Commonwealth act

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

In ForceCTH

Jurisdiction

Commonwealth

Act Number

138 of 1991

Collection

act

Plain English Summary

2/10 complexity

The Act fixes the Senate’s quorum at one-quarter of the whole number of senators and takes effect the day after Royal Assent. It primarily affects senators and parliamentary staff who must ensure sufficient attendance for sittings; if fewer attend, the Senate cannot exercise its powers. Mechanically simple, the rule shapes scheduling incentives and allows tactical attendance to block sittings, while having only indirect, timing-related effects on private parties awaiting Senate decisions.

JSON API

Deep dive

Want the full deep dive?

Zoe can write the in-depth analysis on top of the summary above: how it works, who it affects and what each part actually does.

Current sections

Direct links to the current provisions in Senate (Quorum) Act 1991.

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

meta-content-style-type: text/css meta-content-type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8

?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>

View image in the official source

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

No. 138 of 1991

An Act to determine the quorum of the Senate

Contents

1 Short title

2 Commencement

3 Quorum

View image in the official source

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

No. 138 of 1991

An Act to determine the quorum of the Senate

[Assented to 27 September 1991]

The Parliament of Australia enacts:

1 Short title

This Act may be cited as the Senate (Quorum) Act 1991.

2 Commencement

This Act commences on the day after the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.

3 Quorum

The presence of at least one‑quarter of the whole number of the senators is necessary to constitute a meeting of the Senate for the exercise of its powers.

Source text

Sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.

meta-content-style-type: text/css meta-content-type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8

?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

No. 138 of 1991

An Act to determine the quorum of the Senate

Contents

1 Short title

2 Commencement

3 Quorum

Senate (Quorum) Act 1991

No. 138 of 1991

An Act to determine the quorum of the Senate

[Assented to 27 September 1991]

The Parliament of Australia enacts:

1 Short title

This Act may be cited as the Senate (Quorum) Act 1991.

2 Commencement

This Act commences on the day after the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.

3 Quorum

The presence of at least one‑quarter of the whole number of the senators is necessary to constitute a meeting of the Senate for the exercise of its powers.