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Official duties
Only members who are office holders or Ministers of State (including Parliamentary Secretaries) have official duties.
The official duties of a member are the activities that relate to the member’s role as an office holder or a Minister of State and are determined by the Minister (s6(1)(d), PBR Act). The activities the Minister has determined to be official duties are:
Member (or class) | Official duties |
---|---|
All office holders and Ministers of State | In the member’s official capacity (being their capacity as a Minister or office holder, as the case may be):
a) Exercising the powers or functions, or performing the duties, of the member’s office, or activities engaged in for the purposes of doing so; b) Attending an event to which the member has been invited in their official capacity; c) Other activities directly related to, and engaged in for the purposes of, performing the member’s official role. |
Office Holders
Section 5 of the PBR Act provides that the following are office holders:
- President of the Senate
- Speaker of the House of Representatives
- Deputy President and Chair of Committees of the Senate
- Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives
- A person who is an office holder because of a determination under section 7.
The Minister has determined under section 7 of the PBR Act that a member who holds one of the following positions in, or in relation to, the Parliament or either House of the Parliament; or who performs functions of the following kind in, or in relation to, the Parliament or either House of the Parliament is an office holder:
- Leader of the Opposition
- Deputy Leader of the Opposition
- Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
- Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives
- Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
- Shadow Minister
- Leader of a minority party
- Party Whip (however described) of a party for a House of the Parliament, where that party has at least 5 members in the relevant House
- Note: there may, for a party, be more than one party whip for a House
- Second Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives
- Member of the Speaker’s Panel in the House of Representatives
- Temporary Chair of Committees in the Senate
- Chair or Deputy Chair of a properly constituted Parliamentary Committee, including Select, Standing and Statutory Committees, and whether Joint or of a single House.
Last updated: 10 December 2019