President of the Senate (Australia)

Section 17 of the Constitution of Australia provides:^[1]

The Senate shall, before proceeding to the despatch of any other business, choose a senator to be the President of the Senate; and as often as the office of President becomes vacant the Senate shall again choose a senator to be the President. The President shall cease to hold his office if he ceases to be a senator. He may be removed from office by a vote of the Senate, or he may resign his office or his seat by writing addressed to the Governor-General.

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.^[2]

The president's principal duty is to preside over the Senate, to maintain order in the Senate, uphold the Standing Orders (rules of procedure) 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 (in the event of an equality of votes, the motion fails). 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.

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 (DPS) with the speaker of the House of Representatives.^[3]

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 (and other distinguished visitors).^[3]

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 ($158,432), making for a total salary of $369,674 per annum and receives the various other entitlements and allowances available to senators.^[4]

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 (Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) or the Australian Capital Territory, and 10 have come from the three most populous states (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland). All Senate presidents have been members of major parties, though not necessarily the governing party.

No.	Image	Name	Party		State	Term start	Term end
1		Sir Richard Baker		Free Trade	South Australia	9 May 1901	31 December 1906
2		(Sir) Albert Gould		Free Trade / Anti-Socialist	New South Wales	20 February 1907	30 June 1910
				Liberal
3		Harry Turley		Labor	Queensland	1 July 1910	8 July 1913
4		Thomas Givens		Labor	Queensland	9 July 1913	30 June 1926
				National Labor
				Nationalist
5		Sir John Newlands		Nationalist	South Australia	1 July 1926	13 August 1929
6		Walter Kingsmill		Nationalist	Western Australia	14 August 1929	30 August 1932
				United Australia
7		Patrick Lynch		United Australia	Western Australia	31 August 1932	30 June 1938
8		John Hayes		United Australia	Tasmania	1 July 1938	30 June 1941
9		James Cunningham		Labor	Western Australia	1 July 1941	4 July 1943
10		Gordon Brown		Labor	Queensland	23 September 1943	19 March 1951
11		Ted Mattner		Liberal	South Australia	12 June 1951	7 September 1953
12		(Sir) Alister McMullin		Liberal	New South Wales	8 September 1953	30 June 1971
13		Sir Magnus Cormack		Liberal	Victoria	17 August 1971	11 April 1974
14		Justin O'Byrne		Labor	Tasmania	9 July 1974	11 November 1975
15		(Sir) Condor Laucke		Liberal	South Australia	17 February 1976	30 June 1981
16		(Sir) Harold Young		Liberal	South Australia	18 August 1981	4 February 1983
17		Doug McClelland		Labor	New South Wales	21 April 1983	23 January 1987
18		Kerry Sibraa		Labor	New South Wales	17 February 1987	31 January 1994
19		Michael Beahan		Labor	Western Australia	1 February 1994	30 June 1996
20		Margaret Reid		Liberal	ACT	20 August 1996	18 August 2002
21		Paul Calvert		Liberal	Tasmania	19 August 2002	14 August 2007
22		Alan Ferguson		Liberal	South Australia	14 August 2007	25 August 2008
23		John Hogg		Labor	Queensland	26 August 2008	30 June 2014
24		Stephen Parry		Liberal	Tasmania	7 July 2014	2 November 2017
25		Scott Ryan		Liberal	Victoria	13 November 2017	13 October 2021
26		Slade Brockman		Liberal	Western Australia	18 October 2021	26 July 2022
27		Sue Lines		Labor	Western Australia	26 July 2022	Incumbent

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.^[5] 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.^[6][7]

There have been 36 deputy presidents of the Senate, two of whom served multiple non-consecutive terms.^[8]

• Clerk of the Australian Senate

• The President of the Senate, Senate Brief No 6, March 2017