Session 1 The Role of Parliamentary Committees in Public

The fundamental tension in parliamentary democracies is between a responsible government conception that is executive centred and the parliamentary government conception that focuses on parliament, accountability and the need for direct public access and influence. Parliamentary committees provide a major vehicle for scrutinising the executive, and an important means of facilitating public contributions to parliamentary deliberations. The paper examines aspects of how the Australian Parliament's committees perform their public policy roles, drawing on a recent study (Halligan, Miller and Power 2007) i , and explores means of improving accountability.