President of the Australian Senate

The president of the Senate is the presiding officer of the Australian Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Australia. The counterpart in the lower house is the speaker of the House of Representatives. The office of the presidency of the senate was established in 1901 by section 17 of the Constitution of Australia. The primary responsibilities of the office is to oversee senate debates, determine which senators may speak, maintain order and the parliamentary code of conduct during sessions and uphold all rules and orders of the senate. The current president is Sue Lines, who was elected on 26 July 2022.
The Senate elects one of its members as president at the start of each new term, or whenever the position is vacant. This is usually—though not necessarily—a member of the party or coalition that has formed government in the House of Representatives. Early presidents were members of the largest party or coalition in the Senate, which was not always the governing party, however this is no longer the case.
The president of the Senate's primary task is to maintain parliamentary procedure in the chamber during legislative sessions. Unlike the speaker of the House, the president of the Senate votes as an ordinary member during general debate, and has no casting vote in the case of a tie. The president of the Senate has also various administrative and ceremonial duties, sharing responsibility for the management of Parliament House and other parliamentary facilities and services with the speaker of the House.

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Election

Constitutional provisions

Section 17 of the Constitution of Australia provides:

Process

The president is elected by the Senate in a secret ballot. The clerk conducts the election. The presidency has always been a partisan office and the nominee of the government party has nearly always been elected—although this cannot be guaranteed since the government of the day does not necessarily have a majority in the Senate. The president is assisted by an elected deputy president. The traditional practice has been that the government nominates a senator to be elected as president, and the Opposition nominates a Senator to be deputy president. If there are no other nominations, no election is required; however, the Australian Greens in 2005 and again in 2007 put forward Senator Kerry Nettle as a rival candidate when the position of president was vacant. Neither Government nor Opposition Senators supported that candidacy.

Role

Parliamentary duties

The president's principal duty is to preside over the Senate, to maintain order in the Senate, uphold the Standing Orders and protect the rights of backbench senators. The president is assisted by the deputy president and a panel of acting deputy presidents, who usually preside during routine debates.
Although the president does not have the same degree of disciplinary power as the speaker does, the Senate is not as rowdy as most Australian legislative chambers, and thus his or her disciplinary powers are seldom exercised.
Unlike the speaker the president has a deliberative, but not a casting vote. This is because the Senate is in theory a states' house, and depriving the president of a deliberative vote would have robbed one of the states or territories one of its senators' votes.

Administrative duties

The Senate president is the chief executive of the Department of the Senate, which is one of the four parliamentary departments. The president chairs the department's budget committee and oversees its organisational structure. The president also co-administers the Department of Parliament Services with the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Ceremonial duties

The president of the Senate is ranked highly in the Commonwealth Table of Precedence, either before or after the speaker of the House of Representatives depending on seniority. The president participates in the state opening of parliament, represents the parliament on overseas visits, and receives visiting delegations from other countries.

Salary

As with all other parliamentarians, the president of the Senate's salary is determined by the Remuneration Tribunal, an independent statutory body. As of 1 July 2019, the base salary for senators is A$211,242. The president is entitled to an additional "salary of office" comprising 75% of the base salary, making for a total salary of $369,674 per annum and receives the various other entitlements and allowances available to senators.

List of presidents of the Senate

The position of president of the Senate has been disproportionately held by senators representing the least populous states and territories. There have been 25 presidents of the Senate since 1901. Of these 15 have come from the least populous states or the Australian Capital Territory, and 10 have come from the three most populous states. All Senate presidents have been members of major parties, though not necessarily the governing party.

Deputy President

As well as a president, the Senate also elects a deputy president, whose formal title is Deputy President and Chairman of Committees. Until 1981, the title was just Chairman of Committees; it was changed "to reflect more accurately the nature of the office in practice". The position is not provided for by the constitution, but instead by the Senate's standing orders – it was borrowed more or less directly from the colonial legislative councils. The deputy president's main tasks are to preside over committees of the whole and to serve as presiding officer when the president of the Senate is absent.

List

There have been 36 deputy presidents of the Senate, two of whom served multiple non-consecutive terms.