On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 at 9:42 am, Tom Worthington <tom.worthing...@tomw.net.au> wrote:
> On 25/8/20 10:48 am, Brendan wrote: > > Yes. I found it interesting having appeared before a few inquiries that > > much of the business happens in the breaks, around the coffee and > > snacks. Also there is an interesting dynamic at the parliamentary cafe, > > with people meeting, and people watching who is meeting who. I worked at Old Parliament house for 14 years, in the Legislative Research Service, the Senate Committee Secretariate and the Prime Ministers Office. During the Parliamentary Session most of the time the Parliamentary Chambers are almost empty. The members and senators are off doing other things. Then, and no doubt now, the debate in the Chambers are being piped to all offices in the Parliamentary. Division bells are installed every where to call Parliamentarians to their respective Chambers when a vote is needed. Flashing red or green lights indicates which chamber is having the Division. If a chamber gets below a quorum it would often get ignored unless, a member of the chamber called the presiding officers attention to it in which case the Division bells would be rung and every body would it hurry back. This is a tactic often used by the opposition as the government members had to get back to form the quorum, disrupting their business, as the opposition embers might be tardy. No quorum and the chamber could not continue its business which is embarrassing. Most of the work of the Parliament takes place at Parliament when people are NOT in the chamber. Tony > -- null _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
