Harry Evans

Recent Speaker

Clerk of the Senate - Retiring December 09

December 9, 2009

"Parliament: better or worse"

In December 2009 Harry Evans will retire from his long-standing post as Clerk of the Senate. Commentators have said that the replacement of Mr Evans will mean "the Senate will lose some of its bark and bite" (Michelle Grattan The Age 22/05/09)

Mr Evans has a reputation for being impartial but also a fierce defender of parliamentary process. He has been tough on Coalition and Labor governments.

As Michelle Grattan reported in The Age on May 22, 2009, He has held the position for 21 years and is the longest-serving Clerk of the Commonwealth Parliament since federation. His record will never be broken because in 1999 a 10-year non-renewable period was imposed on the parliamentary clerks' jobs.

The Department of the Senate provides the Senate, its committees, the President of the Senate and senators with a broad range of advisory and support services related to the exercise of the legislative power of the Commonwealth.

The parliamentary head of the department is the President of the Senate and the departmental head is the Clerk of the Senate.

The department is one of three supporting the two Houses, the others being the Department of the House of Representatives and the Department of Parliamentary Services.

The work of the Department of the Senate is determined almost entirely by the Senate and its committees. The department is responsible, not to the government of the day, but to the Senate and all senators, and maintains complete impartiality in serving equally senators from all political parties and independent senators.

The Clerk's Office is directly responsible for:

provision of high quality procedural and constitutional advice to senators in respect of the operations of the Senate and its committees
provision of secretariat, advisory and administrative support to the Procedure Committee and the Committee of Privileges
production, amendment and updating of Odgers' Australian Senate Practice
production and dissemination of material relating to the work of the Senate and its committees to the widest possible audience
corporate leadership of the Department of the Senate
secretariat services for the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
In addition, the office exercises overall responsibility for, and quality control of, all procedural and administrative activities of the department.

Photo by Andrew Taylor.