54 The Clerk

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate each have a Clerk (pronounced ‘clark’) who is the chief parliamentary official who sits in front of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. The Clerks are career officials and are not elected members or senators. The Clerk is the only non elected person in the chamber who is allowed to speak when the Parliament is sitting.

Photo of the Speaker and the Clerks in their seats in Parliament. Click for more info about this image.

The Speaker and Clerks of the House of Representatives

The Clerk has two main areas of work. The first is the responsibility of assisting the Speaker or the President (the presiding officers) to run the Parliament in each chamber. The Clerk must know all the rules and conventions of the Parliament and be able to assist members and senators in the day to day running of parliamentary business.

The Clerk helps organise the day’s order of business together with the presiding officers and the senior members and senators. During the day’s proceedings, the Clerk listens to the debates and makes sure that all the actions of the Parliament are legal and accurately recorded. The Clerk also records all the decisions of the Parliament in a daily publication called Votes and Proceedings for the House of Representatives and Journals for the Senate.

The second task of the Clerk is to run a department of more than 200 parliamentary staff in the Department of the House of Representatives or the Department of the Senate. These departments organise the daily operations of the Parliament, and assist members and senators.

Each chamber also has a deputy clerk and several clerk assistants who share the work and take turns to sit at the centre table.

The word ‘clerk’ means someone who can read and write. The first clerk was appointed to the English Parliament in 1363 because most parliamentarians were illiterate. The clerk read the title and contents of bills so that everyone knew what they were debating. Clerks still stand and read aloud the title of each bill.

Download: Fact Sheet 54 - The Clerk [206KB]

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