SPRING/SUMMER 2024 • VOL 39 NO 2

It is with great pleasure that I introduce this Edition of the Australasian Parliamentary Review. This volume has a focus on parliamentary procedure, and the many diverse ways procedural rules, practices and cultures influence the operation and perception of modern parliaments in the Australasian region.

Steph Lum, Principal Research Officer with the Legislative Scrutiny Unit of the Australian Senate asks ‘How effective is parliamentary oversight over executive expenditure authorised by standing appropriations? Thomas Moorhead, Sergeant-at- Arms, Legislative Assembly of Western Australia suggests we may be in a time of ‘carne-age’, with his take on the Australian High Court’s decision in Crime and Corruption Commission v Carne and its implications for freedom of speech in parliament.

This volume also includes insightful analysis from Natalie Cooke, from the Australian House of Representatives Procedure Office on the role of the Federation Chamber and its evolution over its thirty-year history. We also hear from senior parliamentary officers from the Parliament of New South Wales, Peta Leemen and Arizona Hart, on the inadequacy of protections for witnesses to parliamentary committee inquiries and the implications this has for public parliamentary engagement, as well as parliamentary procedure.