently more consensual and less partisan than activity in the parliamentary chambers, and unanimous committee reports that agree recommendations across party lines are not uncommon. As a result, these recommendations may contribute to subsequent government policy announcements and occasionally to changes in government actions. The work of the regulations and ordinances committee has led to revisions of subordinate legislation in significant respects. Committee scrutiny of bills has contributed to them being amended or withdrawn. The impact of committees on legislation overall has however been described as 'rather limited', particularly as the committees that review bills are controlled by a government majority.
Senate committees can be affected by the party composition of the Senate. The Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, argued that a government majority of seats in the Senate resulted in limitations on what the committees inquired into, and how readily governments responded to their queries and requests for information. Statistics published by centrist political party the Australian Democrats have been used to support the contention that committee operations have been inhibited by government control of the Senate, particularly in respect of selection of topics for committee inquiry. However Senator Minchin, the leader of the government in the Senate in the mid-2000s, pointed out that their political rivals had previously cut off debate on more bills in the Senate than had his government.
Read more about this topic: Australian Senate Committees
Famous quotes containing the words impact, senate and/or committees:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“As the House is designed to provide a reflection of the mood of the moment, the Senate is meant to reflect the continuity of the past—to preserve the delicate balance of justice between the majority’s whims and the minority’s rights.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)