Before rising for the 2026 election, the House of Representatives adopted new rules for the operation of the next Parliament.
The changes include a new Legislative Scrutiny Committee, revised procedures for passing legislation under urgency and new guidance on how select committees should approach public submissions.
The Standing Orders of the House of Representatives set out rules for the conduct of proceedings in the House and for the exercise of its powers.
During the course of each Parliament, the Standing Orders Committee reviews the operation of the Standing Orders and considers what changes might be necessary.
Towards the end of each parliamentary term, one of the last things the outgoing House does is vote on amendments to the Standing Orders.
The changes that will apply when Parliament sits after the 2026 election were set out in the Standing Orders Committee’s Report on the Review of Standing Order 2026 .
One of the principal changes for the next Parliament is the establishment of a Legislative Scrutiny Committee.
Ordinarily, after a bill has been considered by a select committee and received its second reading, it proceeds to the committee of the whole House. MPs then examine the bill's provisions in detail, question the Minister responsible and consider amendments. These debates take place in the main debating chamber, preventing the House from undertaking other business simultaneously.
In our submission to the Standing Orders Committee, Franks Ogilvie proposed allowing committee of the whole debates to take place in parallel with proceedings in the House, drawing on the Australian House of Representatives' Federation Chamber. This would significantly increase the legislative time available without requiring additional sitting days, extended sittings or greater reliance on urgency.
The new Legislative Scrutiny Committee is a different way of tackling this problem. It will have two main functions. The Business Committee will determine that some bills go to this new committee, instead of a subject select committee (such as the Justice Committee). In terms of the House time the bigger change is that the Business Committee may also send some bills to this committee instead of the normal committee of the whole stage.
When operating in the place of the committee of the whole, the Legislative Scrutiny Committee will meet in public, with proceedings livestreamed to undertake what will be called “consideration in detail”. The Minister responsible for the bill will be required to attend and answer questions, and the committee will be able to amend bills directly.
The committee will be chaired by the Deputy Speaker, and Government parties will not hold a majority. All MPs will be entitled to participate, although only committee members will vote.
Where two or more committee members disagree with the result of a vote announced by the chairperson, the decision will be reserved for the committee of the whole House to resolve. Otherwise, the bill can proceed directly to its third reading.
This is a narrower approach than the model proposed by Franks Ogilvie, concentrating detailed consideration on bills whose policy is relatively settled and which enjoy broad support.
Its usefulness will depend on how frequently bills are referred to it and how much consideration subsequently returns to the committee of the whole House. There is also a question about how the model will work where the Legislative Scrutiny Committee undertakes both the ordinary select committee and consideration in detail stages of the same bill.
Under the new rules, a bill that receives its first reading under urgency will be referred to a select committee unless the member in charge moves a separate motion to bypass that stage and explains why.
Under the previous rules, where urgency was accorded to the first reading and subsequent stages of a bill, it automatically bypassed select committee consideration without any express decision to that effect. Under the new rules, the Minister will have to seek the House's approval, explain why select committee consideration should be omitted and take responsibility for that decision.
A Government can still use its majority to secure the separate motion, but bypassing select committee consideration will now require an explicit decision.
Our supplementary submission recommended a change along these lines but went further suggesting that the motion should be debatable. Where a bill is genuinely urgent and enjoys broad support, debate is likely to be short. In a contentious case, the time required would come at the expense of the Government's other legislative priorities.
While the committee did not recommend this additional constraint, making ministers formally justify the decision to bypass select committee consideration is a positive step.
The substantial increase in the number of submissions received by select committees has placed growing pressure on the time available for oral hearings. The Standing Orders Committee report records that 697,657 written submissions were received on bills during the 2023-2026 term (as at 11 September 2026), more than the total received during the preceding five parliamentary terms.
To manage the load of submissions, committees frequently allocate five minutes to individual submitters and ten minutes to organisations. This can leave very little time to examine technical issues or test evidence, particularly where a bill raises complex or contested questions.
Franks Ogilvie recommended greater use of alternative approaches to oral submissions and public engagement, including roundtables and concurrent expert evidence (sometimes known as hot-tubbing), in which witnesses with different perspectives appear together and respond to each other's evidence.
We also supported the Clerk of the House's proposal for a purpose statement governing select committee consideration of bills and recommended going further by providing specific guidance on the purpose of oral hearings.
The new Standing Orders establish that the primary purpose of select committee consideration is to ensure that a bill, if passed, results in high-quality legislation. Another purpose is to be informed of public views, to the extent practicable.
The report recognises that the submissions process is not designed to operate as a straw poll. It encourages committees to organise hearings that allow sustained conversations with key submitters, including those with relevant expertise or lived experience, and to consider longer hearing times rather than automatically applying standard allocations.
The Standing Orders Committee encouraged committees to adopt more innovative approaches to public engagement, including less formal hearings, online surveys and other ways of gathering public views.
The Standing Orders Committee also provided guidance on the use of AI to process and analyse public submissions.
For departmental officials, it endorsed existing guidance requiring departments to manage risks relating to accuracy, bias, privacy and security, and to disclose how submissions have been summarised. It also expects departments to seek committee permission before outsourcing this work.
The report noted that the Office of the Clerk is exploring how AI could assist committee staff to process and categorise submissions, identify substantive contributions and help members make decisions about oral hearings.
The committee emphasised that AI should assist rather than replace human engagement with submissions and recommended that the next Standing Orders Committee receive a briefing on its use.
The Standing Orders Committee noted concern about the amount of House and select committee time that was taken by some private and local bills.
Private bills allow individuals or organisations to seek legislation addressing their particular circumstances, for example to change the terms of a trust or obtain an exemption from a law. Local bills are promoted by local authorities seeking special legislative powers for their area, such as permission to use land for a purpose that would otherwise be prohibited.
Under the new rules, promoters of such bills will need approval from the Business Committee before commencing the process for introducing a bill. They will have to apply to the Speaker, as chair of the Business Committee, explaining the bill's objectives and why legislation is necessary.
The Business Committee will consider whether those objectives could reasonably or practicably be achieved without legislation, and whether alternative means would be appropriate. It will also have discretion to consider the likely political support for the bill and the demands on the House's time.
We have substantial experience with these types of bills and can assist promoters seeking to navigate these new rules.
Our supplementary submission identified a drafting problem in the Standing Orders requiring the promoter of a private or local bill proposing to amend an Act to notify the government department responsible for administering that Act.
As neither private nor local Acts ordinarily have an administering government department, we recommended limiting the relevant notification requirement to public Acts. That amendment has now been adopted.
The 55th Parliament will provide an opportunity to test whether the new Legislative Scrutiny Committee delivers meaningful additional capacity and whether select committees take up the encouragement to adopt more innovative approaches to public engagement.
For many observers, a key question will be whether the high use of urgency continues. The Legislative Scrutiny Committee may free up House time for more contentious legislation, while the new requirement for an express decision to bypass select committee consideration may discourage that practice.
These changes may help at the margins, but the larger question remains: does the House have sufficient legislative time to accommodate the ambitious legislative programmes that successive governments have sought to pursue?
The next Review of Standing Orders should draw on that experience and revisit whether more substantial reforms are required.
For further information on these changes or similar issues, please contact Managing Director Brigitte Morten or Director Marcus Ganley.
