ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Senate, a good example comes from Queensland, which has one of the least developed committee systems. Committees are set up to help facilitate parliamentary work. All chambers of every Australian parliament have committees but the most extensive system has developed in the Senate of the federal parliament, which is constitutionally the most powerful of the upper houses, and which was controlled by the government at any stage from 1980 to 2005. The Committees are directly serviced by a secretariat of professional public servants. A typical Senate committee will have around five such research and administrative support staff working for it; more if it has a heavy workload. The relentless probing in search of government maladministration that has become such a feature of the regular estimates hearings may get the most headlines, but parliamentary committees have more subtle and profound effects on the policy environment.
