Sunday, October 18, 2015

Singapore Parliament does not have fixed sitting dates

The Singapore Parliament does not have fixed sitting dates as stated here:
https://www.parliament.gov.sg/sitting-parliament.
Sitting of Parliament
The Singapore Parliament can meet at any time of the year. The date of the sitting can be specifically named by Parliament upon its adjournment or, if no date is fixed, called by the Speaker.
A notice for each sitting is sent to the MPs who will in turn send in notices of questions that they wish to ask of the Ministers, amendments that they wish to propose to Bills already introduced, or issues which they want to discuss at the forthcoming Parliament sitting. The items of business to be considered on the sitting day are printed in an Order Paper and distributed to visitors on the day of the sitting.
Parliament sittings usually begin at 1.30pm, and the first one-and-a-half hours are allocated for Question Time. During this period, only questions listed on the Order Paper may be dealt with. As Question Time is limited to one-and-a-half hours, outstanding questions at the end of Question Time will be dealt with as questions for written answer or postponed to a later day.
After Question Time, Parliament moves on to Ministerial Statements, if any, and this is usually followed by the introduction of Government Bills. In this part of the proceedings, the Ministers in charge of the respective Bills will introduce new Bills to Parliament for the first time. Any Member of Parliament can also introduce a Bill in Parliament known as a Private Member's Bill.
Finally, Parliament will move on to the Orders of the Day and Notices of Motions, where it will review Bills that are set down for Second and Third Readings and debate motions moved by MPs.

CONTRAST
In Australia, the lower house, i.e. the house of representatives sits 75 days in a year, or approximately one third of their working days. The upper house sits for 60 days. The question time in Parliament is broadcast live on television.

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