What Goes On in Parliament
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A Working Day in the Commons
Committees, sitting under less formal rules than the House, examine bills clause by clause. Each clause has to be passed. Any member of the committee can move amendments. When all the clauses have been dealt with, the chairperson reports the bill to the House with any amendments that have been adopted.
When a committee has reported the bill to the House, Members at this “report stage” may move amendments to the various clauses (usually, amendments they have not had the opportunity to propose in committee). When these have been passed, or rejected, the bill goes to third reading. If the motion for third reading carries, the bill goes to the Senate, where it goes through much the same process. Bills initiated in the Senate and passed there come to the Commons, and go through the same stages as Commons bills. No bill can become law (become an Act) unless it has been passed in identical form by both Houses and has been assented to, in the Queen’s name, by the Governor General or a deputy of the Governor General (usually a Supreme Court judge). Assent has never been refused to a federal bill, and our first Prime Minister declared roundly that refusal was obsolete and had become unconstitutional. In Britain, Royal Assent has never been refused since 1707.
